THE SANDY BLEIFER COLLECTION
TAKE HOME “FORM AND BALANCE” WITH SANDY BLEIFER’S IKEBANA SERIES: BOOK RELEASE 4.22.19 – EARTH DAY
I embarked on the study of Ikebana in 1991 in an effort to learn a new way of composing elements and working 3-dimensionally. I also felt I needed to experience and accept a process of making art that produces a transitory product. With flowers, I could learn to let go of something I had put a lot of myself into and be released from the obligations of caring for finished artwork.
The Japanese aesthetic seemed more accepting of transitory beauty and of the cycle of life. I learned all of that and more as the study of traditional flower arrangement styles and techniques gave me new insights into nature, the seasons and Japanese concepts of creativity and beauty.
What's IKEBANA and where can I find it?
Our roving reporter asked a few people in Venice this question and here are a few answers:
1. Isn't that the restaurant Downtown
2. Japan?
3. I don't really know what it means?
IKEBANA is the Japanese art of floral arrangements emphasizing form and balance.
"I think of the Ikebana Series as moments at the peak of life and beauty frozen in time to serve as a Memorial – as a reminder of a normal cycle of creation in nature." Sandy
Coming SOON
Downtown Up
A photographic narrative of the return to economic and social viability of downtown, Los Angeles, which began in the mid-1990s. The pictures simulate a focused walk through the Historic Core – its rich architectural detail, its human-scaled density and its reconnection to the modern office towers on Bunker Hill …
SOCIAL PRACTICE
Sandy Bleifer uses paper and figurative imagery to evoke social and political issues. Her work engages the audience via interactions with freestanding and wall hung sculptural installations.
METAL
The Metal/Drawings juxtapose the inherent qualities of metal and paper: hardness v. softness, strength v. vulnerability. The drawings are on newsprint, which darkens and becomes even more brittle over time.
WALLS
The Walls and Graffiti series explores connections between the artist’s vocabulary of paper manipulation and treatment techniques and the nature of architectural elements.
ANGELS
The figure in flight conjures up a familiar female archetype –an angel – an arbiter between human suffering and transcendence. The use of the female figure –long a staple of Western artistic iconography…
Screens
Sandy Bleifer uses the folding screen as an architectural element in a room, as a pictorial device that provides a linear presentation of a subject through time, various lighting conditions and vistas and as a way to visually express shifts of thematic material in music compositions.
Persona
The “life casts” of the artists’ face and body merge self-portraiture with gestures of paper with the figure exerting its presence. The Circus Costumes” velcroed to the leotards of the dancers are metaphors for the dichotomy between our jobs/functions and our inner lives.
Southwest
The several Southwest series express the recognition that the landscape of various regions embody infinite combinations of basic rock formations and colorations and, as such, share the nature of the printed multiple as individualized by printing and after-treatments.
At Tribe LA Mag/Quiet Time Press,