Saatchi art palette lands in Santa Monica, Day 2

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10. 25. 2025. For LaArtTV by Joan Gartley, curator Berlin.

Artist Elmer Guevara, born in Los Angeles, 1990, to parents who emigrated from El Salvador to escape violence.

Large canvas “The Get Down”dominates the wall, instantly drawing the viewer in. This pivotal work reflects humanity’s fascination with chaos and social unrest, echoing the 1992 Rodney King Los Angeles riots, which the artist documents through his intense, evocative vision. The painting’s colors play like a symphony, recalling Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite—rising in tension, then dropping into eerie quiet. Colors of fear and desperation mix with bursts of bright pigment, signaling hope. Fernando Valenzuela in #34 brings a cloud of optimism. Figures clash in a life-or-death struggle, only to be interrupted by a Good Samaritan, breaking the fight.

Cats and snakes move with the enduring instinct to survive. A tower of TVs stands blank, as in The Truman Show(1998), leaving the world blank, staring into silence. A little girl, surrounded by life’s horrors, writes of hope and fear like Anne Frankduring WWII. A coyote, like DeLillo’s in Underworld,prowls the wasteland. Echoing Orpheus, human skeletons phone heaven pleading to return—yet God replies, “You are not Orpheus’ slaves.” A haunting image for reflecting on the paradox of human life. 

The place was buzzing, with visitors venturing into the art dungeon downstairs. A woman checked her high heel, while others in the crowd looked impeccably styled. Friends of the artist praised Elmer Guevara’s work, and lively conversations about his art filled the room—you could feel the excitement and wish you were there. His paintings are priced in the low five figures—contact the gallery.

Education: In 2017, Mr. Guevara earned a BFA in Painting from CSU Long Beach, CA, and in 2022, an art degree from Hunter College, New York. He exhibits internationally. 

Exhibition Dates: October 25 – December 6, 2025, at: 969 Chung King Rd, Los Angeles, CA 90012

She works in wealth management. Saying. The colors draw you in—slow, magnetic, impossible to resist. They spark a quiet urge for meditation, making you pause and breathe. In the gallery’s hush, the painting becomes an encounter a confident woman meets as she moves through her life. Laura continuing to talk about the art.  “The large paintings radiate into your eyes with sweeping color—meditatively intrusive—until you’re no longer just viewing the work but inside it, held by it, unwilling to be anywhere else. I only wish for a few comfortable museum benches to sit and take in this astonishing show. “My name is Andrea Roulnard artist, poet, writer, visiting the show as an observer for LaArtTV. As a poet, artist, and writer, I saw in the painting Luncheon vast pillow-colored clouds—its own rare chromatic signature, something of Arcadia. I imagined it like Fragonard’s The Swing—both figures drifting in and out of the canvas, with her lover on a second swing and a third, hidden swing for the incognito listener slipping into their romantic air.”

“Imagine a thirty-woman L.A. progressive soirée gathered for a LaArtTV Art performance titled Floating in Chromatic Clouds. A Meditation. It unfolds in three acts at Hauser & Wirth, Los Angeles. Flora Yukhnovich, flying in on British Airways, serves as master of ceremonies. The gallery is dark except for her work, Luncheon, lit by AKZU Tracron M3L track lights. The women sit on comfortable designer benches facing the north wall, where Flora’s painting hangs.  

Before the session begins, meditation guru Bob Roth steps in briefly to offer a simple guide to slip them into the moment—hinting that something remarkable is about to unfold.”