Exhibit: The Spirit of Invention by Tim Hawkinson

On exhibit until April 14th at Pasadena City College is Tim Hawkinson's Spirit of Invention. It's a short visit, but there are a few noteworthy pieces to consider, primarily his Average Vitruvian Man and Thumbsucker. Admission is free. It's a quick stop but an enjoyable one.

Hawkinson is recognized internationally for his creativity. His approach is to mix "high tech and low tech in unexpected confluence, his resulting artworks are a wonder of creative ingenuity. Because of his remarkable spirit of invention and the wonderfully unpredictable outcomes of his inquisitive postulations."

His 2016 Average Vitruvian Man references the famous Vitruvian Man drawing by Leonardo da Vinci, which was based on the correlations of ideal human proportions with geometry and classical architecture. Here, all the main body parts have been photographed in the round, and averaged into identically sized 8 1/2 x 11” prints wrapped around plastic soda bottles.

Hawkinson's work has been called "a playful dance with life itself." In his 2015 Thumbsucker, we see a moon "formed from enlarged and reduced casts of the artist’s mouth, and the astronaut is formed through casts – also enlarged and reduced – of his thumb and fingers. " 

Pasadena City College notes that "This exhibition of Hawkinson’s work offers a sampling of artworks throughout his career, in hopes that the viewer may witness this ongoing thread of creative genius, this unexpected, serendipitous pairing of high and low that marks Hawkinson’s innovative process of discovery."

Per his bio:
Tim Hawkinson's (b. 1960, San Francisco) idiosyncratic creations are meditations on nature, machines, mortality, the body and human consciousness. Since the 1980s, the artist has used common found and store-bought materials, handcrafted objects, and machines to shift familiar subject matter off-kilter, creating visual conundrums and conceits imbued with deeper meaning. His inventive works range in size from monumental kinetic and sound-producing sculptures to almost microscopic pieces created from such unassuming materials as fingernail clippings and eggshells. Driven by ideas, materials, and an interest in transformation, Hawkinson continues to create unlikely and thought-provoking associations by transforming common materials into works of art. Hawkinson received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2015.

[Road Trip] Museum of Neon Art, Glendale, CA

Founded in 1981 the Museum of Neon Art is a definite treasure of Southern California. The Museum of Neon Art "encourages learning, curiosity and expression through the preservation, collection and interpretation of neon, electric and kinetic art. Neon is a gateway between scientific principles and artistic expression. Neon illumination integrates electrical technology, creative design, and fundamental concepts of physics and chemistry."

The Museum of Neon Art currently holds the distinction of being the only museum in the world devoted exclusively to art in electric media, exhibiting electric and kinetic fine art, and outstanding examples of historic neon signs, for over 30 years. Which may sound like hyperbole, but I found it to be an apt description.

Presently, their main exhibit is the art of plasma, which I found extremely fascinating. It's on display until July 30th, and well worth the visit no matter what your artistic discipline. There's much to consider with this medium, and I'd love to see how Lao artists might take on such a form even as it would require an engagement with the sciences and the humanities in a way that not all of us have ready access to.

It's been 18 years since the Museum of Neon Art last presented an exhibit on plasma, and director Kim Koga was a wonderful host during my visit recently, putting it all into context.

Here are just a handful of the amazing and wonderful displays I saw:

I particularly appreciated this because we often think of neon art as a very two dimensional affair to appreciate primarily from a single angle, but here the plasma art made a very good case that much of it must be seen from 360 degrees, and the very best pieces allow for tactile engagement, although the general public rarely gets to do so. Private collectors would do well to obtain such wonders.

Presently, the MONA is open only from Thursday to Sunday, typically from noon until 7pm, except for 5pm on Sunday. Admission is typically $10 or $5 if you're a Glendale resident. Children under 12 can come for free. It's located at 216 Brand Street and is near some good restaurants and shopping before or after.

Parking is somewhat tricky because the back lots behind the museum fill up fast, but it is not impossible.  $35 also gets you a year's membership, which I think is more than reasonable to preserve such treasures.

Serial Flirtations: Rotari’s Muses Opens at Norton Simon Museum

This weekend the exhibit "Serial Flirtations: Rotari's Muses" opened at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California.

As they note in their introduction, "Rotari began his career in his hometown of Verona. As he gained recognition, he traveled widely throughout Italy, studying the works of Venetian, Roman and Neapolitan artists. In these early years, he painted primarily religious and mythological subjects. But by 1750, when he was called to Vienna to work for Empress Maria Theresa, and then Dresden, where he was summoned by King Augustus III, his attention would turn to painting bust-length portraits of elegant members of their courts. In 1755, Rotari was summoned by Empress Elizabeth of Russia to work in St. Petersburg, where he and his prolific studio would produce hundreds of depictions of young girls, all of them demonstrating varying degrees of emotion—subtle, but clearly legible. The painter’s virtuosity for such work earned him great acclaim, both for his talents and his prodigious output..."

As a whole, the installation commemorates Rotari’s inclination to summon his muses and celebrates the 310th anniversary of the artist’s birth. 

This is also the last weekend to catch Van Gogh’s iconic ‘Bedroom’ on loan from the Art Institute of Chicago and see it in person, not just on postcards or a computer, to get a sense of its size and shape, and its true tones and colors as they've endured over the decades  when it was first painted in 1888, nearly 130 years ago. This is the first time this particular painting has ever been displayed on the West Coast!

The Norton Simon Museum is known around the world as one of the most remarkable private art collections ever assembled. Over a thirty-year period industrialist Norton Simon (1907–1993) amassed an astonishing collection of European art from the Renaissance to the 20th century and a stellar collection of South and Southeast Asian art spanning 2,000 years.

Approximately 1,000 works from the permanent collection of 12,000 objects are on view in the Norton Simon Museum’s galleries and sculpture garden throughout the year. The museum is closed on Tuesdays. Adults are $12. Seniors are $9. Students, veterans and youth under 18 get in free. On weekends, it opens at 11 a.m. until 8 p.m. (5 p.m. on Sunday)

Parking is free, and it is located at 411 W. Colorado Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91105-1825. The turn into the driveway can come up a little fast, as an FYI if it's your first visit there.

Notably, if you time it right, admission is free for all visitors the first Friday of every month from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m.

Legacies of War Exhibition: Tinney Contemporary Gallery, February 25 - March 25

This weekend the Legacies of War exhibition by Sisavanh Phouthavong opened up in Tennessee at the Tinney Contempoary Gallery. Sisavanh Phouthavong is one of the first professional Lao American visual artists and educators of her generation. The opening reception will be held on March 4th.

I did a profile on her work previously, having been deeply impressed with her art since I first encountered it several years ago. We recently met face to face for the first time at the National Lao American Writers Summit in San Diego.

This new body of work is inspired by the organization Legacies of War (legaciesofwar.org). Their mission statement: "is to raise awareness about the history of the Vietnam War-era bombing in Laos and advocate for the clearance of unexploded bombs, to provide a space for healing the wounds of war, and to create greater hope for a future of peace."

Over 5,400 Lao refugees resettled in Kansas in the aftermath of the Laotian Civil War that ended in 1975. Through her powerful acrylic work, she confronts the challenges of bicultural memory and documentation. She considers notions of the abstract and the concrete for those who must remember both their inner and external histories in a diaspora framed by secrecy and loss. Her work probes what is shared, what is felt, and what must remain deeply personal among the lessons passed on to the next generation as it heals and rebuilds.

The Tinney Contemporary Gallery is located at 237 5th Avenue North, Nashville, Tennessee 37219. They specialize in collectable modern art by established local, regional, national, and international artists. They present a series of rotating exhibitions throughout the year and participate in the First Saturday Art Crawl on the first Saturday of each month.

[Road Trip] The Norton Simon Museum

The Norton Simon Museum is one of the interesting art museums in Southern California that I've come to appreciate. They have a remarkable private art collection, starting from a thirty-year period when industrialist Norton Simon (1907–1993) amassed a collection of European art from the Renaissance to the 20th century as well as works from South and Southeast Asia representing over 2,000 years of history. Some 12,000 objects in total are a part of the collection, with 1,000 of them on active display.

Here are a few of my favorite pieces from their permanent collection.

The Buddha and Shiva at the Norton Simon Gallery make for a great juxtaposition when one considers the fundamental differences and interrelationships of their symbolism. There's a particular Indiana Jones vibe as you make your way through the lower level's South and Southeast Asian collection, which also includes this elaborate wooden temple wall from the Kerala region of India depicting the life of Krishna, from the 1700s: The colors are still vibrant and wonderfully evocative, certain to spark the imagination.

Alberto Giacometti is one of my favorite sculptors for his unflinching, almost harsh pieces that seem to suggest the world crushing people into nothingness. But I like another more optimistic interpretation I came across once that proposed for all of the crushing void the cosmos embodies, there's something still pushing outward, pushing back, in resistance, pushing itself into being.

Back in the 90s, I briefly had a fiancee who thought she looked like a shorter Jeanne Hébuterne, who served as the muse to Amedeo Modigliani. Hébuterne had a tragic life, eventually throwing herself out a window. Didn't end up with the girl, but I always notice a Modigliani when I see one, So, for that I'm grateful.

Juan Gris always has my admiration for his for his "Still Life With A Poem" a cubist painting from 1915. Over 100 years later, as a poet, I can say that the experience has indeed changed very little, at a certain fundamental level. The text of the abstract prome poem at the bottom is by the poet Pierre Reverdy, for whom Gris did a series of watercolor illustrations in his lifetime. And I think there's much to be said when visual artists and poets collaborate together and work in concert to challenge our expressive limits.

They have a wonderfully detailed Indian chess set that you won't want to miss, depicting various soldiers, war elephants and steeds ever ready to settle some imagined conflict between two players who come together in some fine space.

This piece always makes me wonder how a Lao artist might have executed it, like Thep Thavonsouk. Hassel Smith (American, 1915-2007) painted "Tiptoe Down to Art," in 1950, while Smith was teaching at the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute).

According to the Norton Simon Museum, "Tiptoe Down to Art" refers to when he heard a teacher instruct her students to tiptoe downstairs to the school’s art room. While at the CSFA, Smith taught alongside such notable artists as Clyfford Still, Ansel Adams and Richard Diebenkorn. Along with visiting faculty Mark Rothko and Ad Reinhardt, the Michigan-born Smith was stimulated into exploring more abstract imagery, while often approaching his work with a great sense of humor. "I wish to feel free to appreciate life without relating to it, either its beauties or its ugliness, in any necessary way to my painting. My paintings are intended to be additions to rather than reflections of or upon life."

I think this would resonate with many of our Lao artists around the world.

If you're planning to go, the museum is closed on Tuesdays. Adults are $12. Seniors are $9. Students, veterans and youth under 18 get in free. On weekends, it opens at 11 a.m. until 8 p.m. (5 p.m. on Sunday) Parking is free, and it is located at 411 W. Colorado Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91105-1825.

Road Trip: Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens

This week we take a look at the storied Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, a collections-based educational and research institution established in 1919 by Henry E. Huntington in Pasadena, California.

Beyond books, the Huntington is home to an amazing and extensive art collection including permanent and rotating displays that make it well worth a visit if you're in the area.

The primary focus of the art collections are 18th and 19th-century European art and 17th to mid-20th-century American art. The gardens are also magnificent to behold and include landscaped gardens, including a Japanese Garden, a Chinese Garden and a Desert Garden. To its credit, I think it's difficult to take it all in in a single day, and it warrants repeat visits to get the most out of it.

This season, among the special exhibits worth catching are Lari Pittman: Mood Books, Real American Places, Becoming America, and the Orbit Pavilion.

Closing on February 20th, Los-Angeles based artist Lari Pittman is known for his exuberant, colorful, and graphically complex works. Huntington visitors can see the artist at his hallucinogenic best in this exhibition.

Six monumental illustrated books, each opening to more than four feet in width, contain 65 paintings by the artist. They draw from a variety of aesthetic traditions, ranging from decorative art and design to advertising and folk art. Combined with Pittman’s brilliant draftsmanship and acidic color, the images advance an astute and acerbic social commentary embedded in narratives rich with real and invented mythologies.

As someone who's worked closely with the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, I have an appreciation for books that challenge our sense of what a book might be beyond those intended for the mass market, and this was a provocative exhibition. It closes February 20th.

The poet in me appreciates the dialogue between the poet Walt Whitman and photographer Edward Weston in Real American Places, on display until March 20th.

In 1941, the Limited Editions Book Club approached Weston to collaborate on a deluxe edition of Whitman’s poetry collection, Leaves of Grass. The publisher’s ambitious plan was to capture “the real American faces and the real American places” that defined Whitman’s epic work. Weston eagerly accepted the assignment and set out with his wife, Charis Wilson, on a cross-country trip that yielded a group of images that mark the culmination of an extraordinarily creative period in his career. On the other hand, the book didn't sell that well and the resulting prints became mostly a footnote barely mentioned in Weston's storied career.

Weston's approach appears not to have been a literal interpretation of Leaves of Grass opting to take a broader inspiration of the concept, and though he typically kept extensive notes on what he was taking pictures of, it's difficult to find many references to what seems like it should have been an extraordinary journey. At this point in my life, this resonates with me at many levels as both a photographer and as a poet.

Up until October, 2019, The Fielding Wing's inaugural exhibition, Becoming America showcases more than 200 works from the Fieldings’ collection of 18th- and early 19th-century American art works, including paintings, sculpture, furniture, ceramics, metal, needlework, and other related decorative arts. Meanwhile, the Orbit Pavilion will be up until September this year, and as a speculative poet, I strongly encourage you to visit. The outdoor installation is the brainchild of Dan Goods and David Delgado, visual strategists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who conceived an innovative “soundscape” representing the movement of the International Space Station and 19 Earth satellites.

In their permanent collection, I'd definitely also encourage you to take a look at their Gutenberg Bible, a copy of the Canterbury Tales, and their display on Paradise Lost. 

Their notes on Paradise Lost brought into focus for me that it was written in the aftermath of the English Civil War and resulted in many of the words we continue to use in English today such as "pandemonium," "terrific," "debauchery," and "stunning," and as a work that might well be considered speculative poetry, it makes me wonder what words Lao who've survived our civil war might invent and add to the Lao language and others.

If you want to visit, the hours are typically from 10-5, but it's always closed on Tuesdays. The last ticketed entry time is 4 p.m. The library and art galleries close at 4:30 p.m. and guests are encouraged to begin exiting at this time. The Huntington is closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Independence Day. Admission is between $23-25 for adults and students can enter for $19-21 depending on whether it's a weekday or weekend visit.

Art Exhibition: Dark Visions: Mid-Century Macabre 9/16-1/17

Recently at the Norton Simon Museum, they held the exhibition Dark Visions: Mid-Century Macabre in Pasadena, California. Unfortunately I missed this one but one can get a bit of sense of the items exhibited through the five-minute introductory video at Vimeo.

The significant premise of the exhibition was that "Lurking on the fringes of the 20th-century art world was something sinister, something not necessarily identifiable or easy to fit into a specific movement such as Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art or Minimalism. The exhibition Dark Visions: Mid-Century Macabre looks to mine the dark recesses of the mid-20th century and explore the creations made to exorcise the demons that plagued artists."

The exhibit was composed of assemblage, painting and lithography, with works by Edward Kienholz, Joseph Cornell, Clare Falkenstein and Jess, among others.

The Norton Simon Museum's earliest example was a closed box by Kurt Schwitters, entitled  Lust Murder Box No. 2 from 1920–22, which they felt foresaw the fascination with the macabre among artists in later decades. The title for the piece was based on a damaged plaster figure that once lay in the box and daubed with lipstick to make it look “bloody.”

The question we might ask then is how have our techniques changed in the way we depict the human struggle to engage with morbid subjects such as death and evil in its various, often horrifying forms.

"Forget Nothing," released by Lao American visual artist Chantala Khommanivanh

Congratulations to Lao American visual artist Chantala Khommanivanh, who recently announced his first limited edition selfpublished art book, "Forget Nothing." This 40 page 8″x8″ hardcover book contained photographs of paintings he’d done from 2010 through 2016. The edition was limited to 50 copies and they are all hand numbered and signed. It quickly sold out upon release. Here's hoping he'll feel encouraged to make more in bigger editions in the future.

Chantala Kommanivanh is both a visual artist and has an active role as one half of the dynamic hip-hop duo “Maintenance Crew” with whom he has released 4 full-length albums.

His work has been displayed in four solo exhibitions in the Chicago area galleries and has been included in numerous group and invitational exhibitions in the U.S. He received his Master of Fine Art at UW-Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts in 2014 emphasizing in painting and drawing.

Throughout his career Chantala achieved numerous awards such as the Union League Civic Arts foundation award and a two-time A.O.P Fellowship award recipient. Chantala Kommanivanh currently lives and works in Chicago as a practicing visual artist and a professor of the arts at Northeastern Illinois University. He's been a regular featured artist at the National Lao American Writers Summits.

He recently unveiled his newest painting, “The Last President of the United States” at Little Laos on the Prairie. Be sure to check it out. The Last President of the United States, 2017 measures 40″x40″ and is made with Acrylic, oil, and spray paint on canvas. You can learn more about Chantala at: https://chantalism-art.com/.

ArtAsiaPacific 2016 Almanac: Laos

OLE VIRAVONG-SCOVILL, Future Memories 1, 2015, 

acrylic, ink and watercolor on paper, 58.4 × 43.2 cm. Courtesy the artist.

ArtAsiaPacific's 2016 Almanac featured a report on recent happenings in Laos.

Among the highlights, the National Institute of Fine Arts (NIFA), previously the Faculty of Fine Arts, opened "a new, modern art school in Vientiane equipped to support growth of the creative industries." They also drew attention to NIFA's Lao Fine Artists’ Association (LFAA).

Significant highlights from the report include a one-night exhibition on June 10, 2015 marked the end of the Laos Arts Incubator, a socially inclusive multimedia and mural arts project facilitated by the US-sponsored arts program American Arts Incubator.  The event included "a performance by theater group Khao Niew Lao, using puppets made from recycled plastic, and an extensive wall mural addressing environmental issues."

I was intrigued that I:cat Gallery organized “Return: Back to the Roots” (3/13–25) with six local artists to coincide with the Vientianale International Film Festival.. Artists explored their personal interpretations of “return” inspired by the Hmong philosophical concern for the individual’s spiritual journey home.

In Europe,  Marisa Darasavath, Vong Phaophanit and collaborator Claire Oboussier presented some new works in France and England respectively. Vong Phaophanit and Claire Oboussier combined "film and sculpture to explore the human body and surgery as metaphors for landscape, conflict and memory in Laos," and had also done a Toronto installation, "Dream House"

Catzie Vilayphonh's Laos in the House exhibition in Philadelphia also drew attention from ArtAsiaPacific, particularly the work of Chantala Khommanivanh. Be sure to read the full report.

Guillermo del Toro's At Home With Monsters

I'm excited for Minnesota because the Guillermo del Toro exhibition At Home With Monsters is coming in 2017 after it's finished at the LACMA. The wonderful Lao American artist Jo Bangphraxay and I had the chance to to see it and it's taken a while for me to process it all because there were so many inspiring ideas on display. It challenges the way we organizing one's imaginative thoughts into action. The exhibit certainly speaks well to the benefits of collecting over one's lifetime. Per the exhibition introduction:

"Guillermo del Toro (b. 1964) is one of the most inventive filmmakers of his generation. Beginning with Cronos (1993) and continuing through The Devil’s Backbone (2001), Hellboy (2004), Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), Pacific Rim (2013), and Crimson Peak (2015), among many other film, television, and book projects, del Toro has reinvented the genres of horror, fantasy, and science fiction. Working with a team of craftsmen, artists, and actors—and referencing a wide range of cinematic, pop-culture, and art-historical sources—del Toro recreates the lucid dreams he experienced as a child in Guadalajara, Mexico. He now works internationally, with a cherished home base he calls “Bleak House” in the suburbs of Los Angeles.

Taking inspiration from del Toro’s extraordinary imagination, the exhibition reveals his creative process through his collection of paintings, drawings, maquettes, artifacts, and concept film art. Rather than a traditional chronology or filmography, the exhibition is organized thematically, beginning with visions of death and the afterlife; continuing through explorations of magic, occultism, horror, and monsters; and concluding with representations of innocence and redemption."

There's a visual poetry to the way the Guillermo del Toro has arranged the exhibit, guiding us through five specific but interlocking themes. It's reminiscent of a Cabinet of Curiosities, one with all of the bells and whistles one could have hoped for. It engages you across multiple senses and I applaud that.

We can see the influence of classical artists, as well as more modern voices. At Home With Monsters is arranged in such a way that we can see what's guiding Guillermo del Toro's present work, and what we've gotten away from in horror and the fantastic compared to the early years.

I felt it spoke to the need for an interdisciplinary engagement with speculative art. You can't get the good stuff without reading both highbrow and lowbrow literature, both the classics and pulp material.

You need it all. Visual artwork and sculptures, as well as an appreciation for cinema from the early years to the present. A sense of history, but those things that also have no basis in fact and the empirical. Much of the exhibit also spoke to a sense of Guillermo del Toro being part of a tradition that goes back centuries, and the need for all of us to respect that. Of course there was an extensive homage to Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft, as well as Mary Shelly.

A significant amount of attention is given to the exploration of the Frankenstein story, which was fitting considering 2016 was the bicentennial of the dare that led to the creation of this classic horror story. I felt the exhibit gave audiences a thorough opportunity to consider and grapple with the meaning of Frankenstein as a text, as cinema, and in the many other art forms he's been depicted in.

For those of us who are making a sincere study of it, del Toro's presentation is quite thoughtful and I think it pushes us to appraise the possibilities in the tale beyond what we've satisfied ourselves with over the last decade or so. In Frankenstein, we see the intersection between art and science, religion, society, alienation and the quest for meaning. But different art forms can add new subtleties and shades of nuance we can expand upon. Take a look at Frankenstein and consider its thematic and visual influences in Guillermo del Toro's films, for example, such as Pan's Labyrinth or Pacific Rim.

Overall the exhibition has more than enough for the causal enthusiast of not only del Toro's work but science fiction, fantasy, and horror in general.

But the exhibit stands out for its meat for professional artists and writers and I would certainly recommend multiple visits as well as visiting the rest of whatever institution it's shared with because I think it's the rare kind of exhibit that stands alone well, but also helps you view the rest of the standing collection of a museum with a new appreciation. See it if you can!

Lao American Writers Summit Gallery: 'Intersectionalities' now open in San Diego until May 28th!

The Lao American Writers Summit Gallery: 'Intersectionalities', is now officially open for the month of May in San Diego.

It represents the official Asian American Heritage Month Gallery for the Centro Cultural De La Raza at Balboa Park.A big thanks to our curators Sayon Syprasoeuth and Catzie Vilayphonh for putting this together! Thanks also to everyone who was on-site, helping to set up the gallery.

Here are a few preview images from the Lao American Writers Summit chair, Krysada Binly Panusith Phounsiri.

Come see the amazing work from Lao American artists at 2004 Park Blvd. The gallery is open 12-4pm, Tuesday - Sunday until May 29th!

Artists are represented from across the country including Minnesota, Texas, Illinois, Florida, and California. Many of those presented are prominent award-winning artists whose work has never been displayed together with each other before.

Confirmed artists include the work of Nor Sanavongsay, Mali Kouanchao, Chantala Khommanivanh, Loy Khambay, Sompaseuth Chounlamany, Khampha Bouaphanh, Dale Thongmhavong, a nd Bee Salima. Congratulations to everyone in the gallery and the Visual Arts portion of the Lao American Writers Summit.

We're deeply grateful to the Centro Cultural de la Raza for hosting us here at beautiful Balboa Park. The Centro Cultural de la Raza was founded in 1970 as a Chicano Community Cultural Center and functions as an alternative space that encourages and facilitates artistic growth and cultural exchange in the San Diego/Tijuana region.

 The Centro provides classes and features a dynamic inter-disciplinary schedule of events which includes exhibits, musical performances, installation art, readings, receptions, Azteca dance, Teatro Chicano, Ballet Folklorico, film screenings and other events. I hope this continues a wonderful relationship between the Laotian and Chicano communities for generations to come.

Kalounna in Frogtown marks 30 years

For an interesting "Where are they now?" question: 2016 is the 30th anniversary since the painting "Kalounna in Frogtown" was completed by Jamie Wyeth in 1986. It's currently on display at theTerra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois. Jamie Wyeth is the son of the famed painter Andrew Wyeth. It's one of the first pieces of visual art by a prominent American artist I know of following te arrival of Laotian refugees. I don't think it's the Frogtown of St. Paul, however, so that leads to an interesting question of where did they meet?

Sabai, Sabai: New paintings by Chantala Kommanivanh

Nych Gallery is proudly presenting new paintings by Chantala Kommanivanh “Sabai, Sabai”, June 12- July 3, 2015. The opening reception is Friday June 12, 6-10pm.

After the United States pulled troops out of the Southeast Asian conflict in 1975, many Laotians were scattered across the world as refugees. “Sabai, Sabai” is Kommanivanh's visual documentation of the Lao American diaspora in Chicago, as 2015, marks their 40th anniversary. His figurative and abstract paintings are a combination of mixed media, oil, and spray paint on traditional canvas that both commemorate and inform viewers about displaced Laotians longing for a place in urban society.

This work is inspired by his family’s migration to Chicago as political refugees, and the struggle with dual identity they shared with many Laotian Americans. Influenced by his hip-hop upbringing, Kommanivanh sampled traditional Lao textile design, and re-presented it by overlapping graffiti marks on top of gestural impressions creating rhythmic dancing pattern.

The gallery is free and open to the public. Regular gallery hours are Tuesday-Friday 12-7pm and by appointment. Nych Gallery is located in the Pilsen Art District at 643 W. 18th st. Chicago IL 60618

[Lao Artist Spotlight] Sisavanh Phouthavong Houghton

One of the wonderfully accomplished Lao American visual artists of this generation is Sisavanh Phouthavong Houghton of Tennessee,who has had four solo exhibitions and participated in many others since 2002. She spent most of her formative years in Kansas, and received her MFA in Illinois. You can visit her website at: https://sisavanhphouthavong.carbonmade.com. Her official bio notes:

Sisavanh Houghton is currently an Associate Professor of Art at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro where she teaches advanced level painting courses. She was born in Vientiane Laos in 1976. At the age of four, her family emigrated from Thailand to Winfield, Kansas. She attended the University of Kansas in Lawrence and received her Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Painting in 1999. Sisavanh continued her education at Southern Illinois University of Carbondale where 2003 she received her Master of Fine Arts Degree in Painting and Drawing. She has exhibited her work in solo, juried, and invitational exhibitions throughout United States, Canada, and New Zealand. She is currently being represented by the gallery Tinney Contemporary in Nashville Tennessee. Sisavanh resides in Woodbury, TN with her sculptor husband Jarrod Houghton, their two daughters Zoe and Ava, and two cats Mr. Peacock and Gwen.

Putting her into context, I would particularly take note of background in Vientiane and the Central US. Her MFA in Illinois makes me inclined to consider her work in relation to Chantala Kommanivanh with his roots in Illinois and Milwaukee, and Malichansouk Kouanchao, who has roots in Vientiane and Minneapolis. As an artist from Vientiane, I would also take a look at her work compared to Sompaseuth Chounlamany, who tends to go for more of a realist approach in his painting, and to Vongduane Manivong, who is more self-taught in her work.

I find myself particularly intrigued at the solo shows she's done to date, because the titles reflect a particular Lao Vientiane American humor to them: 2007 Things That Suck, 2004 Displacement, 2003 The Working Body, and her 2002 Smell of Art Through Culture. According to her statement for the Tinney Contemporary gallery representing her, a major thrust of her artistic direction at present are works that "speak about the psychology and taboo of the subject matter "Money" in U.S. society."

Her recent 2014 works are particularly striking. She presents Dwell; Washington Transit; Subway Confusion; and Deadwood for this year. Of course, most of these have probably been several years in consideration and there are others still in progress from that time. It reminds me of how few works are really completed by any of us in a particular year.

In her present body of work on her website, you don't find many pieces specifically or overtly referencing Lao culture although one could make arguments for some pieces or take note of how she handles the depiction of small animals such as butterflies and hummingbirds in flight, and insects. I'd pay particular attention to her 3D pieces in her Insectophobia series.

There doesn't yet seem to be an update on her plans for 2015 and 2016, but if you get a chance to engage with her art, I'd highly recommend it. As we straddle the 40th year of the Lao Diaspora this year and next, it will be interesting to see how she responds artistically (or perhaps not at all, as some Lao artists and writers have suggested is their intention.) There doesn't seem to be immediate information about whether she is available for commissions, but she is presently represented by the Tinney Contemporary Gallery if you're interested in collecting existing pieces from her body of work.