Laura Best is a California native. She is the owner of newly established- Best Music and Arts’  studio gallery, where she teaches piano and art classes. Her studio space also serves as a custom picture framing and art gallery for other local Artists to display their work, as well as a recreational venue for paint party events during weekends. Laura loves working in several mediums, including watercolor, oil, acrylic, and pencil. Her first art series was completed in 2019 using watercolor pencils. The following year she exhibited the completed collection for her first solo art show, titled “Expressions,” where she exhibited over a dozen of her watercolor pencil portraits. In this series Laura sought to raise awareness of Human Trafficking, celebrating the unique outward characteristics of women, while sharing the beauty within. She created a variety of faces to portray her own character and moods that all began with the first work, in which a girl with an untamed mane appears to be yelling, with her hands over her ears, or perhaps her headphones. Laura has intentionally titled this piece ”Untitled,” because of the chaotic emotion that it conveys, and the idea of feeling extreme opposite emotions at the same time, making it impossible to choose only one. Laura has completed a wide variety of commissioned works including: landscapes, family and pet portraits, and most recently local home and business watercolor illustrations. She is currently working on an ink and watercolor series of downtown Bakersfield Restaurants, celebrating the local eateries that have endured the tests of time, particularly during the 2020 mandated closures.

This group showcases the artistic world of superheroes. Artists were asked to submit their favorite superhero from an existing universe. Come visit Newhall Community Center to see if your favorite hero made it to the gallery.

Transforming Tradition: Tape Art by Chiho Harazaki

Having grown up in Japan, Chiho Harazaki lives and works in Los Angeles as a tape artist. She cuts adhesive tape into tiny pieces with a precision knife and scissors in order to compose a whole picture. This unconventional art medium gives her works unique lines, patterns, and textures, evoking the feel of modern graphic design while also lending itself to works reminiscent of traditional Japanese arts like woodcut and papercutting. Synthesizing elements of Eastern and Western, traditional and modern culture in her art, Chiho’s work reveals her unique and distinctive personality and identity.

With artwork as a bridge between an artist’s mind and a viewer’s mind, Chiho strives to stimulate viewers to elevate their consciousness. She creates art with an intention of providing an introduction to approaching and viewing the universe in a different way, feeling the connection between all people and discovering more beauty and light in daily life. Perceiving life and the world from her evolving perspective as a first-generation immigrant, her artwork combines cultural, historical and narrative elements to convey her desires, hopes, and beliefs.

Chiho’s artwork has been exhibited individually and collectively, including at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Art Share L.A, and the Japanese Friendship Garden in San Diego. She has also been commissioned to create large-scale installations for the Japanese American Cultural Community Center in Los Angeles, the City of Santa Clarita, as well as for commercial clients like John Lobb.

This exhibit is in collaboration with the city’s newest event series, ‘Celebrate’ that celebrates cultures, custom, and culinary wonders from around the world. Each month at Canyon Country Community Center celebrates a new culture. The month of April celebrates the Polynesian Islands. Every first Friday from April to September, immerse yourself in a cultural celebration at the Canyon Country Community Center from 6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. Susan Maddux’s work combines painting and sculpture into unique forms evocative of the colors and warmth of her native Hawaii and influenced by the arts of Asia and the Pacific. She was born on the island of Oahu in Hawaii to a hapa Japanese-American family where she absorbed the influence of Japanese folk-art traditions, Buddhist temples, psychedelic aloha wear, and the arts of Polynesia.

This show spans twenty years of artwork influenced by her connection to Hawaii. From stark landscapes painted from photographs in New York in 2002 to current work utilizing Susan’s distinctive technique of folding paintings into sculptural forms, the common thread is the influence of her childhood in Hawaii.

Susan Maddux: https://susanmadduxstudio.com/

Virtual Gallery: https://www.artsteps.com/embed/623e1ebd6a1040945b553e0a/560/315.

SCVTV news story: https://scvtv.com/2022/03/31/finding-art-susan-maddux-remember-the-stars-above-the-ocean-at-canyon-country-community-center/

The use of charcoal and pencil as artistic tools is one of the oldest art tools and continues to be of great use today. The use of these mediums can be rewarding in the way they can be rendered either through blending, smudging, or even erasing to create bold and detailed subjects. This exhibit showcases the various artistic techniques with the use of pencil and charcoal as the primary medium. Ranging from realistic portraits, sketches, and even colored abstract pieces displays the artistic range of this group show.

Reception: Wednesday, April 27 from 6:00p.m. to 8:00p.m.

This exhibition proudly presents works created by Seniors who attend the Drawing and Watercolor classes at the SCV Senior Center at Bella Vida.  The art classes were designed specifically for seniors.  These classes present concepts of elements of design, composition and color theories.  Accommodations are made for physical impediments, and technology is incorporated as needed.

While the focus of these classes is technique, application, drawing and painting as a hobby, senior students are encouraged to explore other mediums, and to widen their knowledge of art in general with museum and gallery visits coupled with reading biographies on prominent artists.

This exhibit is the result of these efforts. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did with participating in this journey.

Reception: Wednesday, April 20 from 6:00p.m. to 8:00p.m.

The City of Santa Clarita welcomes the newest art exhibit located above the Children’s Area in the Valencia Library Branch (23743 West Valencia Blvd). The art exhibit will be on display for an entire year from March 2022 through March 2023.

Five artists were selected to create original artwork inspired by woods and nature on a five-foot by five-foot canvas. The selected artists are Bahram Kafai, Diana Klauss, Megan Andersen, Mosa Tanksley, and Sharon Lee. Each works displays the unique and creative artistic interpretation of woodland nature.

Details to follow for a reception

Come out to The MAIN for a FREE Art Reception celebrating the newest exhibit “Stillness in Chaos” by artist Aazam Irilian.  Enjoy the art, music and light refreshments at this FREE reception.

“Stillness in Chaos”

Paintings in this exhibition are selections from two different bodies of work created during covid lockdown—Indigo Dreaming and Beyond The Veil. The primary hues of the Indigo Dreaming series are various shades and intensities of blues. These paintings are atmospheric and dreamlike in composition, with soft colors overlapping, blending to create a sense of depth on the canvas. In contrast, the paintings selected from Beyond the Veil series are mostly in warm hues and earth tones with sharp brushstrokes that are absent in paintings from the Indigo Dreaming series.

These paintings function as metaphors for the moments of stillness that punctuate the usual chaos of life, soft and tranquil, blurring the boundaries of recognized and unknown. As the impacts of the pandemics devastated the world, I took refuge in the studio, pouring the paint and allowing it to dance onto the canvas. With it, my mind flow, losing itself in the moment—opening a window to a world that is beyond—one that is calm, quiet, and tranquil. Painting was not a physical experience any longer but only a process and a tool to tap into the stillness that existed deep within me.

This exhibition is an invitation to the viewer to pause, become present in the moment, and allow the mind to flow, experiencing the joy of each moment instead of focusing on the chaos.   – Aazam Irilian