Lifestyle
Everywhere you need to be during Frieze L.A.
Frieze Los Angeles
Frieze L.A. returns to Santa Monica Feb. 26 to March 1.
(Casey Kelbaugh/Frieze/CKA)
Ah, Frieze L.A. The raison d’être for all things art-related happening here in late February. The fair can be overstimulating, but it’s still important to traverse the maze of booths at Santa Monica Airport to acquaint oneself with the best art galleries the world has to offer from Feb. 26 to March 1. Karma’s booth will feature paintings from Ernie Barnes and Milton Avery Pace will stage a never-before-seen installation by James Turrell; Hoffman Donahue is presenting its first expanded program highlighting Martine Syms; David Kordansky Gallery is showing Sam Gilliam and Lauren Halsey; and Superposition will show Greg Ito in the Focus section, among many others. frieze.com
Frieze Party at Hauser & Wirth
On Feb. 23 Hauser & Wirth is throwing a party to celebrate new shows from artist Christina Quarles and collector Eileen Harris Norton.
(Mario de Lopez/Hauser & Wirth)
Hauser & Wirth’s exhibition opening parties are always the best place to run into approximately 60% of the people you know, and the outdoor setting makes it one of the few events in L.A. where you can rock a coat that would otherwise be relegated to the shadows of your closet. The one on Feb. 23 is in celebration of the gallery’s new shows from artist Christina Quarles and collector Eileen Harris Norton. hauserwirth.com
Silencio residency at the Edition
From Feb. 24-26, Silencio is landing in West Hollywood for a three-night residency.
(Billy Farrell/BFA.com)
The legendary Parisian nightlife institution is landing in West Hollywood for a three-night residency, Feb. 24-26, where the art, fashion and music worlds will collide for a night of dancing under Sunset at Edition’s ceiling of disco balls. Tuesday night is hosted by Whitewall Magazine, Wednesday night is hosted by LACMA Avant-Garde and Enzo Los Angeles and Thursday night has How Long Gone and Tom of Finland at the helm. sunsetatedition.com
Baile World
On Feb. 27, Baile World is throwing a party celebrating Black club music for Black History Month.
(Avery Davis)
Baile World is the brainchild of founder Courtney Hollinquest, a staple of L.A.’s nightlife scene known for centering POC femmes — both in terms of the audience she curates and the DJs she books. The party on Feb. 27 is a night celebrating Black club music for Black History Month, featuring sets from Kevin Saunderson (Detroit techno legend), SHEKDASH, DJ Nico, Tromac and CQUESTT herself. Pull up to bask in the glory of genres with Black roots: techno, house and ghettotech. Tickets range from $15 to $40. ra.co
Butter Fine Art Fair
Designed to spotlight established and emerging Black artists, Butter Fine Art Fair is making its L.A. debut this week.
(Butter Fine Art)
Butter, an art fair founded five years ago in Indianapolis, is making its inaugural debut in Los Angeles at Inglewood’s Hollywood Park, running from Feb. 26-March 1. Curated by Nakeyta Moore, Kimberly Drew and Butter co-founders Malina Simone and Alan Bacon, the fair is designed to spotlight L.A.’s established and emerging Black artists. In a rare move, 100% of artwork sales go directly to the artists, showing an emphasis on accessibility and equity. Artists on view include Mr. Wash, April Bey, Autumn Breon, Micaiah Carter and many others. butterartfair.com
Post-Fair
Edgar Ramirez Jale (from “Alameda Stones” series), 2026. House paint on cardboard, mounted on canvas 12 x 12 in 30.5 x 30.5 cm. Courtesy the artist and Chris Sharp Gallery, Los Angeles.
(Moë Wakai)
The boutique alternative art fair founded last year by gallerist Chris Sharp is returning to its open-format venue in Santa Monica — a historic 1930s Art Deco post office (hence the name). It runs from Feb. 26-28, and features a strong list of solo presentations from galleries, including Bel Ami, CASTLE, Mariposa, Marta and others.
Felix Art Fair
Felix Art Fair booths reflect the breadth of L.A.’s art scene.
(Felix Art Fair)
The eighth edition of Felix Art Fair will take place, per usual, at the iconic Hollywood Roosevelt hotel from Feb. 26-March 1, with booths that reflect the breadth of L.A.’s art scene and a diverse collection of galleries more globally. Exhibitors from Tokyo, Buenos Aires, Milan, Seoul and London will have a presence, including ones from Chicago, Miami, Dallas, New York and our very own Los Angeles, of course. (The David Hockney pool in the center of the action is always a nice centerpiece too.) felixfair.com
Harmonia Rosales in ‘Beginnings’ at Getty Museum
“Portrait of Eve,” 2021. Harmonia Rosales (American, born 1984). Oil, gold leaf, and silver leaf on panel, 91.4 × 91.4 cm (36 × 36 in.) The Akil Family © Harmonia Rosales. Photo: Brad Kaye. L.2026.4
(The Getty Museum)
“Beginnings: The Story of Creation in the Middle Ages” explores how the biblical concept of Genesis has been interpreted and visualized across time, starting with artists making work during the Middle Ages. Harmonia Rosales’ Black figurative paintings combine Eurocentric artistic traditions with African diasporic cosmologies as a way to course-correct the historical erasure of Black images from classical narratives. In “Beginnings,” her contemporary works are in conversation with the Getty’s medieval illuminated manuscripts, creating a collision of past and present that broadens our understanding of origin and authorship. The exhibition runs through April 19. getty.edu
Sayre Gomez at David Kordansky
Sayre Gomez, “Family Haircuts,” 2025. Acrylic on canvas, 96 x 72 inches (243.8 x 182.9 cm).
(David Kordansky Gallery)
“Precious Moments,” is a solo show of new paintings, sculpture and video by Sayre Gomez, spanning all three of the gallery’s spaces. Gomez’s approach to observing urban life is authentic and impacted by the unreliability of memory. His large-scale, photorealistic paintings render L.A.’s visual language through tools like commercial photo retouching, Hollywood set painting and manual sign painting traditions, creating a unique commentary on image making and the city’s systems of communication. The exhibition runs through March 1. davidkordanskygallery.com
Lyndon J. Barrois Sr. at LACMA
Detail of “Fútballet,” 2018, by Lyndon J. Barrois Sr.
(Courtesy of Lyndon J. Barrois Sr)
Los Angeles-based, New Orleans-born artist and animator Lyndon J. Barrois Sr. brings action and a singular approach to art making to the museum with his solo exhibition, “Fûtbol Is Life: Animated Sportraits.” This visual history of the World Cup from 1930 to present day shows iconic moments from the sport staged with vivid detail, and is brought to life by Barrois’ miniature figures made from gum wrappers. In anticipation for the eight matches L.A. is hosting for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, this show offers a wide-ranging and carefully crafted survey on the breadth of cultural representation and identities that exist within the sport globally, and commentary on the nuanced political undertones of “the beautiful game.” The exhibition runs through July 12. lacma.org
Samella Lewis at Louis Stern Fine Arts
Samella Lewis (1923-2022). “Cleo,” 1996 Ed. 31/50 II lithograph 30 x 22 inches; 76.2 x 55.9 centimeters LSFA# 15092. ©Estate of Samella Lewis. Photo: Christian Nguyen.
(Louis Stern Fine Arts)
“The Work Is Never Finished: Prints, Drawings, and Paintings” unearths the prolific work of Samella Lewis (1923-2022), an artist, educator, activist, historian and curator. Lewis kept her own practice throughout her life, even as she worked for museums and universities, founded the Museum of African American Art in Los Angeles and launched the periodical, Black Art: An International Quarterly (later published as the International Review of African American Art). As a Black woman who grew up in the segregated South, she transmuted the prejudice her community faced into striking scenes of human connection, many of them sketched from memory and some rendered as linocuts. The exhibition runs through March 7. louissternfinearts.com
Takashi Murakami at Perrotin Los Angeles
Takashi Murakami, “Kitagawa Utamaro’s ‘Parody of an Imperial Carriage Scene’ Cherry Blossoms Dancing in the Air – SUPERFLAT,” 2025 – 2026. 235 x 463.8 cm. Acrylic, gold leaf and platinum leaf on canvas mounted on aluminum frame. ©︎2025-2026 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
(Perrotin)
A new solo exhibition by Takashi Murakami, the iconic founder of Japan’s postmodern Superflat movement, is on view at Perrotin: “Hark Back to Ukiyo-e: Tracing Superflat to Japonisme’s Genesis.” Inspired by a visit to Giverny, the village Claude Monet called home, Murakami explores ukiyo-e and Impressionism in 24 new paintings. They explore fashion, feminine sensuality, landscapes (“floating world pictures”) in a show that is as colorful as it is a nuanced commentary on how Japanese approaches to composition inspired European painters. The exhibition runs through March 14. perrotin.com
Ramsés Noriega at Marc Selwyn Fine Art
Ramsés Noriega, “La cantante de la muerte,” 1974. Acrylic on mat board, 27 1/4 x 20 inches (MSFA19775).
(Marc Selwyn Fine Art)
“Ramsés Noriega: De Sonora a Los Ángeles” includes works on paper produced by the artist, an early pioneer of the Chicano Art movement, between 1968 and 1989. A former migrant farm worker, Noriega immigrated to the United States from Sonora, Mexico, in the 1950s. He was a co-organizer of the 1970 Chicano Moratorium march in East L.A., one of the largest Mexican American anti-war demonstrations in U.S. history with an estimated 30,000 participants. Often employing caricature, distortion and symbolism to communicate anxiety and resistance, his works are personal and political, offering a critique of the systems that oppress people of color. Concurrent with this exhibition, Noriega’s work is also on view (through Feb. 28) at the Chicano Park Museum and Cultural Center in “Fragmentos Del Barrio: A 60 Year Retrospective,” which surveys six decades of the artist’s work and activism. The exhibition at Marc Selwyn Fine Art runs through March 14. marcselwynfineart.com
Zenobia Lee at Sea View
Zenobia Lee, “Aluminum Domino II,” 2026. Cast Aluminum, 15 x 8 x 1 in (38 x 20 1/3 x 2 1/2 cm). Zenobia Lee, “Aluminum Domino III,” 2026. Cast aluminium, 20 x 9 x 1 3/4 in (50 3/4 x 23 x 4 1/2 cm). Zenobia Lee, “Aluminum Domino I.” Cast aluminum, 15 x 8 x 1 in (38 x 20 1/3 x 2 1/2 cm).
(AVN)
“Démesuré” is the debut solo exhibition of sculptor Zenobia Lee, an extension of which will be presented by the gallery in a booth of works at Frieze Los Angeles. Objects like dominos and leaves, which figure into the history of Caribbean imperialism, are fashioned from steel and wood. At once, they confront the absurdity of the relationship between absence and presence, and subvert expectations through Lee’s striking approach to scale. The exhibition runs through March 28. sea-view.us
Ash Roberts at Francis Gallery
Ash Roberts, “November Ember” (2026). Framed: 184h × 123w cm. Acrylic, oil, oil stick, gold pigment on canvas.
(Erik Benjamins)
“The Year Room” is a collection of Ash Roberts’ delicate landscape paintings, which reveal a poetic understanding of the natural world and a soft yet embodied color palette. These works are Impressionistic, displaying washes of scenes featuring elements like lily pads and flowers, some of them incorporating gold leaf as an accent in reference to the Japanese kintsugi technique. The exhibition runs through April 18. francisgallery.com
Evan Nicole Brown is a Los Angeles-born writer, editor and journalist who covers the arts and culture. Her work has been featured in Architectural Digest, the Cut, Fast Company, Getty Magazine, the Hollywood Reporter, the New York Times, T Magazine and elsewhere. She is the managing editor of Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles and the founder of Group Chat, a conversation series and creative salon in L.A.
In central London’s Waterloo Place, a life-size statue that emerged overnight in late April has been creating a stir. When I visited a few weeks after it was erected, local authorities had already set up protective barriers around it.
The installation — signed by the famed street artist Banksy — depicts a man in a suit hoisting a flag as he strides over a precipice. As he marches on, the flag blows backward to cover his face, leaving him unaware he’s only a step away from a perilous fall.
Set among grand monuments celebrating Britain’s past, the “flag man” takes on a particular visual irony at a time when the country — and much of the world — is debating its path forward.
Like many viewers there, I found myself wondering whether this statue is Banksy’s warning about the consequences of uncritical nationalism, or simply a reflection on human shortsightedness. Or, perhaps, it is just prompting us to ponder a broader question: What happens when devotion to a symbol prevents us from seeing what lies ahead?
Whatever the message, the work feels remarkably attuned to the current moment.
For more Far-Flung Postcards, click here.
Lifestyle
Wait, it’s a candle? Her beeswax fruit and veggie ones look so real, you’ll want to take a bite
Jessica Gonzalez hustles behind her booth at the recent Renegade Craft Fair, frantically ringing up sales, answering questions and packaging her beeswax candles.
It’s hot on the grounds of the Los Angeles State Historic Park in April, but 35-year-old Gonzalez and her fiancé, Jordan Colindres, keep their cool as a crowd gathers to admire her Happy Organics candle collection, a homage to her family’s produce company in the Central Valley that looks like real fruits and vegetables.
“I love doing in-person events because it’s so fun to see people’s reactions,” she said a few months later. “It makes me feel good to see other people finding joy in my candles. They often say, ‘Oh, that’s really funny.’ And it is funny to have a cherry candle on top of your birthday cake.”
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1. A staff member pulls a beeswax corn candle, $26, out of its mold at Happy Organics’ studio in downtown Los Angeles. 2. Each Beeswax Mixed Berry Birthday Candles set is cast from real mixed berries — strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries and cherries. A set of 10 is $30. 3. Bartlett green pears and heirloom tomatoes, $24 to $40.
Judging by the smiles and charmed looks on shoppers’ faces, her produce-inspired candles are less about illuminating rooms and more about sharing the joy she sought when she first started the company in 2018.
In this series, we highlight independent makers and artists, from glassblowers to fiber artists, who are creating original products in and around Los Angeles.
But then, it’s hard not to smile at the playfully elegant Bosc pears, puckered mandarins and green-and-purple asparagus taper candles which range in price from $12 to $40. Some are molded into corn on the cob, celery and rhubarb shapes. Others are made to look like mushrooms, figs, tomatoes and snap peas. The most popular are the small birthday candles shaped like raspberries, cherries and blackberries, packed in molded-pulp baskets just like you’d find at the grocery store or farmers market.
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Gonzalez didn’t start out as a designer. The youngest of nine children, she was born in 1991 in Salinas and later moved to Merced, where she grew up on a 10-acre farm. She studied computer science at Mills College, then worked in tech consulting in the Bay Area and eventually became the CTO of an ag-tech company. When her mother, Angela, became ill in 2016, she returned to Merced to be with her family.
When her mom died suddenly soon after she moved home, Gonzalez left the tech industry. “I wasn’t connected with what I was doing,” she said. “I wanted to find something more meaningful; something I loved. I didn’t want my ego to keep me stuck in what I studied in college. I decided to let myself try new hobbies and passions and look for joy again.”
After her mother’s death, she began working with her father, Salvador, and her uncles at the family’s apiary, where they managed more than 30 hives. (Her grandfather was also a beekeeper in Michoacán, Mexico.) Soon, she began selling their raw honey at local farmers markets. In a heartbreaking turn, her father was diagnosed with cancer a year later, so she started making cannabis-infused honey, balms and chocolates to help ease his pain.
When she saw that the beeswax candles, which last significantly longer than paraffin candles, were selling faster than the honey, she decided to focus on making candles from the leftovers from her uncles’ hives.
She was only 25, but it was a turning point. “It was one of those moments where I felt like I needed to change my path,” she said. “I needed to change everything in my life.”
Jessica Gonzalez and her father Salvador on their family farm in Merced. (Gonzalez family)
Gonzalez at Happy Organics’ studio in downtown Los Angeles. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
When her father died in 2018, she inherited his bees and started Happy Organics, although she hadn’t planned on starting a business. After experiencing so much loss, making candles became a kind of therapy. “It felt great to work with my hands again, something I thought I’d never have time for,” she said.
Her oldest sister, Sonia Gonzalez, said Gonzalez reminds her a lot of their father, who reinvented himself many times over the years.
The nopal cactus is cast from a real nopal and hand-poured in 100% pure beeswax in the Los Angeles studio.
“He grew up as a village boy in the rural mountains of Michoacán, Mexico, and went on to work in restaurants, cut down Christmas trees and pick strawberries and broccoli in the fields of Salinas,” she wrote in an email. “From there, he started selling produce door-to-door, then at flea markets and eventually built his own produce distribution business from the ground up. As the youngest of nine kids from a working-class family, Jessica’s always been incredibly resourceful, responsible, and amazing at reinventing herself.”
Like a lot of millennials, Gonzalez taught herself how to make candles by watching YouTube videos. She started with hand-dipped tapers, working in the garage on the farm that helped her feel safe and connected to her parents. “It was a really nice environment to try something new and creative,” she said.
Inspired by her family’s produce, she cast real corn, strawberries and cherries in plaster, then made a silicone mold to create copies. Even when using the same mold, color can vary from batch to batch, and how it cools also affects the result. “That’s just how handmade things are,” she said. “There’s always some variation.”
Cherry molds make cherry candles at Happy Organics’ studio in downtown Los Angeles.
A variety of fruit and veggie candles.
When she moved to Los Angeles in 2023 to be with Colindres, her business took off. “L.A. is a great place to grow,” she said. “There’s so much opportunity here. When I go to a farmers market, I never know who I’ll meet.”
She sold her candles in person at craft shows, the Hollywood Farmers’ Market and most recently, during a residency at the P.F. Candle Co. showroom in Echo Park.
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1. A staff member trims the wicks on a pair of carrot birthday candles, $22. 2. Gonzalez passes by shelves of candles at Happy Organics’ studio in downtown Los Angeles. 3. Asparagus taper candles, $30.
“I have a lot of respect for her as a fellow candle maker (making molds is not easy), but getting to know her story more and how her choice of foods and wax is reflective of her family’s history gave it so much meaning,” P.F. Candle Co. founder and creative director Kristen Pumphrey said in an email. “It’s been a tough couple of years for L.A. businesses, so we gotta stick together — there’s this wonderful sense of community hosting a local brand that’s so passionate about their work.”
As her business has expanded, her products are now available at Terrain, Joan’s on Third and the MoMA Design Store in addition to her website. She has also had to source beeswax from other vendors across the country to keep up with demand.
Kimberly Curtis, owner of Hide & Seek Vintage in Studio City, said Gonzalez’s strawberry and cherry birthday candles “flew off the shelves last year” during the holidays. “Our customers love them,” she added.
Gonzalez holds a cabbage candle.
Still, Gonzalez stays connected to her Central Valley roots. Everything she and her small team make in downtown Los Angeles is handmade and “takes time,” she said, describing the steps involved in crafting quality candles. Right now, her favorite is the Nopal Cactus candle, which she made using a clipping from an employee’s yard. While others help her with production, wholesale management and packaging, she focuses on sales, content and all-new product development.
When asked if she has advice for others who want to start their own business, Gonzalez admits she sometimes feels overwhelmed.
In 2013, Gonzalez and her family gathered at their Merced ranch to celebrate her parents’ anniversary.
(Gonzalez family)
“The biggest thing that has gotten me through the toughest spots is my why or my reason for starting,” she said. “I think that has to be really strong. That’s what brought me a lot of comfort when I felt like quitting: going back to the beginning and remembering why I started this.”
For Gonzalez, her reason is always close to her heart. “I wanted to feel connected to my parents in some way,” she said. “This was a good representation of my upbringing.”
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