Breadth: Curated by jill moniz

Breadth is curator jill moniz’s response to the exhibition Outliers and American Vanguard Art, in which she insists on a fresh look at the language and aesthetics to break down categories and controlling narratives. Breadth examines what it means to be a maker with intention and emotion, where making is the expressive conduit of creative energy without consideration of the canon or the exclusionary institutional gaze.
Sean Dougall and Andrew Paulson, Yrneh Gabon, Gronk, Debbie Han, Ed Love (1936 -1999), Dominique Moody, Marisela Norte, and Ann Weber, actively resist labels, expanding the idea that art is both an impulse and a sustaining practice. Each artist has been influenced by the multiple border crossings and intersections that constitute and give breadth to Los Angeles artists communities.
Breadth looks at and through the convergence of space, time and materials to work that defies boundaries, focusing on the limitless impact of the processes of creativity for both the maker and the participant. These artists are not interested in polite, distant viewing; instead they see their work as catalysts for a necessary visual literacy because these works insist on engagement. Their work is self-referential in that there is a familiarity with the subject as something relatable, experienced historically and knowable.

Los Angeles native Ed Love began working with discarded chrome bumpers in the early 1960s searching for a material that, in his words, could confirm memories and prophecies of spirits. He considered himself a blacksmith, creating work for generations to come to use as guides and reminders of what is possible. By the 1980s when chrome was no longer readily available, Love started welding steel, experimenting with the concepts of balance, weight and materiality.

Glugio Nicandro, known as Gronk is a self-taught performance artist and painter who for over 30 years has electrified the LA art scene with his paintings and theatre backdrops and performances. Gronk makes space for people to experience art as a fundamental aspect of life.

Ann Weber is interested in transforming common materials into surprising and often playful works of art. Like Gronk and all the Breadth artists, Weber sees art as integral to life. Her transformative process reminds the viewer that things are not always what they seem, a fitting theme for an exhibition that challenges perceptions about artists and art.

Dominique Moody earned a BFA from Pratt in painting before a degenerative eye disease rendered her legally blind. She turned to sculpture and tactile objects to continue her art practice. Her work is filled with emotion, narrative history and the compulsion to make despite, and in spite of, obstacles.

Yrneh Gabon is a Jamaican artist who began his career as an actor and singer. His two dimensional and plastic arts practice translates his love of storytelling and cultural documentation into visceral objects. Gabon’s work in Breadth comes from his residency in Mexico City, where he combined traditional, indigenous materials such as cactus fiber lace with gold leaf to illuminate the importance of knowing one’s history.

Voted one of the ten most global artists to watch by ArtandOnly in 2017, Debbie Han’s work is as fluid and polyglot as her personal mobility in the world. Han challenges the assumptions of aesthetic language, making room for a new, inclusive vernacular that extends time and expands meaning.

Marisela Norte is known for her poetry, particularly her 2008 book Peeping Peeping Tom Tom Girl. Like her poetry, her photographs explore the unseen, othered people and aspects of city life in LA. She captures color fields and vignettes of urban life with a quintessentially California eye.

Dougall Paulson is a design team that stretches traditional materiality to its limits. Always seeking to explore and highlight the versatility and durability of craft, Sean Dougall and Andrew Paulson make objects that are both functional and aesthetically sublime.

moniz brings these artists together at The Good Luck Gallery as Breadth, a glimpse into the possibility of art without labels.