For the second time around Lisa Bahouth, a brilliant and beautiful American Expressionist Painter with an Italian-Middle Eastern background, is showing her works in the Market Gallery spaces in Downtown Los Angeles which if not presented otherwise, could be labeled as ‘The Art of Brightness and Light’.
The main part of this exhibit shows her most recent works, which were created in Hollywood, California, where she currently resides (main room). A smaller room shows paintings from her earlier years in New York where she attended and graduated from Cooper Union School of Art and Architecture.
Most of her canvases, which consist of complex compositions of floor plans and interior spaces, reveal the disciplines of an artistic education she has received early on and at the same time, they enable her to reflect on a content that seems to be a recurring theme in her works.
“Someone Please Find Me a Home!” which is the title of this show, is not only a personal reflection on her own situation, having been raised in a mixed culture. It is a call for solidarity with the populations whose territorial struggles for homelands find little support in the world. It is a call for solidarity with the homeless people who live on Skid Row in the streets of Downtown LA, – a brutal environment to be desperate on – and right around the corner from where the exhibit currently takes place.
Another, smaller series of her newer works from a journey to England which she made last year are on display in the main room. The third room is an installation which represents the title of her show “Someone Please Find Me a Home” and again a few smaller iconographic expressions in oil on wood and canvas.
Similar as in the works of Richard Diebenkorn, a Pacific Coast Abstract Expressionist, the expression of her works varies strongly depending on what area she is working in.
Clearly, the works done in the Los Angeles area reflect a great sense of light- and brightness, which seems to be a constant in her current works. The New York paintings are not only several tones darker, but they also slightly differ in content as they reflect a time in which Bahouth was very active in theatre arts and as an Interior painter/ faux finisher making Trompe l’Oeil and Faux Finishes for wealthy clients.
This surface work with the brushstroke seems to have influenced her painting technique early on. In her subsequent works an obsession with what resembles the pursuit of the Golden Section and which gives her paintings a harmonious geometrical flair is a result of her mentorship with friend and neighbor John Fisher.
The pieces, which she painted in England, reflect a peaceful Victorian atmosphere with their warm tones and interior spaces. In one of these works, she introduces a new figure into the space of her picture, a ghost standing in a room – or not. It will be intriguing to following what will become of this mysterious sujet in one of her next shows which hopefully will take place in not too long.
Lisa Bahouth’s works will continue to be on display until November 23rd, 11AM – 5 PM
@ The Market Gallery
City Market of Los Angeles
1057 S. San Pedro St.
Los Angeles, CA, 90015
http://mysite.verizon.net/res91jjy/id4.html
213 – 746 – 0646, ext. 7
