EVFA (The Backstory)

Many moons ago as a teenager I began producing small music events in the city of Los Angeles. These events involved navigating a nightlife scene in Los Angeles that now looking back on was a little dangerous for a 15-year old. Warehouses, lots, clubs, pop-up art shows is where it all happened, where my love of artistic creators began to flourish.

This continued for years until the day I decided that I might take a more serious stance in my life. I studied Business and Marketing, started working, built a career and 10 years after I started creating events I found myself deeply entrenched in the world of commercial banking and real estate, my role was as the commercial real estate analyst and appraiser for major developers and banks.  I was drawing a good salary and at the time, was happy with my direction in life. However slowly but surely my urge for more creativity began to emerge and was no longer satisfied with the occasional museum visit, concert or party. With my brother Rush going to Art Center College of Design, I felt the urge creeping back even more. As a side project I began to put together small networking events in order for my brother and his friends to have a great meeting spot and network with my other friends in the film, fashion, music and art fields.

This was the spark. At this point what was a hobby took a life of its own. Leaving the safety of the corporate world I started my EVFA art gallery out of my loft and began presenting monthly art shows, music shows, producing small films and facilitating in all aspects of fashion, it was a fantastic rush of creativity. Now, I wont give away all my secrets that have led to a successful transition from the corporate banking world to the world of Art and production, but I will say this; I started EVFA as a labor of love with a make or break attitude as far as financial success, I love what I do as I get to choose all the amazing people I work with and I am surrounded in amazing visual and audio art, so my passion for it is on everything you see my logo on. EVFA will always strive to provide you with a little extra no matter what we do.

Look for the Gallery Openings which mostly feature outstanding emerging artists from U.S., Music happenings which feature Breakout music talent from California with special touring guests, Film community networking events and small art film production (I will start posting some here) and larger scale community festivals. It is all about being creative, expressing your passion, to me all these industries are all the same, we all want to make a living doing what we love, I try to make a living helping people do what they love, pushing them to the front of the stage and showing off there talents like a proud parent, regardless of financial success. I believe art and culture to be a necessity of life and I am here to help you get your share of it.

Edgar Varela produces public and private cultural events throughout Los Angeles; he is based out of his Downtown Los Angeles art gallery where he maintains regular art openings. On his spare time he sits on the board of two arts non-profits and is the board director on the Neighborhood Council. You can find him working production, music and art at Bloomfest LA, Abbot Kinney Fest, Target Fiesta de la Familia and at his gallery @ 727 S. Spring Street, LA 90014.

EVFA Summer Group Show

Summer Group Show

On August 4th we will be hosting a summer group show that will showcase some new work by talented Painters, Illustrators and Photographers.

Cocktail reception generously sponsored by PAMA liquor & Friends.
All exhibitions are FREE and open to the Public.

Catherine Asanov
Dan Milnor
Brian Ramirez
Rachael Rendon
Rush Varela

Reception is 7-10pm on August 4th. Show Runs through August 25th.

The front room will have the Freestyle Photo Employee show, it is sure to be a great exhibition by DRKRM Gallery.

Flashback to Now: Eloy Torres and Juliane Backmann, A New Art Exhibition @ EVFA

Edgar Varela Fine Arts is proud to present :

Flashback to Now, A new exhibition featuring the paintings of Eloy Torrez and the photography of Juliane Backmann

Exhibition Opens Saturday June 23rd from 7-10pm

Exhibition runs June 23rd to July 21st.

EVFA @ 727 S. Spring Street, LA 90014
Spring Street between 7th and 8th Street

There’s something profoundly unsettled about Flashback to Now, a series of oil on canvas paintings by Los Angeles based Eloy Torrez and photographs by Juliane Backmann.

In Torrez’s “She Said He Said” A hollow-faced couple stares out of the canvas from a rumpled bed. A businessman levitates front and center above a desert floor while other working professionals recede with backs turned. A white-faced autobiographical character jumps into the foreground as an office building and a pair of car stereo speakers take to the air in “Somewhere between Los Angeles and Albuquerque”. What is the relationship between these subjects? Who are they now? Who were they before?

Juliane Backmann’s photographs of urban landscapes likewise asks more questions than it answers. Using a large format field camera with color negative film, Los Angeles based Backmann captures banks, lobbies, churches, courtyards, parking lots and other silent protagonists of the urban landscape, each one devoid of people. Her empty vignettes speak as much to what’s in the frame as what’s not. Where has everyone gone? What is the purpose of these spaces when empty?

In the case of both Torrez and Backmann, the work isn’t about what unfolds in front of the viewer. It’s about the cracks in between. It is work that tells of the passing of time–not of people and not of places. Generations unfold in Torrez’s surreal scenes–that which brings his subjects together is seemingly less powerful than the stories that divide them. In Backmann’s photographs, time of day is obscured and purpose of space is obscured too. Hers are still lives of a place caught off-guard and off-duty. Combined, the works of these two artists is a convergence of oblique narratives and stories partially told.

As one of Los Angeles’ most iconic muralists over the past three decades, Eloy Torrez has long been to uncovering such stories. Among his works are the Pope of Broadway mural on the Victor Clothing Company building in downtown Los Angeles, and Portrait of Hollywood, a John Ritter tribute mural at Hollywood High School. He is a 2009 C.O.L.A. grant recipient. A native of New Mexico, Torrez is a graduate of Otis Art Institute.

Juliane Backmann too has had turned her lens on the people and places of her adopted city. Originally from Muenster, Germany, Backmann has chronicled the Los Angeles art scene over the last fifteen years for a forthcoming book of portraits, featuring artists Carlee Fernandez, Eugenia Butler and more. She has exhibited internationally and is the recipient of a 2013 Emily Harvey Foundation artist residency in Venice, Italy. Backmann studied photography at the Academy of Photography in Munich.

Totaling five works by Torrez and six by Backmann, these two series will be exhibited as one, intermixed on the walls at Edgar Varela Fine Art (EVFA) in downtown Los Angeles. The exhibition is on view from June 23 – July 21, 2012.

Piano Duo in Concert: Natasha Marin + Gerald Robbins @ UCLA’s Schoenberg Hall on June 16th

PIANO DUO IN CONCERT
Pianists Natasha Marin and Gerald Robbins
Announce Classical Music Performances

West Coast Premiere on June 16 at UCLA Schoenberg Hall

LOS ANGELES – Pianists Natasha Marin and Gerald Robbins announce an exciting collaboration, which launches this summer with a concert at UCLA Schoenberg Hall on June 16 followed by a performance this fall at Carnegie Weill Recital Hall in New York.

The West Coast premiere showcases works by 19th-century quintessential romantic composers. The hour-long program opens with Anton Arensky (Silhouetten, Suite op. 23) and Johannes Brahms (Variations on a theme by Haydn, op. 56b). After intermission, the performance continues with Sergei Rachmaninoff (Suite No2 op. 17) and Camille Saint-Saëns (Variations on a theme by Beethoven op. 35).

Natasha Marin & Gerald Robbins
Piano Duo in Concert
Saturday, June 16 @ 8:00 PM
UCLA Schoenberg Hall
445 Charles E. Young Drive East, Los Angeles, CA 90095

TICKETS $15 general / $10 students & seniors • http://bit.ly/marin-robbins-piano
PARKING $11 in Lot 2 (enter at Hilgard & Westholme) • www.ucla.edu/maps-directions-parking
Doors open at 7:30 PM • INFO (213) 537-4483 • www.natashamarin.com

The East Coast premiere is at Carnegie Weill Recital Hall in New York on Thursday, November 8. Program and ticket information will be released later this summer. Both concerts are produced by CauseConnect and EVFA. To receive notifications on this and other performances by Natasha Marin, sign up online to join her mailing list atwww.natashamarin.com.

GERALD ROBBINS – www.geraldrobbins.com
“A pianist of authority and imagination. Versatile, secure in every respect, a spectacular technique.”
~ Los Angeles Times

Gerald Robbins has distinguished himself internationally as a soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician of poetic sensitivity and virtuosic technique. Since capturing a major prize at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 1969, he has performed regularly in the world’s major music centers throughout Europe, Japan, and the United States. As a soloist accompanied by an orchestra, he has performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, BBC Symphony and its affiliates, and Royal Liverpool Symphony under such conductors as Zubin Mehta, Neville Marriner, Edouard van Remoortel, Okku Kamu, Jorge Mester, and Lawrence Foster. In addition, Robbins’ chamber music activities include collaborations with noted violinists Nathan Milstein, Pinchas Zukerman, Kyung-Wha Chung, Glenn Dicterow, and Ruggiero Ricci. Featured on numerous radio and television broadcasts, Robbins performed Rhapsody in Blue on the Emmy-award winning Gershwin TV special starring Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, and was the featured pianist on the soundtrack for the Academy Award-winning British film, A Shocking Accident. A champion of neglected romantic repertoire, Robbins’ artistry on the London-Decca, Orion and Genesis labels include world-premiere recordings of concerti by Litolff and Reinecke. He is co-founder of the Lyric Piano Quartet and is a member of the chamber music faculty of the Manhattan School of Music in New York City.

NATASHA MARIN – www.natashamarin.com
“… balancing pianistic flair with musical intellingence, Marin’s playing of the cadenza was a dazzling showstopper”
~ Crescenta Valley Weekly

“Natasha Marin was impressive … Under her hands, she nearly pinned the audience to their seats with a fiery rendition of Chopin’s scherzo” ~ Boulevard Sentinel

Russian-born Natasha Marin began studying piano at age 6 and was later accepted into the Special Music School for Gifted Children at the St. Petersburg State Conservatory. She earned her B.A. in piano performance from the conservatory’s Rimsky-Korsakov Music College, graduating with honors, and later studied with Leonid Sintsev and Igor Lebedev. After moving to California, she attended UCLA where she studied piano with Vitaly Margulis and Professor Antoinette Perry, contemporary music with Grammy Award-winning pianist Gloria Cheng, and worked with acclaimed scholar/media author Robert Winter.

Currently, she performs classical genres (and non-classical repertoire) as a soloist and with piano duos, vocalists, and chamber ensembles. In addition to radio and television appearances, she has recorded and performed live at St. Petersburg Philharmonic Hall in Russia, Comerica Theater in Phoenix, Gable Theater Stage in Coral Gables, Florida, Leo Bing Theater, Colburn School’s Zipper Hall, and Thorne Hall in Los Angeles, and other U.S. and international venues.

Premiering June 2008 in Los Angeles, her piano duo “Double Sharp” with Maria Demina won the Grand Prize at a regional competition and appeared live and on the radio nationwide. The program features music of Russian romantic and 20th-century composers, incorporating an innovative presentation with custom costumes by designer Vera DeFehr. “Double Sharp” has performed also at charity events like Robert Shapiro’s Foundation and Alice Cooper’s Solid Rock Foundation.

Together with French soprano Nicol Mecerova, Marin created “Voyage a Paris,” program spanning 200 years of the French Art Song, which was presented in the US and Russia. She also performs with her husband actor/comedian Cheech Marin. The couple has appeared at the Hollywood Bowl, Valley Performing Arts Center of the California State University, Northridge, and Bonnaroo Festival in Manchester, Tennessee. She has also worked with Grammy Award-winning producer Peter Asher, playing piano on “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” for the album “Siren” by vocal duo Sasha and Shawna (Manhattan Records, 2007).

John Klukas, Solo Exhibition “Phantom Queen” at EVFA 4/28

Edgar Varela Fine Arts is proud to present:

A solo exhibition for John Klukas ( http://www.45houses.com/ )

“The Phantom Queen”

Opening reception is April 28th from 7-10pm
Exhibition runs to May 15th.

EVFA
727 S. Spring Street, Los Angeles, 90014

Pages 24-42 of Fabrik
http://issuu.com/fabrik/docs/fabrik16

Artist Statement: ( http://www.45houses.com/ )

I like creating something that doesn’t really exist – a physical representation of a fantasy or dream. I begin an image usually with a vision or a sketch from a dream. From there I pull together my team, cast a model and build the environment in which the image is to take place. I often invent lighting schemes and camera techniques to support the realization of my images. These settings do not exist and so I cannot use traditional means to document them. I must go outside the normal boundaries of how a camera is used and instead use it’s unique characteristics to distort and blur reality in order to create my images.

I do my work because it is the only way I can communicate these beautiful visions. They are my representations of the beauty which I see in the world. When I create, I am reminded that the vision inside of me is larger than the sum of the individual parts that are invested in its creation. I view being able to create these images as a remarkable gift and the amount of trust and cooperation that it takes to create my images is reflected in the intimacy present within them.

Currently, I’m trying to refine the language I use to communicate my dreams. I want to increase the impact and potency of my images. I am exploring how far I can bring the camera into my dreams and how well I can document things that don’t exist and have never happened. I am exploring people’s reactions to these things and using their perceptions of the camera as an archival truth-teller to confuse and disorient the viewer into believing that these ephemeral apparitions exist in the material realm. When people see my work I would like them to use it to reflect upon their own attitudes about beauty and to see that these visions are an intimate part of me, which I am sharing with the world.

 

“Looking Glass” A New Photo Exhibition curated by Shana Nys Dambrot on April 20th at Analog Salon

An official MOPLA event (Month of Photography LA)
Image by Suzanne Adelman (Untitled, 2011)

EVFA & Digital Fusion Presents Analog Salon

“Looking Glass”, A Photography Exhibition curated by Shana Nys Dambrot

Opens Friday April 20th 2012, 6pm -9 pm with a reception for the artists. It is open to the public.

Sponsored by PAMA Liqueurs an Frey Organic Wines.

The exhibition will be open from April 20th, through June 1st at The Analog Salon at Samitaur Constructs, 3535 Hayden Avenue, Culver City, California. Gallery hours are 9am through 5pm, Monday through Friday.

Participating artists:

Viggo Mortenson

Gary Baseman

Lawren Alice

Sam Comen

Marjan Vayghan

Jody Zellen

Mark Schumacher & Scott Elgart

Sara Jane Boyers

Emily Bradley

Johnny White

Jennifer Vanderpool

Suzanne Adelman

“Looking Glass”

Everyone knows a painter, for example, starts with a blank canvas and piles of pigment and that whether they makes landscape, portrait, or abstract images based in whole, in part, or not at all on external phenomenon, that the thing they make is wholly created from “nothing” or, put another way “imagination” whereas photography by definition involves interacting with the external world not entirely of your making. For LOOKING GLASS I’ve assembled a dozen photographers whose work is in various ways made in a collaboration between the imagination and the world — to explore ways that the camera is an expressive, fantastical, imaginative and pliable medium as well as form of document that contains evidence of external reality.

-Shana Nys Dambrot, Guest Curator ( http://sndx.net/ )

The Analog Salon is a fine art photographic exhibition space housed at Samitaur Constructs, the noted architectural firm, in partnership with Digital Fusion, a premiere digital photographic rental and post-production facility and produced by Edgar Varela (EVFA). Located in Culver City, California, The Analog Salon highlights the exceptional talent of new, emerging and established photographers with an emphasis on Los Angeles based artists. Supporting the arts by providing not only a space but a full production and marketing effort to showcase talent and support artist projects, The Analog Salon will contribute to the art dialogue integrating its associated artists and partners as an important part of the cultural life of Los Angeles.

The Analog Salon at Samitaur Constructs, 3535 Hayden Avenue, Culver City, Californiahttp://www.analogsalon.com/ http://gallery-store.digitalfusion.net/The-Analog-Salon/

Ansel Adams Los Angeles (Circa1940)

Ansel Adams Los Angeles

February 18 -March 17, 2012
Opening Reception Saturday, February 18, 2012 6-10pm
727 S. Spring Street, Los Angeles, CA 90014

Edgar Varela Fine Arts (EVFA) in association with drkrm are honored to present Ansel Adams Los Angeles, rarely seen photographs that reveal the lost landscape and lifestyle of a prewar Los Angeles. These nostalgic images from the archives of The Los Angeles Public Library Ansel Adams Collection, represent Ansel Adams as a photojournalist on assignment for Fortune Magazine in 1940. Ansel Adams Los Angeles will be on display from February 18 through March 17, 2012.

In 1940 Los Angeles had a population of 1.5 million. The cost of gas was 10 cents and a new car was $700. The U.S. began rearming for World War II and the prestigious Ansel Adams was commissioned by Fortune Magazine to photograph a series of images for an article covering the aviation industry in the Los Angeles area. For the project, Adams took over 200 black & white photographs showing everyday life, businesses, street scenes and a variety of other subjects. But when the article, City of the Angels, appeared in the March 1941 issue, only a few of the images were included.

In the early 1960s Adams rediscovered the photographs among papers at his home in Carmel and donated them to the Los Angeles Public Library. He wrote in a letter: “The weather was bad over a rather long period and none of the pictures were very good… I would imagine that they represent about $100.00 minimum value… At any event, I do not want them back.” But as many critics will agree, sometimes an artist is not always the best judge of their own work.

Ansel Adams (1902-1984) created some of the most influential photographs ever made; he was one of this century’s leading exponents of environmental values. It seems that every third family in America has an Adams’ poster on the wall, images that were difficult to make but easy to love. His images portray a romanticized and unspoiled Western American landscape, but Ansel Adams Los Angeles is a whole other body of work that is rarely discussed, let alone seen.

drkrm, in association with Edgar Varela Fine Arts (EVFA), and with the cooperation of the The Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection and The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust, will create and exhibit new silver-gelatin prints made from the original negatives. These dramatic black and white limited-edition photographs, on display to the public for the first time, will be offered for purchase with a portion of the proceeds benefiting the LAPL.

Ansel Adams Los Angeles is part of Pacific Standard Time. Pacific Standard Time is an unprecedented collaboration of more than sixty cultural institutions across Southern California, coming together to tell the story of the birth of the L.A. art scene. Initiated through grants from the Getty Foundation, Pacific Standard Time will take place for six months beginning October 2011.

Pacific Standard Time is an initiative of the Getty. The presenting sponsor is Bank of America.
All gallery events are free and open to the public.

“Ansel Adams, Looking South on Hill Street, LA c.1939″