New Anatomy: Kaye Freeman, Cybele Rowe, The Love Armada

House of Wren is pleased to announce New Anatomy, an independent exhibition formally unveiling the third collaboration between Kaye Freeman and Cybele Rowe as The Love Armada. In their 30 year relationship, the art partners have traveled from Australia through Japan, New York and Dubai before arriving in California with their utopian yet antediluvian paintings, drawings and sculptures.

Together the artists capture the tension and energy found beneath the cranes and reflected sunlight enveloping the dense streets of downtown Los Angeles. Sculpting and drawing morphological forms riddled by super hot colors, the bodily movements of our city eventuate into their cultural objects of preciousness placed in a cocoon of conscious artistic participation. These contemporary works refuse the contrived as they reside in a constant state of metamorphosis, maintaining larva like potential.

The Love Armada began as an experiment. Rowe was to create the form and Freeman would skin the surface in paint; never knowing how the pieces would turn out until they were finished. Since making their collections of Love Bombs and Brutal Shields, a decision was made to premier their latest works as separate artists showing together at Castelli Art Space.

During her recent time between countries, Freeman developed a luxuriated diary of abstract drawings. It can be viewed as a narrative punctuated by evolving forms, deeper abstractions, personal trials and triumphs. “I agitate with my use of color, composition, scale and themes. My wish is that in looking at my work the viewer will reinterpret everyday banalities in a new and exhilarating perspective,” says the painter. In chaotic vehement she tests the limits of oil stick on paper in more than 165 drawings.

Freeman will present her most challenging painting to date titled “DTLA as The Garden of Earthly Delights.” This 30 foot triptych commenced with the fervid inspiration of the city, an ode noted in scale, and was completed after her American citizenship was granted. Its bright colors cut through and vindicate the dark, gritty imagery of homelessness, culture, gender, politics, spirituality and all that Los Angeles has come to embrace between its historic architecture. Recalling the melting abstractions of Francis Bacon and allegorical sensibilities of Hieronymus Bosch, Freeman examines the here and now with her tempestuous brushstrokes.

The artists are classically trained in ceramics, painting, ballet, yoga and gymnastics; their pugnacity contests disciplined minds and turns on its head the institutionalized arts education from which they came. Through careful craftsmanship and more than 70 years of cumulative practice, the pair have unlearned rigorous natures to establish a method of abstraction witnessed in New Anatomy.

“The process,” Rowe notes, “is in finding the right medium that suites the message and then pushing that material to what I feel is its most expressive form.” Her applied methods, conjured over years of research and thinking, sets her free in the studio with a fully evolved arsenal in an abundance of materials. Most recently, the artist has focused on lightweight concrete and one-off bronze castings. The sculptor believes abstraction to be a mindset, “where what needs to be said now lies is in the space between,” opening a channel of questioning while quieting the mind.

With sculptures spanning the codex of clay, wood, concrete papercrete and metal, Rowe creates organically and intuitively. Her meditations lead her hands to read the form during the making process, constructing a unique model through almost subconscious anticipation.

The Love Armada confronts in beauty the true nature of living, challenging the viewer to imagine places beyond the ordinary, on the macro scale of organisms. Grounded in a foundation like the new structures in downtown Los Angeles, the nature and power of their work ignites and invites all of us to identify with feminist abstraction. This traction parallels with Chaturanga Dandasana placing New Anatomy at the forefront of a fearless and strong movement creating a language for metaphysical pride.

Renown Bay Area poet and author Natasha Dennerstein will perform a reading on Friday evening. The Love Armada will celebrate the release of her latest publication through Norfolk Press, “About a Girl: a novella-in-verse” with a book signing. Freeman’s art adorns the book’s cover as Dennerstein’s words have been curated into the exoskeleton of The Love Armada.

House of Wren:
House of Wren is a creative management agency founded in 2014. With its neologistic structure, the agency designs and curates private and public spaces with museum quality content and authentic solutions. While furthering the professional careers of those contributing to the innovation of art, its mediums and form; House of Wren produces fine art events and experienced-based installations. The agency is owned by art dealer Wren Miller, a graduate of London’s Sotheby’s Institute of Art and the University of Notre Dame. Wren is currently pursuing her PhD in Visual Arts with a focus on philosophy, aesthetics and art theory at the Institute for Doctoral Studies in Visual Arts. A derivative of international exposure and expertise, Wren connects artists to their markets both domestic and abroad.
Website: houseofwren.com Instagram: @houseof.wren

Kaye Freeman:
Born in Hong Kong, raised in Tokyo, the child of British ex-patriots with eyes beyond the horizon, Kaye Freeman is truly an international artist. After nearly 30 years in Australia, the artist moved to the heart of downtown Los Angeles in 2016. Freeman’s award-wining abstract drawings in paint are rooted in a lifetime study of natural form, developed at the historic Julian Ashton Art School and honed to a keen edge while painting for theatre and film. Freeman’s work lives in many private residences throughout the U.S., Japan, Dubai and Australia; and has most notably been exhibited in The Substation Contemporary art forum in Melbourne and the Buiten Collective in Chiba Prefecture, Japan.
Website: freemankaye.com Instagram: @kfreeman1701

Cybele Rowe:
Feminist abstract sculptor, Cybele Rowe made her mark on the international art scene as a large scale ceramicist with work in the permanent collections of the American Museum of Ceramic Art, U.S.A. and the American Ceramic Museum, Fu Ping, China. Originally from Sydney, Australia she relocated to New York City after completing her MFA and traveling the world on an Australian Arts Scholarship at the age of 24. She has exhibited at The Kennedy Center with the Smithsonian Institute, The World Bank in D.C., and an extensive showing of ceramic sculptures and paintings for Bergdorf Goodman. For the past eighteen years Rowe has called Southern California her home where her PhD is evolving while teaching adjunct at Saddleback College.
Website: cybeleroweart.com Instagram: @cybeleroweart

Natasha Dennerstein:
Natasha was born in Melbourne, Australia and received an MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. She worked as a psychiatric nurse for many years characterizing an unusual perspective on the human condition. She is a well know Bay Area poet, widely published in literary journals internationally including Landfall, Spoon River Poetry Review and Foglifter. Her recent chapbook “Seahorse” was published by Nomadic Press (Brooklyn, NY and Oakland, CA) in March 2017. Natasha makes her home in Oakland, CA where her third book from Norfolk Press, “About a Girl: a novella-in-verse” will be launched this year.
Website: natashadennerstein.com Instagram: @missytashy

New Anatomy Programming:
Dates: Tuesday, Sept. 12 through Sunday, Sept. 17
Press Preview: Tuesday, Sept. 12 from 6-8 p.m.
Opening Times: Tuesday through Friday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. or Saturday by appointment
Poetry Reading by Natasha Dennerstein: Friday, Sept. 15 at 7 p.m.
Guest List Reception: Saturday, Sept. 16 from 6-9 p.m.
Artist Talk: Sunday, Sept. 17 at 2 p.m.
Location: 5428 W. Washington Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90016

Start Date

September 12, 2017

End Date

September 18, 2017

Hours

06:00 PM - 08:00 PM

Address

5428 W. Washington Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90016

Event Type

Public

More Information

www.houseofwren.com

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