Beauty and Concern

By: Chase Whitman | October 26, 2009 | Art

A good friend of mine recently said: “There is so much to hate in Los Angeles, but when you find the good, it’s worth loving.”

I feel the same notion can be applied to the L.A. art scene. It can be very disheartening driving across town through traffic (because, for some reason, no matter where the opening is, it’s always across town), finding parking and getting to the gallery only to see everyone staring at themselves or what brand of celebrity is in attendance rather than the works on the walls. But when you find work that encourages you to pause and ask yourself why a certain sentiment is significant, it stands out in such a gratifying manner. This was the feeling I received when I snuck into the Corey Helford Gallery in Culver City while they were hanging Korin Faught’s latest show of paintings titled ECHO.

The vacant tensions she infuses into her canvases mirror those nagging questions that vibrate within the dusk of our quotidian struggle. Her characters are paradoxically divided: some reclining in the shadow of a room, some standing in the revealing light of a window to the outside. Her pieces are far from overworked, so the hand of the artist is undiminished yet not overly expressionistic. The empty expanses of a white wall contain the same subtle color and brushstrokes as the face of a thoughtful female. And the multiplicities of her subjects reflect the ambiguity of how our faceted lives can be distilled in moments of silence.

I don’t like to go on and on about my feelings concerning an artist’s work; it’s like putting A-1 on a beautifully cooked steak, but I was able to interview Faught and hear her thoughts on art, fashion and buying art supplies from mysterious men.

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