“It is a perfect cool summer night, even though they say it’s autumn now,” Tom Walsh, president of the Art Directors Guild mused. The night was so perfect, Walsh could have ordered it himself. After all, everything else at the Sept. 29 opening night of “Art Unites 6: An Eclectic Mix of Art and Artists’ Works” came together sublimely.
Gallery 800, located at the historic Lankershim Arts Center in the famed NoHo Arts District has been home to a series of shows featuring the personal artwork of Art Directors Guild members. Since its opening, the gallery has hosted the works of more than 420 ADG members. But this time around, the exhibit features personal work from Local 729, Motion Picture Set Painters and Sign Writers alongside the artwork from ADG members. The opening night reception celebrated the power of art to connect artists within the filmmaking community to each other and to the local community.
Artists and art lovers mingled and explored while the performance of the Jazz trio, Just in Time, vibrated throughout the gallery. As promised in the event’s title, “Art Unites 6: An Eclectic Mix of Art and Artists’ Works,” the mix of canvas renderings was as varied a landscape as one could imagine. The walls were strung with stunning images of such diversity as a monkey sitting on an elephant wandering in the snow, “Snow in Africa,” by Colette Miller; a bearded, haunted man in a purple top hat, “The Gambler,” by Guy Maturo; a picturesque white house behind a lush green lawn in “Calm Beginnings” by Chris Coakley, and “Regeneration” – a mixed media on wood piece splashed with grays, greens, reds and golden browns so evocatively by Steve Jackson.
The outpouring of soul onto canvas is exactly what Walsh and the community of motion picture artists hoped to offer to the wider community of NoHo and beyond. “Fine arts really supports and nourishes your other mental tools, it’s about looking and seeing, about slowing down,” Walsh said. “Artist constituents [within the filmmaking community] are looking for a way to show the fine arts, and they all do art for themselves so this outgrowth is a good community builder within the filmmaking community and in this case with the local community”
The night was flush with an astonishing sense of anticipation in the air that art connects, art mends and art hopes. A perfect way to kick off the exhibit which will run at Gallery 800 through Oct. 27. “We released the gallery four or five years ago, and we’ll continue as long as the fine arts community will continue to do the show – to come together in a time when we all live in suitcases to do something we all love to do.” Walsh promised.
