Join us on Sunday, October 1 from 3 to 7 pm for an artist reception and special installation of PLACE: Works by Renée Amitai, Kim Abeles, Rachel X Hobreigh, and Debra Dobkin.  The exhibition will be on display from September 28 through October 7.

PLACE refers simultaneously to a location and the action for going there. In this way, we can remember the places of our past, and imagine others through a sense of longing. The four artists in the exhibition make use of painting, drawing, photography, printmaking, and sculpture to define the dream that is PLACE.

Renée Amitai’s gates imply passage, and as we move from one place to another, a threshold of the journey is defined. Kim Abeles considers place as the desire to physically engage with the urban environment. Rachel X Hobreigh’s work reflects the human impact on the sacred feminine ocean, where the power of water gives life ten-thousand-fold and asks for nothing in return. Debra Dobkin defines a sense of place by combining the dynamics of real and imagined environments in relation to the people who move through them.

We are living in a time when our individual relationships with the world are shifting and the tangible blends with the ethereal. The mixed media artworks in this exhibition use the metaphor of PLACE and move through its multiple meanings.

Hours: Thursdays and Fridays 11 am to 2 pm, or by appointment.

About the Artists

Renee Amitai graduated from l’Ecole des Beaux Arts de Paris, France and gained professional experiences in Fine Art and architecture in France, Israel, Italy and America. Her artistic interest evolved from printmaking to painting to sculpture. She moved to the United States in 1984, where she taught printmaking, painting and architecture in San Antonio Texas and in Los Angeles California. She currently resides in Los Angeles, CA and Paris, France. Her work is exhibited in California, France, China, Japan, Korea and around the globe.

Kim Abeles is a Los Angeles-based artist whose installations and community projects cross disciplines and media to explore biography, geography and environment. She has created projects with the California Science Center, air pollution control agencies, health clinics and mental health departments, and natural history museums. Abeles received fellowships from John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, J. Paul Getty Trust Fund for the Visual Arts, California Community Foundation, and Pollock-Krasner Foundation. Her work is in public collections including MOCA, LACMA, Berkeley Art Museum, California African American Museum, and National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. Abeles’ journals, books, and process documents are archived at the Center for Art + Environment, Nevada Museum of Art.

Debra Dobkin was born in Chicago and started painting at an early age at the Art Institute of Chicago children’s program. In addition to pursuing a life in the visual arts, she is an accomplished percussionist/drummer. While traveling and playing music professionally around the world, she has continued to study, draw, photograph and paint. Her work now holds the richness of those experiences.  Dobkin has exhibited in Los Angeles, around the U.S., and internationally. These mixed media pieces are inspired by her original photos taken on her travels. They evolve through a combination of painting, collage, and photo transfer to convey a captured moment in time.

Rachel X Hobreigh’s work focuses on the environment and the divine feminine. She uses painting, performance art, photography and sculpture to reflect a visual history of moments in her life and her great love and respect for nature. Hobreigh has shown work internationally, most recently at Saint-Gildas-de-Rhuys, the Marie de Paris 8 Gallery and the Mu Gallery in Paris, France as well as the FH Gallery in Jena, Germany. Her US shows include: A solo show at Gallery 417 Los Angeles, CA 2017; The Museum Contempo in Olympia, Washington, Building Bridges Art Exchange at the Bergamot Station in Santa Monica and the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles as well as the SOMArts Cultural Center in San Francisco. She has a Masters Degree in Public Art from California State University Northridge, where they also retain a permanent public installation of her work.