“Material Recovery” combines printmaking with assemblage, collage and sculpture to illustrate the iconography of the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro, along with images suggesting the waste left there by the shipping industry. The exhibition of 81 pieces by 31 artists—using recycled materials—eclipses the “art for art’s sake” concept; yet, important aesthetic aspects are imbued throughout. The show was created by Lynk Collective, a group of SoCal artists who collaborate on projects and installations, employing printmaking techniques.

The collagraph, relief, monoprint, drypoint and etching prints, in figurative to abstract styles, depict the nearby industrial forms, along with natural and biomorphic images. Curated by Christina Yasmin Fesmire and Jared Millar, the pieces are printed onto reclaimed cardboard, paper, leftover chipboard, plastics, old compact discs, thrift store fabric and wood. The printed pieces, along with complementary sculptures, all created in 2023, present both the benefits and spoils of our industrial society.

The show’s centerpiece is the installation, Container, by Alexandra Chiara, Christina Yasmin Fesmire, Nguyen Ly, Diane McLeod, Jared Millar, William Myers, Olga Ryabtsova Paula Voss and Zana Zupur. The mosaic-style Container is composed of 32 collaged and printed panels on found paper, depicting the vistas, viewed from the nearby Gerald Desmond and Vincent Thomas Bridges, spanning the passageway from Long Beach to San Pedro. At 96 by 192 inches, the piece mirrors the size and shape of the metal shipping containers in the harbor, as seen from those bridges. While visually referencing cranes, bridges, machinery, graffiti, local fauna and flora, the work evokes the maritime world of longshoremen.

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By Melina Paris | October 12, 2023

Photo Image: 2023 MWGOE logo art by artist, Jackie Fawn Illustrations (Washoe Tribal Citizen, Yurok, Filipina).

The Many Winters Gathering of Elders or MWGOE brings its 17th annual gathering, Oct.12 to 15, to Angels Gate Cultural Center or AGCC in San Pedro, on Gabrielino-Tongva territory. 

The MWGOE is a gathering where Native/Indigenous Elders and knowledge-keepers from across the country come together to share teachings through oral tradition with the community. The gathering also hosts Native ceremonies throughout the four days. MWGOE is held in partnership with AGCC and is open to the public and family friendly.

The MWGOE plays a vital role in the Native community of greater Los Angeles, with the participation and support of the original peoples of the land. The vision of the gathering is to host a sacred space for people to come together, with the intention to learn, pray, support Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities and to inspire a healthier future for Native people.

A new contemporary art exhibit — “Material Recovery: Printmaking with Recycled Materials” — will open Saturday, Jan. 20, at Angels Gate Cultural Center in San Pedro, with a public reception set to take place from 2 to 4:30 p.m.

The exhibit will run through March 23.

The exhibit is guest curated by Christina Yasmin Fesmire and Jared Millar and includes works by the printmaking artist group Lynk Collective, along with other artists. It will be open to the public for viewing at the Angel’s Gate Cultural Center,3601 S. Gaffey St., at the galleries in Building A on Leary-Merriam Drive.

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Video by LA This Week | March 13, 2024

“Port Traits,” a new exhibition in the gallery at Angels Gate Cultural Center, features the works of Slobodan Dimitrov and Scott Brown. Dimitrov’s photography focuses on the local labor movement, while Scott Brown’s paintings feature local scenes from San Pedro.

By The Pasadena Weekendr | March 13, 2024

The Pasadena Art Alliance, Southern California’s premier contemporary visual arts support organization, has awarded $320,000 in grants to 27 Los Angeles area non-profit arts organizations. The grants will support contemporary arts exhibitions and projects in the San Gabriel Valley and throughout Los Angeles County. The PAA has been fostering the appreciation of contemporary visual art in Southern California for almost 70 years and is thrilled to announce this year’s grantees.

The PAA’s 2024 grantees include an impressive list of established and emerging non-profit visual arts organizations (Pasadena area institutions are highlighted in bold), including American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA), Angels Gate Cultural Center, Armory Center for the Arts, ArtCenter College of Design, Autry Museum of the American West, Benton Museum of Art – Pomona College, California Institute of Technology, Coaxial Arts Foundation, CSU Dominguez Hills University Art Gallery, Descanso Gardens, The Fowler Museum, The Hammer Museum, The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, Institute of Contemporary Art Los Angeles (ICA LA), JOAN, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND), Long Beach Museum of Art, Mount Wilson Institute, Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Pasadena City College, Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art at Pepperdine University, Project X Foundation for Art & Criticism, Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery – Scripps College, Self-Help Graphics & Art, and the USC Pacific Asia Museum. Complete descriptions of the funded projects, which will run from March 2024 to March 2025, are available on the PAA website www.pasadenaartalliance.org.

“We could not be more thrilled to support these phenomenal visual arts exhibitions and projects,” said PAA Grants Chair Kirsten Molz. “The quality of the exhibitions and the creativity of the institutions and artists is very inspiring.  I want to thank my Assistant Grants Chair, Lizzie Salvati, and the members of our grants committee for their hard work and dedication, along with our PAA President, Annaly Bennett, for her guidance this past year.”

A 28-year Seal Beach resident, Diane McLeod is a visual artist who doesn’t believe in the stereotype of the “loner artist,” although she has spent plenty of time creating artwork on her own.

In a press release she issued this week, McLeod said one way she disproves the myth pf the loner artist is by her participation in three different artists’ groups, particularly Lynk Collective, established in Irvine in 2017 and named in homage to the art instructor and collaborative printmaker Nguyen Ly.

The collective’s two dozen members collaborate on projects and exhibitions using a wide variety of printmaking techniques, and their latest exhibition, “Material Recovery: Printmaking with Recycled Materials,” is currently on view at Angels Gate Cultural Center in San Pedro…

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In San Pedro, Angels Gate Cultural Center also has two exhibits, both group shows at this venue. 7 Visions X 7 Artists (above) features new and expansive creative works shaped under the auspices of the MRH Fund for Artists grant. This program follows Southern California artists on a year-long journey expanding their professional artist practice. Well curated by Georgia Freedman-Harvey, works include installations, sculptures, wall art by artists Cesar Garcia, Trinh Mai, Rebekah Mei, Nguyen Ly, Jas Parker, Edwin Vasquez, Patricia Yossen. You can read more about Vasquez’s work here. 

The exhibition ran through February 24th.

Upstairs, phenomenal works using print making and found objects fill the larger gallery, with the stellar Printmaking with Recycled Materials, a group exhibition by LYNK Collective, curated by Christina Yasmin Fesmire and Jared Millar.  Dramatic works utilize everything from fabric to melted plastic; it is a wonderfully dimensional and involving printmaking exhibitions that will exceed your ideas of what print making reveals. Artists include Yeansoo Aum, Elisabeth Beck, Andra Broekelschen, Alexandra Chiara, Christina Yasmin Fesmire, Karen Fiorito, Carole Gelker, Bill Jaros, Nguyen Ly, Diane McLeod, Jared Millar, William Myers, Marina Polic, Francisco Rogido, Olga Ryabtsova, Laura Shapiro, Tracy Loreque Skinner, Mary Lawrence Test, Paula Voss, Zana Zupur and guest artists: Karen Feuer-Schwager, Kim Kei, Wendy Murray, Jackie Nach, MJ Rado, Victor Rosas, Fred Rose, Marianne Sadowski, Jillian Thompson and Katie Thompson-Peer. Ly’s work is particularly mesmerizing.

There will be a closing event and talk on March 23rd from 2-4.  Angels Gate is located at3601 S Gaffey St, San Pedro, CA 90731.

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AGCC Receives $25,000 NEA Grant

SAN PEDRO —The National Endowment for the Arts or NEA has approved Angels Gate Cultural Center or AGCC for a grant of $25,000. In an announcement Jan. 24 Angels Gate Cultural Center said it looks forward to working with the NEA to finalize the grant paperwork and appreciates the agency’s support for this project.

This funding will support AGCC’s efforts to provide paid contemporary art exhibition opportunities for curators and artists, and will also allow AGCC to continue serving its local studio artist community.

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By Greggory Moore | Random Length News | May 10, 2023

If a tree falls in the forest with no-one to hear it, air is displaced, but there is sound only when a processing device of some sort translates the vibrations of air pressure into auditory signals.

Sound art is all about that subjective experience of hearing, framing sonic data so the listener makes novel connections, maybe discovering something completely new.

FLOOD’s main mission is to engender such discoveries, and soundpedro2023, which kicks off with an opening reception at Angels Gate Cultural Center this weekend, explicitly take “sound intake” as its theme. And as always, the soundpedro centerpiece is next month’s one-night-only transformation of Angels Gate into an indoor/outdoor gallery of multisensory sound-centric installations.

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By Donna Littlejohn | Daily Breeze | May 4th, 2023

A colorful mural that depicts the region’s early inhabitants was completed and unveiled this week at the Angels Gate Cultural Center in San Pedro.

“Tongva: Still Here” was the product of an eight-week project by the Teen Mural Club, a partnership program with AQMNI Mural CO, in which San Pedro High School students worked with professional artists and cultural leaders to plan, design and paint a mural onsite at the cultural center in Angel’s Gate Park.

The mural, which was done on the side of a shipping container used for storage at the center, was created to communicate the Tongva tribe’s enduring legacy and continued presence in spirit in modern-day San Pedro. It is next to a similar mural that was created for the area’s Gathering of the Elders events earlier.

[Read the article here]