It’s not everyday that teachers get to display their artwork, however, at an LBCC art galley, that’s exactly what they did.
The gallery featured works from three different artists, all of which happen to be teachers at the school.
The exhibit was titled, ‘In Transit: Faculty Sabbatical Exhibition.’ There was a focus on subjects such as migration, displacement and resettlement.
The teachers were all on a sabbatical, which ultimately led to them taking part in the gallery and displaying their works.
One of the three artists was Stas Orlovski, whose work is abstract and reminiscent of Picasso’s. Within his work, there is a lot of images of people and faces.
“I was doing a lot of images of heads, I wanted to get a face back into my drawings,” said Orlovski.
He had three of the Picasso-inspired paintings on display, each representing something different. One depicted being stuck, another drowning and lastly a collapsed head in the forest.
Scale and size plays a part in Orlovski’s work. The paintings presented were rather large, the size of the paintings were larger than usual. Some of his other paintings are wall-sized. They were deemed too big to bring in.
Orlovski mentioned that scale can depend. Sometimes it’s intentional, other times he just “feels like they need to be big.”
He also does work with found objects. In one of his collections he incorporates Russian children’s books into his work. These are called ‘found objects.’
In another collection, where he also uses found objects, he projects animations onto the pieces. The projections on the objects create a unique visual.
Christoper Chinn was another artist among the school’s staff whose art was featured.
His art piece ‘One Los Angeles Residence,’ was well liked by some of the young art connoisseurs present the event.
The piece depicts L.A. homelessness on a grand scale canvas, putting it into the faces of the audience and getting them to think.
According to gallery goer Briyana Verdugo, the piece “really stood out” to her.
She described the event as being, “very well put together” and an “unexpected, hole-in-the-wall event.”
Both Verdugo and her friend, Gabe Pech, were drawn in by all the art techniques that they saw being used.
Carolyn Castaño was one of the other artists whose work was featured in the exhibit. Topics such as ecofeminism, colonialism, and migration are what her work is based on.
Something that both Castaño and Orlovski have in common is similar themes of memories and family histories.
The art gallery manager, Karla Aguíñiga, said that one of the goals of the exhibit was for “students to be able to connect to the teachers’ works.”
Student, Ashley Loyola, said this on the teachers’ works, “if an image makes you stand and look, that’s a good piece of art.”
All of the people that came to the exhibit took their time to admire the works and really take in their messages. The artists walked around the gallery, more than happy to discuss their pieces.
The ‘In Transit: Faculty Sabbatical Exhibition,’ will be up until March 25.