10 Standout Works from the 2023 Made in L.A. Biennial

Portraiture stands out with pieces like Michael Alvarez’s (b. 1983, Los Angeles) Gnarmageddon (Ode to JKwon), which pays homage to East Los Angeles through the lens of the artist's personal history. Using a combination of oil, pencil, oil pastel and spray paint, he captures the essence of forms in movement, and his bustling skater scene gets to live in a space of temporal ambiguity, making the work all the more personal.

Image credit: Michael Alvarez, Gnarmageddon (Ode to Jkwon), 2016. Oil, spray paint, oil pastel, pencil, and collage on panel. 60 × 72 in. (152.4 × 182.9 cm).

Stylistically akin to Alverez, Paige Jiyoung Moon’s (b. 1984, Seoul) acrylic on wood panel shares a tone in Nap time with Mia (2022), illustrating a mother cradling her baby in a nursery full of toys, gadgets, and two abandoned slippers in the corner. A single light illuminates the pair from above. 

Image caption: Paige Jiyoung Moon, Nap Time with Mia, 2022. Acrylic on wood panel. 16 × 20 in. (40.6 × 50.8 cm). 

The self-described “regional narrative painter” Jesse Homer French  (b. 1940, New York) navigates questions of intimacy by juxtaposing the natural with the constructed. In the 2023 piece, Urban Coyotes, a pack of the L.A. dogs are seen grazing a trail with downtown as their backdrop, illuminating the assembly of their life around human-made structures, and vice versa.

Image credit: Jessie Homer French, Urban Coyotes, 2023. Oil on artist canvas, 24 x 42 in. (61 x 106.7 cm). 

Tidawhitney Lek’s (b. 1992, Long Beach, California) stylized renditions of first-generation Cambodian experience employs internet-era pastiche and simultaneity. The 2023 triptych, Refuge features a perforated wrought iron entry emblematic of Los Angeles on the left, with a high-heeled foot peeking in from the outside. On the right, a neon pink plastic muck bucket and a metallic pencil sharpener sit beneath a matching window. Between these two domestic scenes, a soldier stands in front of a family huddled together, watching explosions in the distance, referencing Pol Pot’s devastating regime. 

Image caption: Tidawhitney Lek, Refuge, 2023. Acrylic, pastel, glitter, and oil on canvas. Overall dimensions: 72 × 144 in. (182.9 × 365.8 cm); Canvas/Panel (A): 72 × 48 in. (182.9 × 121.9 cm); Canvas/Panel (B): 72 × 48 in. (182.9 × 121.9 cm); Canvas/Panel (C): 72 × 48 in. (182.9 × 121.9 cm).

Iranian-American artist Roksana Pirouzmand’s (b. 1990, Yazd, Iran) site-specific installation, Between two windows also speaks to the experience of exile. Pirouzmand performs from within a wall as the audience witnesses her from either side; one window representative of the one in her Los Angeles home, the other of her grandmother’s home in Iran. The artist grips pictures and bits of newspaper as a wind-machine blows them away from her. 

Image caption: Roksana Pirouzmand, Between two windows, 2023.  45 × 50 in. (114.3 × 127 cm).
 

A three-part performance, Ímah hum, Do you see it? by Miller Robinson (b. 1992, Lodi, California) (it/its) also lives solely within the gallery space. The artist spends an afternoon rearranging and “accumulating impact” to its installation as Robinson moves around the audience. The practice is grounded in the artist's Karuk and Yurok heritage. 

Image caption: Installation view of Miller Robinson's Ímah hum, Do you see it? 

Teresa Baker (b. 1985, Watford City, North Dakota), a Mandan/Hidatsa artist, uses a combination of natural fibers and astroturf to create abstract landscapes. Her works question forms of colonial mapmaking by challenging the viewer’s perspective on representation. Both through her chosen materials and simple motifs, like ovals and triangles as seen in the 2021 piece Trace, Baker reclaims what it looks like to carve out space for oneself. 

Image caption: Teresa Baker, Trace, 2021

The poetic pastorals by Venice Beach local Nancy Evans (b. 1949, Los Angeles) capture the passing of geologic time with layers of acrylic paint poured onto the canvas. One of her “Lunar Paintings”, inspired by the supermoons that took place between 2014 and 2020, Fleurs du Mal depicts a bulbous flower curving under a single star. 

Image caption: Nancy Evans, Fleurs du Mal (Evil Flower), 2018. Acrylic on canvas. 64 × 64 in. (162.6 × 162.6 cm). 

Victor Estrada’s (American, b. 1956) parallel universes illustrate surreal worlds derived from existence in Los Angeles. Big Rock Candy Mountain, 2017, displays bubblegum-esque figurations that combine the imperceptible with the real. A crow standing near a stream at the foreground of the canvas is the only recognizable form, while the surrounding cartoonish swirlings feel more akin to ghosts than objects.  

Image caption: Victor Estrada, Big Rock Candy Mountain, 2017. Oil on canvas on panel. 48 × 60 in. (121.9 × 152.4 cm).

From Esteban Ramón Pérez’s (b. 1989, Los Angeles) indigenously inspired takes on sculptural leather-work, to a raffle of a five-hour tour of the San Fernando Valley in the back of Vincent Enrique Hernandez’s family Volvo, narratives become interrelated. As glimpses into different definitions of the “domestic” come alive from room to room, each piece in the show gains strength from the art which surrounds it. The environment created by “Acts of Living” is one that defies the isolation of a white wall, and asks a viewer to take in the vibrancy of multiplicity. 

Image credit: Esteban Ramón Pérez, Chimalli de Mis Ojos, 2022. Necalli leather boxing gloves, peacock blade and eyelet tail feathers, chile de arbol, chile Cora, wood, copper,
jute. 48 x 24 x 24 in. (121.9 x 61 x 61.0 cm).