When painter Lore Eckelberry has her work put on display at the Avenue 50 studio, she’ll be following in the footsteps of many prominent artists. But the path which she took to get to this point is anything but typical— and she’ll be the first to tell you so.
“I was (initially) very much involved in finances… one day in 1999, the Van Gogh exhibition came to LA. My friends wanted me to go and spend a day there. I didn’t want to, but I went there and I was stuck,” explains Ecklelberry. “I decided from the second I saw his paintings…that’s what I wanted to do.”
After this revelatory moment, Eckelberry’s architect husband supported her dream by buying a small canvas and some acrylic paints. From there, one thing led to another: “I was painting for a month…one of (my husband’s) clients came for a meeting. He saw my paintings he said ‘why don’t you come and do the paintings for this restaurant’… Of course, I had no idea what this entailed. I was up day and night, but…at the end, he said ‘how much do you want for these’, and I had no idea so I said ‘$4,500 for each’ and he said ‘no problem!’ It was like a dream.”
After a chance meeting at her son’s birthday party, an artist friend then told the nascent painter she should begin showing her material. She submitted to a local show and was stunned when her piece came in first place. “They said it was different,” she recalls. “(people) liked I what I was doing. Then a curator from Japan came and invited me there, and…then I was invited to Thailand, and it just started rolling on.”
Eckelberry toured the world with her unique brand of artwork, exhibiting in galleries throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. Given her travels, Eckelberry has come to describe her own art style as one culled from various cultures, stating: “Traveling and meeting other artists makes me inspired…in the beginning, my inspiration was Van Gogh so it was a little bit choppy. But…there’s a little bit of European pop art…I’m getting to be a little looser and abstracted with my portraits. When you don’t go to school you are not fixed to one technique.”
Though Eckelberry did attend the Art Center in Pasadena, she left when the professional demand for her paintings became too great. Before long, she was garnering the attention of prestigious gallerists worldwide; among them, Kathleen Gallegos of Avenue 50, an arts organization in Highland Park. After seeing Eckelberry’s during a showcase with artist Raoul De La Sota, Gallegos asked her to exhibit her paintings in the hip, content-driven gallery. “Lore energetically incorporates patterns, fonts and high contrast imagery onto her canvas,” remarked Gallegos. “Her mastery of portraiture dominates.”
Indeed, portraits are at the core of Eckelberry’s show, titled “The Face Of Color”. One portion of the exhibit is dedicated to paintings related to a recent trip Eckelberry took to Mexico. “(I went) to Oaxaca in June,” she reminisces. “People actually dress in the traditional clothes, which you don’t see anywhere. I started taking photos of them and then…I just really wanted to paint them.”
Another part of the exhibit relates to Eckelberry’s time in Japan, which acted as something of a formative experience. “I put 15 American artists into this gallery in Tokyo for two weeks, and we had more than 7,000 visitors. My show…created a cultural exchange for Tokyo.”
Perhaps Eckelberry’s most imaginative material is reserved for the section dedicated to paintings done on skateboard decks. “Five or six years ago, when I started traveling a lot…I had to figure out a way where it would be easier to travel with (art supplies), so I started painting on skateboard decks, sometimes…two, three, or six at a time. I take them apart and I have a suitcase and when I arrive I just put them together again. When I was in Japan they ask me why skateboard decks. I said that it has a lot to do with me trying to bring California into another culture.”
And, over the course of her “Face of Color” exhibit, Eckelberry will return the favor by bringing slivers of her worldly travels right back to California.“I was born in Mexico City but I really was never involved in the Latin community here…” she recalls. “But since I’ve been exhibiting…with the artists at Avenue 50, I like that I’m getting to diversify a bit.” And surely, her adoring public will like it just the same. Be sure to stop by Avenue 50 to take in the “Face of Color”, running through October 6th.
Avenue 50 Studio can be found at 131 N Avenue 50, Los Angeles, CA 90042. avenue50studio.org
