Address:
661 North Spaulding
Los Angeles, CA 90046
(corner of Melrose/east of Fairfax)

GALLERY HOURS: Saturdays 10a to 5p and by appointment

Curiouser & Curiouser is a trip down the rabbit hole filled with fanciful characters, mirrors and metaphors, melancholy, mischief, amusing and tender creatures.

Carol Powell's intricate and laboriously executed mixed media works stitch together collage, painting, and illustration to create a dizzying array of characters who contend with one another as friends and foes in their fantasy lair. Like an Edward Gorey tale, her creations are humanoid, cartoonish, and anthropomorphic composites based on the innocent and dark side of our nature. Her characters appear dwarfed or larger than life, and remain obstinately impervious, blithely unaware, or adversely affected by the fiends that loom in their midst.

Though autobiographical in nature, Carol's work depicts universal struggles of jealously, identity, belonging, isolation, triumph, fear, and defeat. Through her simultaneously childlike and nightmarish vignettes, Carol intones a cynical, mischievous, yet sincere voice as she reenacts our daily skirmishes to reveal the humor, and horror, in the uncontrollable human condition.

Kim Tucker's sculptures and paintings may best be described as unconscious portraiture. Referencing photographs and discarded high school annuals rescued from junk stores and garage sales, Kim's three-dimensional ceramic figures and painted plates depict as their subject images of forgotten people. They are ghosts disturbed from their resting places, reawakened in order to tell their bittersweet tales.

Kim is drawn to the latent qualities of her subjects, the facial expressions or body postures that offer hints to their unspoken stories. She conjectures as to what lives within their psyche, the weaknesses, worries and hidden self, and responds to their melancholy by choosing to depict their sensitive and beleaguered spirit. Sometimes her subjects metamorphose into monsters, growling and snarling with inner turmoil; others stare placidly into space; some are resurrected as spooky souvenirs of their former selves, their portraits painted on found china plates. There is a sweetness and sympathy in Kim's work as she grants her creations permission to speak to the tenderness of the human spirit. "I feel a deep connection to these ghosts, my own story being no different. I attempt to expose on a small scale the complex hidden world we all share. I see my work as a continuum in the human story."

About the Artists:
Carol Powell's work is influenced by classic children's books, textile design, East Indian paintings, Americana, and present-day pop culture. Her work has shown in the U.S. and internationally, and is included in the collections of the Santa Barbara Museum and California State Polytechnique University, Pomona. She holds an MFA from California State Fullerton.

Kim Tucker studied ceramic sculpture under the direction of Viola Frey and Arthur Gonzalez at the California College of Arts and Crafts, graduating with a BFA. Kim received her MFA under the guidance of M.J. Bole from The Ohio State University. Kim has revived multiple awards for her sculpture and drawing, and she has participated in several prestigious national and international artist residency programs.

About Ashley McLean Emenegger:
Ashley McLean Emenegger has juried and curated scores of fine art and video exhibitions throughout Los Angeles. Her exhibitions have been reviewed in the Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, the LA Business Journal, and Artweek. She also serves as curator and art advisor to numerous nonprofit groups and charity events. As the former Executive Director of Gallery 825/LAAA, a nonprofit supporting emerging Southern Californian artists, she presented hundreds of critically recognized exhibitions and programs. She founded McLean Fine Art in September 2004.

Contact:
Ashley McLean Emenegger, McLean Fine Art
626.798.3136
ashley@mcleanfineart.com