Joshua Tree is an artists' refuge, a place of freedom as well as meditation. Carol Es refers to it as "a kind of Deadwood town where unique exteriors are built seemingly without codes or restrictions," and where precarious rock formations balance one's soul. Recently, Es made a journey of artistic and spiritual exploration into Joshua Tree, hoping to leave behind her baggage of fear, depression and childhood abuse. She said "I found myself making art about what surrounded me in the present, instead of what consumed my insides regarding the past." Es' brightly colored paintings of simple cutout shapes and patterned cloth on birch panel possess a playfulness and raw simplicity, echoing fanciful architecture amidst boundless piles of colossal rounded stones.

Rock and Refuge, Carol Es' first exhibition at Craig Krull Gallery, will include her Joshua Tree paintings as well as a drawing installation from her ongoing Journal Project. Hand-cut manila garment patterns inscribed with daily diary writings and drawings will be pinned to the wall in an organic cluster with sewing pins. Carol Es is a self-taught artist, native Angeleno, Pollock-Krasner Fellowship recipient, and her artist books have been collected by the Getty Research Institute as well as The Pompidou.

Phranc, also known as The All-American Jewish Lesbian folksinger, is a self-described "Cardboard Cobbler," who fashions cardboard, paper, gouache, and thread into life-size, three-dimensional replications of everyday objects. As a teenager, Phranc attended The Feminist Studio Workshop at The Woman's Building in Los Angeles, but she traces her obsession with cardboard back to childhood. She says, "From the time I sat in my first refrigerator box submarine, I knew the cardboard sea was for me." Her third exhibition at Craig Krull Gallery includes interpretations of vintage toys, stuffed animals, Davy Crockett costumes, and the gender play of Raggedy Ann and Andy.

John Huggins' series, Once, was partially inspired by a familial passage, the loss of his father. His soft-focus color photographs embody what the artist calls, "the perfectness of a fond memory." The images put into form the idealized remembrance one may have of indelible moments experienced in youth. Like distant memories, they are stripped of unnecessary details and reduced to their essential components. Rather than being sentimental, these evocations have what Huggins describes as a "peacefulness" that comes from one's associations with a moment in the "purity of recollection." This second exhibition from the Once series is titled, Once Again.

On view in the gallery office:

Nicole Strasburg
Animal Worship and Weather Patterns
Images | Biography