Jacqueline Woods photograph featured in "Your Daily Photography" June 24, 2016
Ojai Valley News, December 9, 2015, A8, Arts & Entertainment
Kelly Luscombe Bea: Taking Off Saturday, October 24, 2015, 5pm
Artist Kelly Luscombe Bea explores painting in her fabulous solo exhibition of large and small oil paintings at Gallery 525.
Inspired by her sea voyages over the last year, Taking Off” is a showing of rich and luminous oil paintings that include water, night-time visions, and other narrative spins on life. Her works range from surreal, symbolic, sometimes humorous images to paintings of the sea and night passages bordering on abstraction. To quote Kelly Luscombe Bea: “Taking Off is about starting new journeys. It is also about what needs to be taken off or peeled away before that journey can begin. My new body of paintings "Taking Off" tells the stories of time spent on the ocean over the last year from the Sea of Cortez to the Desolation Sound and how that impacted my experience of the water, it's colorful, atmospheric effects and dream-like visions realized on a swaying boat." October 24 - November 29 at Gallery 525, 525 W. El Roblar Ave., Ojai, CA 93023 www.gallery525.com |
Arts About Town, Guide to the Arts in Ojai, Autumn 2015
Taking Off, Kelly Luscombe Bea, Featured Cover Artist
Ojai Valley News, Arts & Entertainment, B3, September 2, 2015
Ojai Valley News, Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Ojai Valley News, Arts and Entertainment, April 29, 2015
"GRADY GORDON'S NACHTBADEN @ Gallery 525," JUXTAPOZ Magazine, Friday, April 10, 2015:
http://www.juxtapoz.com/current/grady-gordon-s-nachtbaden-525-gallery-ojai
"A Fresh Point of View, Photos Shot by Untrained Women include Gems," Anne Kallas, Ventura County Star, Sunday Oct. 12, 2014
Ventana Monthly, The Art of Imperfection, September, 2014
by Nancy D. Lackey-Shaffer
features Artist and Gallery Co-Director Kelly Luscombe Bea
Ojai Valley News, Arts & Entertainment, Wednesday, September 10, 2014
Arts & Entertainment, Ojai Valley News, June 25, 2014
Ventura County Reporter, Happenings, May 29, 2014
Artist Brings ‘Post-Catastrophe’ Workshop to Ojai
Ojai Valley News, Wednesday, May 22, 2013, B5

Lydia Lunch, No Wave singer, spoken word performer, author, actress, and visual artist, will be in Ojai this week with two public events for her second annual women’s Post- Catastrophe Collaborative Workshop.
The first performance, “An Evening with Lydia Lunch” is Thursday from 6 to 8 p.m. at Gallery 525, 525 W. El Roblar Drive in Meiners Oaks. The second event, “A Special Evening Performance with Lydia Lunch and Post- Catastrophe Collaborative Workshop Participants” is Sunday at 6 p.m. at 4056 Grand Ave. in Ojai.
Cited by Time Out magazine as “one of the most influential performers to have emerged from New York City,” Lunch first burst onto the scene in the 1970s at the age of 16 with “a small suitcase, a winter coat and a big attitude.”
Since then, Lunch has performed with countless bands including Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, 8-Eyed Spy, 1313 and, most
recently, Big Sexy Noise. She has toured internationally as a spoken word performer, and taught workshops in performance at the San Francisco Art Institute and at David Moss’ Institute in Living Voice, in Ghent, Belgium. Lunch has written five books, which have been translated into seven languages, released more than 30 albums and acted in numerous films.
A list of individuals with whom Lydia Lunch has performed or collaborated reads like a Who’s Who of the avant- garde, alternative, Punk and post-Punk generation: Hubert Selby Jr., Henry Rollins, Jim Thirlwell, Richard Kern, Exene Cervenka and Karen Finley to name just a few.
After several decades of expressing edgy, poignant music, and spoken word performances defined by her passionate view on politics, the environment and the plight of women in the world, amid the hugs and expressions ofgratitude following her performances, Lunch heard a recurring question from women, “What do we do now?”
In response, an idea was born: a collaborative artist’s workshop for and by women. Designed to use the collaborative process as a transformative means of expression, catharsis and connection, the first workshop took place last year in Rennes, France. It was a positive experience for the participants and produced an array of powerful art works.
As a result of the success of that first workshop, another was conceived to take place this spring in Ojai. Lunch invited a group of women artists to facilitate the workshop including, singer/author Adele Bertei, multi-media artist Elise Passavant, sound/movement/yogi /Butoh dancer Vanessa Skantze, artist/writer Jane Handel and visual artist Kelly Luscombe Bea. Lunch will be on site to guide, cajole, entertain, and inspire.
Visit www.postcatastrophecollaborativeojai.com for information on fees and enrollment.
The first performance, “An Evening with Lydia Lunch” is Thursday from 6 to 8 p.m. at Gallery 525, 525 W. El Roblar Drive in Meiners Oaks. The second event, “A Special Evening Performance with Lydia Lunch and Post- Catastrophe Collaborative Workshop Participants” is Sunday at 6 p.m. at 4056 Grand Ave. in Ojai.
Cited by Time Out magazine as “one of the most influential performers to have emerged from New York City,” Lunch first burst onto the scene in the 1970s at the age of 16 with “a small suitcase, a winter coat and a big attitude.”
Since then, Lunch has performed with countless bands including Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, 8-Eyed Spy, 1313 and, most
recently, Big Sexy Noise. She has toured internationally as a spoken word performer, and taught workshops in performance at the San Francisco Art Institute and at David Moss’ Institute in Living Voice, in Ghent, Belgium. Lunch has written five books, which have been translated into seven languages, released more than 30 albums and acted in numerous films.
A list of individuals with whom Lydia Lunch has performed or collaborated reads like a Who’s Who of the avant- garde, alternative, Punk and post-Punk generation: Hubert Selby Jr., Henry Rollins, Jim Thirlwell, Richard Kern, Exene Cervenka and Karen Finley to name just a few.
After several decades of expressing edgy, poignant music, and spoken word performances defined by her passionate view on politics, the environment and the plight of women in the world, amid the hugs and expressions ofgratitude following her performances, Lunch heard a recurring question from women, “What do we do now?”
In response, an idea was born: a collaborative artist’s workshop for and by women. Designed to use the collaborative process as a transformative means of expression, catharsis and connection, the first workshop took place last year in Rennes, France. It was a positive experience for the participants and produced an array of powerful art works.
As a result of the success of that first workshop, another was conceived to take place this spring in Ojai. Lunch invited a group of women artists to facilitate the workshop including, singer/author Adele Bertei, multi-media artist Elise Passavant, sound/movement/yogi /Butoh dancer Vanessa Skantze, artist/writer Jane Handel and visual artist Kelly Luscombe Bea. Lunch will be on site to guide, cajole, entertain, and inspire.
Visit www.postcatastrophecollaborativeojai.com for information on fees and enrollment.
Seen/Unseen Surrealist Reception, Sat., 4/13:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB3eeXJLRQM
March 4, 2013, Previews
Avy Claire
East Coast artist Avy Claire spends this winter in Southern California and brings her keenly attuned responses to color, nature, time, and space for a solo show of recent abstract paintings. Opens March 6 at Gallery 525.

Avy Claire typically divides her time between studios in New York City and Maine. Her work explores the intersection of nature and culture from drawings and paintings to site-specific installations in galleries and natural settings. In these installations, Claire creates life-size, conceptual, floating landscapes for people to explore their relation to natural elements that are oftentimes at risk. In the Ojai exhibit, Claire is presenting small and midsize abstract paintings informed by her time spent in the chaparral landscape of Santa Barbara.
As an artist receptive to the environment, Claire responds through various art media in what she calls “marking time.” In recent years this has included small and large-scale drawings using layers of text from news cycles. While in California her reaction to the natural elements of her surroundings is approached through the same lens of her fine perceptions. Here her process of marking time is with paint by using layers of luminous color with pure brushstrokes to record her impressions and making a visible record of her retreat. Her work is sparse, in-the-moment, and pulls the viewer into the painting.
Her striking paintings bring to mind abstract color field artists such as Rothko and Frankenthaler. Conceptually, Claire is more aligned with the abstract painter Sam Francis who famously declared “I paint time.” Great minds think alike, and Claire’s work has an expansive quality that drops one into time within an expanse of color and spatial gesture. Her paintings provide a stimulating mix of pure color expressionism and minimalism at its best.
As an artist receptive to the environment, Claire responds through various art media in what she calls “marking time.” In recent years this has included small and large-scale drawings using layers of text from news cycles. While in California her reaction to the natural elements of her surroundings is approached through the same lens of her fine perceptions. Here her process of marking time is with paint by using layers of luminous color with pure brushstrokes to record her impressions and making a visible record of her retreat. Her work is sparse, in-the-moment, and pulls the viewer into the painting.
Her striking paintings bring to mind abstract color field artists such as Rothko and Frankenthaler. Conceptually, Claire is more aligned with the abstract painter Sam Francis who famously declared “I paint time.” Great minds think alike, and Claire’s work has an expansive quality that drops one into time within an expanse of color and spatial gesture. Her paintings provide a stimulating mix of pure color expressionism and minimalism at its best.