ARTE: Suné Woods LA Times Review

Los Angeles Times review of To Sleep With Terra:

A melancholic sense of fragmentation runs through 13 recent mixed-media collages by Suné Woods. Ire rumbles just beneath the graceful surface.

At Papillion Gallery, “Human Achievements in Limbo” is emblematic. Two modest slips of paper, both parts of pages torn from a book, are casually tacked to the wall, side by side.

One shows a West Indian woman entering the Guinness Book of World Records for doing a seemingly impossible dance maneuver, sliding her supple body beneath a limbo pole barely 6 1/2 inches off the ground.

The other displays an Apollo rocket — symbol of soaring human achievement — plus a luminous quasar, a remote celestial object that even the most advanced rocket cannot reach.

Collaged onto that faraway, unreachable quasar, a black woman’s finger seems to be scratching through its surface, like a chick attempting to emerge from a distant egg. The carefully considered juxtaposition with the black dancer is heartbreakingly lovely — and bitter, too, given the uncertainty and suspension of triumph associated with a state of limbo.

An otherwise invisible undercurrent of racial and gender suppression — of grand ambition thwarted and held in check — pushes into the foreground. Woods coaxes layers of resonance from very simple means, a key to a powerful collage.

The remaining works, two nearly 5 feet on each side, elaborate similar themes, sometimes in more abstract ways. Likewise, fleeting images of solitary, fragmented existence mark a short, two-channel video projection.

The looped video, “A Feeling Like Chaos,” is punctuated by a sudden, brief shot of a woman dressed in finery and reclining on top of a sidewalk retaining wall. She is laughing madly, but her glee seems less an expression of authentic joy than a clamoring hedge against alienation and anguish.

By Christopher Knight for the Los Angeles Times Arts & Culture section

ARTE: LAUREN HALSEY

A conversation with Lauren Halsey.

Artist-in-Residence at Studio Harlem Museum 2014-2015.

ARTE: Interview with the NY Observer

Interview with Observer Arts...full interview at this link

Photo by Bridget Fleming courtesy of Rent The Runway

Fourth in The Expanded Field, a series of talks with unique art world personalities.

Michelle Papillion opened her eponymous space in 2010. Since then, she’s tapped into a talented circle of Los Angeles-based artists that includes Kenturah Davis, Samuel Levi Jones, and the late Noah Davis among others who make powerful artworks in every medium imaginable. The Observer spoke with her right after her successful showing at EXPO Chicago last week and discussed the changing face of the LA art scene and how she’s navigated it.

You started your career as a curator in New York. What made you decide to move to Los Angeles?

The weather and the beach.

Would you say that your gallery “focuses” on African-American art, or are you simply exhibiting the artists in your circle?

This question always perplexes me. I’ve never seen someone ask a white dealer, “Do you only focus on white artists?” and yet I am asked the above question repeatedly. My galleries focus is being the best at what we do. We show great artists who I believe all have the “genius factor.”

Would you say that you might have a greater understanding of work by African-American artists than many dealers? Particularly in Los Angeles?

I would feel more confident saying that I have a greater understanding of the emerging market, particularly for Los Angeles.

One of your artists (Samuel Levi Jones) has recently become wildly in demand and very hard to get. What is it like to suddenly go from a position where you’re predominantly pushing an artist to a one where you’re predominantly protecting them?

Good question, I think for me “protecting” the artist is something that is a priority at all levels of their career. The artist and I make a plan of what we would like to accomplish and if we’re successful then the profile for both of us is raised. I am very happy with what Jones and I have accomplished together, he is a very diligent worker and very very smart. I think at this moment for he and I we are continuing the work we set out to do when we first decided to work together.

Are there any other galleries or institutions that have particularly inspired you to do the work that you do?

Deitch Projects was a source of inspiration for me when I started and it still is.

What is it about Mr. Deitch that you admire?

When I lived in New York, from 2001 to 2008, Deitch Projects was always a space that stood out because they did lots of risky things in art. I admired that they were able to do these really ambitious over the top curatorial ideas but still upheld the integrity of the artist and the gallery. I also really appreciated how comfortable and non-elitist it felt when you would visit his galleries in Soho.

Over the last five years, galleries have sprung up or moved to a variety of neighborhoods in Los Angeles–Downtown, Culver City, Venice Beach–but you chose to open up in Leimert Park. What was it that drew you to this neighborhood?

I just wanted to be there. When you drive onto our street were on you realize right away that there is some magic that lives on this block.

You’ve shown every type of medium at Papillion; from film and video to painting, drawing and sculpture. Do you feel like there is a certain aesthetic that connects all of your choices?

I really push the artists that I work with, I demand that together we work hard to present something spectacular. That’s probably the most common thread that connects everything together.  I’m also thinking about the work that we do as a historical archive. One thousand years from now, there should be a record of what we accomplished from both a business and curatorial perspective.

The art scene in Los Angeles has really exploded over the last five years. Do you see a lot of new collectors entering the marketplace and what fields are they coming from?

Yes, I do see new collectors and there popping up in LA, coming from places as far as New York, Europe and Africa.  I’m most interested in building with and helping to develop the next great art patrons, so cultivating relationships with millennials is a priority.

One last question: Is Papillion your real last name?
Haha, yes! And you have my father to thank for that.