The SilverLake Art Collective

A Reservoir of Artistic Diversity in Los Angeles




Bliss
Leah Devora


Throughout the Los Angeles neighborhoods shopping carts appear, disappear and reappear. They are an indigenous part of the LA landscape. The shopping cart s and freeways are ubiquitous motifs of the city. From Beverly Hills to Silver Lake, they are scattered on front lawns, hanging out in groups, taking a rest on the front yard or even waiting for a bus. LA Landscapes are paintings that are the personification of these motifs. I combine these motifs with the silhouettes of Old Hollywood movie stars and freeways. I create the artwork using graphic design and oil painting techniques. I use oil paint, photography and paint digitally with an oil painting program on the computer. I then print them out on canvas and paint over them with oils and then varnish them.  There aren’t actual photos in the artwork.

Having grown up in the South and living as an adult in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles, the urban landscape has been a central part of my life.  Every city owns it’s own personality and aesthetic. The lush green hills and red clay dirt of Atlanta inspired my earthy connections to the landscape, while the raw, gritty and rather honest landscape of New York inspired my moody and weighty artwork. Chicago spawned a dark, turbulent and expressionistic environmentally influenced body of work, while San Francisco nurtured a very thoughtful and conceptually based landscape,