HuffPost Arts’ Haiku Reviews is a weekly feature where invited critics review exhibitions and performances in short form. Some will be in the traditional Haiku form of 5x7x5 syllables, others might be a sonnet or a string of words together. This week Peter Frank and John Seed give quick takes on visual art, including one of Yvette Gellis’ works of art! Read the full article and review here!

Congrats to Yvette Gellis for appearing in the latest issue of art ltd. magazine!

Beginning Monday, October 3rd (7 PM – 10 PM) for 10 weeks

Course # X466.16 Registration # W6917
Before You Begin the Novel: An Exploration of Character and Story
Facing the blank page can be an intimidating experience. What is the universal theme you’re trying to communicate? What does the protagonist really want? In this workshop, you create a personalized “encyclopedia” of material to use as a reference when writing the novel. Through individualized exercises tailored to each writer in the room, you explore the protagonist’s history, fears, and desires, as well as his or her relationship to the antagonist. You identify the larger theme that draws you to this particular story, a basic outline of the beginning, middle, and end, and the emotional arc of the protagonist. By the end of the workshop, you have in your arsenal many important elements to get you started so that the blank page remains blank no more. This course is open to writers of all levels who are eager to begin writing their novel.

To enroll online: www.uclaextension.edu

By phone:
(310)825-9971
(818) 784-7006

By mail:
UCLA Extension
P.O. Box 24901
Department K
Los Angeles, CA 90024-0901

Week of September 25-30, 2011

Lisa Doctor

The characters we create can and will evolve from caricatures into real people if we allow them to speak in their own voices without interference. But how do our characters turn into dynamic beings? How do they find their own truths?

Through a series of writing exercises and discussion, we will create the profile of a character and then allow him or her to answer challenging questions designed to reveal hidden truths. Each prompt will be chosen specifically for the character; no two characters will receive the same questions. As the week progresses, these emerging people will open up about that which haunts and thrills them. They will explore their personal histories, their concerns about aging, their longings, disappointments, and uncertainties. We will ask them to speak freely about old wounds and their compassion for others. They will tell us what used to be important to them but no longer is. By the end of the week the character each writer has created will have begun to emerge into a separate being with an authentic voice and a distinct identity.

This workshop is designed for writers of every level, including beginners, who are seeking a group writing experience in a safe and nurturing environment. The method used is particularly effective for those wishing to begin or are in the midst of writing a novel, memoir, short story, screenplay, or stage play, where a richly drawn character takes center stage.

Reservations Information (Accommodations & Pricing)

www.Esalen.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
YVETTE GELLIS: EPHEMERA GARBOUSHIAN GALLERY
July 23 – August 27, 2011 Opening Reception: July 23, 2011, 6 – 8 pm

(Beverly Hills—July 2011) Ephemera is a series of large paintings by artist Yvette Gellis that appears abstract at first viewing but, upon closer examination, reveals discernible fragments of representation. Perhaps Gellis explains it best herself: ―the work teeters back and forth between the ambiguity of abstraction and the restraints of representation.‖ GARBOUSHIAN GALLERY now represents Yvette Gellis. Ephemera will be on view at the gallery’s Beverly Hills space, July 23 – August 27, 2011.

Entropy, 2011, oil on canvas, 102" x 541⁄2"

Gellis’ painting process begins as a gestural dialogue with particular homes and buildings near her 18th Street Arts Center studio, which she will often document in various states of destruction or decay. As Gellis liberally and deftly applies paint in a series of wide, muscular swaths offset by delicate calligraphic swipes, an impending sense of abstraction emerges. Vantage points are obscured, compositional liberty is taken, angles are askew, and ultimately, what began as a quasi- representational rendering is transformed into a phenomenological, psychological, or even a spiritual response.

There is an emotional charge to Gellis’ work. Her first major exhibition (a 2008 solo exhibition at LA’s impactful Kim Light Gallery) garnered critical praise in Art in America for its, ―lively repartee between the illusion of deep, infinite space and the immediate surface pleasure of energetic abstract painting.‖1 She was chosen in 2009 by artist Lita Albuquerque to participate in the group exhibition In Bed Together at ROYAL/T, with Albuquerque writing that in viewing Gellis’ work she finds herself, ―engaged in Theatre, where perception directs movement, an exchange of energy between the viewer and the performance of paint.‖2 She will also have a solo exhibition at Brunnhofer Galerie, Austria, in September 2011.

Gellis’ work invokes elements of the schools that came before her—Light and Space artists James Turrell and Robert Irwin in their push to explore perceptual phenomena; AbEx’s unremitting return to the ―mark‖; and the Hudson River School’s romanticism—yet there is no single word or movement that can encompass the work.

Sylmar, 2010-2011, mixed media, 108"x168"

The artist likens her work to an event, a situational explication of the sublime, or as she prefers to quote philosopher Edmund Burke, ―tranquility tinged with terror.‖3 In recent projects—including her 2009 Violet Jolt sculptural installation at Stuyvesant and 9th outside of New York University—the event aspect is indeed clearly present in Gellis’ work, compelling the passerby to experience and engage the artist’s ―mark‖ in three dimensions. Yet the paintings in Ephemera are a return, and more importantly, an expansion of something much more essential to the artist—paint.

Breaking Point; Interior, 2011, oil, acrylic, pencil on canvas, 66" x 102"

Holding a Master of Fine Arts degree from Claremont Graduate University, Gellis has both an exceptional vision and imagination, and the breadth of technical skill necessary to bring it to life. For all her creative capacity however, Gellis’ work is ultimately about the act of painting itself—about forgetting everything and allowing the work to take on a life of its own.

END NOTES
1. Constance Mallinson, Art in America (November 2008), pp 201-202
2. Lita Albuquerque on the occasion of the exhibition In Bed Together at ROYAL/T in Culver City, CA (2009-2010)
3. Edmund Burke, from ―A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful” (1757)
Breaking Point; Interior, 2011, oil, acrylic, pencil on canvas, 66″ x 102″

WHAT
Ephemera – Large Paintings by Yvette Gellis

WHEN
Opening Reception: July 23, 2011, 6 – 8 pm
Exhibition: July 23 – August 27, 2011
Gallery Hours: Monday – Friday, 10 am – 5 pm, or by appointment

WHERE
GARBOUSHIAN GALLERY
427 North Camden Drive
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
(310) 274-5205
www.garboushian.com

PRESS CONTACT
Brent Turner
the Campbells [ideas + communications for contemporary culture]
(323) 300-6132
brent@thecampbellspr.com

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Susan Cohen, the founder and principal of Susan Cohen Associates, Inc., is an interior designer dedicated to improving her client’s quality of life and enhancing their environment. Established in 1985, the firm’s emphasis is on high-end residential design. Projects range from 7,000 square feet to 30,000 square feet, specializing in remodeling and new construction.

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