An exceptional installation now on display in the generous exhibition space of J.F. Chen, the influential furniture-as-art dealer located on Highland Avenue.
Veteran Los Angeles artist Clare Graham, who shrink-wraps plush teddy bears then bundles them into towering totems, and whose fetishistic snap-top sculptures assume the aspect of medieval armor, is featured in the show.
Called “RAPT” — half as punning word play for “wrapped” and half as the front-end of rapture — the show’s a revelation for those new to Graham’s work.
The work is sensational, beautiful, touching.
Many of the materials are recycled;, buffed up, they reemerge with new functionality as furniture: cabinets, room dividers, chairs.
Graham’s preferred materials illustrated here: bottle caps, buttons, tin cans, paint by numbers, scrabble tiles.
Recommended.
RAPT, an installation by Clare Graham | JF Chen gallery | 941 N. Highland Ave