Magical Thinking

Karen Liebowitz, Nancy Blum, Vanessa Conte

Rosamund Felsen Gallery is pleased to announce Magical Thinking, an ambitious new exhibition featuring the work of Los Angeles painter Karen Liebowitz. For this, her second exhibition at the gallery, Liebowitz will paint a single large-scale mural – measuring 16 by 30 feet – on the wall in our main gallery. This exhibition will also feature the work of two other artists with whom Liebowitz shares in community and intention, Philadelphia-based Nancy Blum and Los Angeles-based Vanessa Conte.

These three artists see magical thinking as an acknowledgment and openness to causal connections without a correspondent need for scientific proof. They share in a belief in the interrelationship of those experiences that go beyond conventional observation. When the ineffable and ephemeral engage with the material and tangible, beauty is revealed to be not a supplement to our experience, but a substantive source of power in its own right.

Karen Liebowitz's mural is a continuation of her ongoing series "Manifesting Prophecy," which explores apocalyptic stories and animal prophecy as alternate symbologies. As in past works, Liebowitz starts with an ancient religious literary text and from it invents a new drama; a contemporary, if not futuristic, myth in which women are the main protagonists. Liebowitz frequently paints the absurd alongside the miraculous, traversing the line between skepticism and faith – perhaps as a means of drawing our attention to the division – through female characters. The women in these re-imagined myths depict and enroll the power of earthly human intervention in order to make the magical happen. They demonstrate both overt and covert power, pointing to a new female identity that displays strength through nurturing, and an inherent sexuality that heightens their empowered nature.

Nancy Blum will present a series of very intricate new botanical drawings. These works present unabashed beauty at the same time that they subvert the traditional idea of the decorative. The complex and fantastical flowers appear to be the masters of their own universe, seeming to possess authority and freedom. Blum uses line and form in a subtly mathematical way, so the effect is hallucinatory, yet the nuanced patterns point to a sense that each move has an accompaniment or echo. Nancy Blum has exhibited widely throughout the United States and has created numerous public works including in San Francisco, Charlotte, and Seattle. She holds a BA from the University of Michigan and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy.

Vanessa Conte's paintings tend to describe nature as both recognizable and haphazard. What reads as stylistic significance doubles as a stain, or an incidental gesture. Conte utilizes non-systematic and varied compositional conventions to make paintings that are associative and therefore steeped in memory and reflection. For this exhibition, Conte will show three panoramic landscapes and a cluster of four portraits. Vanessa Conte has had solo exhibitions at JB Jurve in Los Angeles and Daniela Steinfeld/Van Horn in Düsseldorf. She holds a BS from NYU and an MFA from UCLA.

Karen Liebowitz is an artist and educator in Los Angeles and has exhibited throughout the United States. She holds a BFA from Carnegie Mellon and an MFA from UCLA.

For more information, please call the gallery: (310) 828-8488
Gallery Hours: 10 am – 5:30 pm, Tuesday – Saturday