Today we’d like to introduce you to Phoenix Rodman.
Phoenix, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I’ve always had a deep longing for foreign places and other time periods which led me to explore life in various parts of the world before coming back to LA. Born in Van Nuys and relocated to San Diego at seven, I later twice lived in Paris where I studied and took restaurant work, then, after graduating from UC Berkeley with a degree in economics, lived in Hawaii, then Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where I lived until 2005. From New York, I moved to Mediterranean Turkey, to a little bohemian coastal town called Kas across the bay from Greek islands and built on the site of ancient Lycia. Here I indulged in a truly old-fashioned lifestyle for ten years. My little village above the coast did not have running water until the year I moved in—the locals still draw water from the wells to this day– and my closest neighbors were fifth generation goat-herders by trade. I bought my milk and eggs from the farmer down the hill, painted, and rode horses that were captured and stabled every spring and re-released back into the wild every winter.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It’s never been smooth and never will be. I like the film analogy: who wants to watch 125 minutes of people happily going about their lives? Nobody would watch such a film. We like movies about major challenges rife with antagonism. That’s what we like, so we similarly constantly seek out challenges—even strife—in our real lives to build our own personal stories, our own dramatically interesting films if you will.
Please tell us about HOFA Gallery, Los Angeles.
With an eye toward innovations in art creation and collection, HOFA Gallery is dedicated to its internationally diverse program of artists whose aesthetic and conceptual sensibilities offer a mix of visual pleasure and dynamic engagement.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
My favorite memories from childhood are centered around my grandparents’ house right on the water in Oceanside, CA. When they bought it, it was the only house on that beach. My grandfather was very creative with humble materials and built a lovely fence out of found items like driftwood and other things washed up from the surf to delineate their property nearly down to the waterline. He also created an illegal subterranean den complete with kitchenette and bathroom, decorated with funny masks and seashell collections and it even had a pinball machine at one point. He concealed the den with a sliding bookshelf in case inspectors came by, so the house had this sort of Harry Potter type magic about it.
As a child, I thought all this was just fabulous—still do!—but looking back I think the neighbors sort of frowned upon our funky, illicit beach house as the area started to “come up” with slick new homes built to the north and south. Thank goodness for my grandmother and her striking sensibility who always kept good relations with people and was well-respected for her intellect. All-in-all I think the influence of my grandparents is significant to my pursuits in contemporary art as far as pushing limits and creative use of materials. To this day, I’m drawn to artwork that uses or celebrates humble objects. Here in LA there are some notable artists doing just this and it’s a theme that I think has territory yet to explore which is an exciting prospect for contemporary art.
Since joining HOFA Gallery, our curator, Simonida Pavicevic, has opened my eyes to international artists pushing boundaries in both old and new materials in a similar vein. We have Maxim Wakultschik who works with painted toothpicks, Ilhwa Kim uses traditional hand-dyed hanji paper with stunning results both conceptually and aesthetically, Zhuang Hong-Yi who employs ancient and modern materials and techniques, Romina Ressia whose anachronistic photography challenges distinctions between selfie culture and renaissance portraiture, and Katya Zvereva who makes primeval-looking woodblock prints to convey what she calls a “universal palette of human emotions” among others. If there is a unique niche for HOFA it’s this sort of jumping in and embracing new technologies, but not as a departure from the past. Our artists, rather, work in the space of taking the next steps in today’s post-internet generation that is fully aware of where we come from.
For all these reasons, HOFA is currently looking to LA for artists who fit our program so that we can expose them in our London and Mykonos locations just as we bring the work of foreign artists here to LA.
Pricing:
- We aim to keep our price points appropriate for beginning collectors and experienced collectors alike with artworks ranging from $5,000 to over $100,000
Contact Info:
- Address: 819 La Cienega Blv
Los Angeles, CA 90069
(we might move to Melrose Place this summer!) - Website: thehouseoffineart.com
- Phone: (213) 270-1972
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thehouseoffineart/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HOFAGalleryLA/
Image Credit:
Ian Horn (profile photo)
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