Local residents, group access and VIP tour options are also available. Non-profit, community groups, and schools, discounted with advance reservation. Please contact nick@newguardla.org for more information.
We are pleased to present Sanctuary, an immersive experience fusing art and live performance. Our audience is invited to explore the installations at will, lingering where they want, confronting what threatens or provokes, while a performance moves continuously throughout the space.
As the political dust settles in the wake of the 2016 election, we find ourselves in a deeply divided country. Sanctuary was created to question those divisions. What does a sanctuary look like? Who should be let into these spaces? Can we find sanctuary in our ever-changing culture or should we flock to the temples of our past?
The gallery has been divided into four enclosures, each transformed into a living representation of the artist's personal sanctuary. Drawing inspiration from their respective political, cultural and religious environments, the artists cross boundaries to reimagine their sacred spaces. Mediums such as sculpture, works on paper, found materials, photography, painting, and video projection have all been used to create these installations.
A performance will flow throughout the gallery, where ghost-like characters reflect and react to the installations, wandering amongst our guests. Movement and poetry will help to connect the pieces, creating a visceral bond between audience and art.
ABOUT US
Future Tongue is an art collective and publication founded by Britt Harrison and B. Justine Jaime in 2015. The collective works to divulge the secrets of the immense contemporary art culture of Los Angeles by diving head first into the artist’s studios to capture their practice, history and lifestyle. Future Tongue has hosted critiques, lead discussions, and curated events that work to find the intersect of fine art, performance and music. For more information about Future Tongue, visit futuretongue.com.
New Guard Theater Company is an ensemble of actors, directors, writers, and designers that has come together to create vital, immediate works of live performance. We support collective creativity, pushing one another to seek what is beyond our individual limitations. We believe that insightful art that subverts the established order is critical for a strong and conscious Los Angeles.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Monica Canilao lives and creates in Oakland, California. She draws inspiration from her community and collaborators, her roots and their nearly lost traditions, her neighborhood and even its trash piles. Monica takes processes from traditional handicrafts and technique from high art, weaving them together to create unique pieces that touch on the meaning of home, the power of collectivity, and the imprint history has left on her. Monica received a BFA from California College of Arts and Crafts and has shown in galleries, community spaces, and abandoned places worldwide.
Double Diamond Sun Body is the pseudonym of Los Angeles-based artist Robbie Williamson. Coming from a background in music and scoring films and television, Robbie experiments with sourced video and carefully crafted soundscapes to create experiential installations. Using large sculptural elements, such as septic tanks and hydro massage chairs, he cultivates a dissociative experience that investigates our culture from an extraterrestrial perspective. He addresses themes of our current political landscape, religion, and family.
Lindsey Garrett After graduating with a BFA from USC in 2010, Lindsey began working in art department for commercials. She ended up spending three years back home in Atlanta building her resume, and returned to L.A. in January of 2016 to further her career. Director of Partnerships at New Guard since March of 2016. Credits include: The Good Lie, Complications, Satisfaction, Sleepy Hollow, and most recently, Untogether.
Britt Harrison uses painting, sculpture and printmaking to address curiosities about our existential anxiety and our need to control the natural and unnatural world around us. Drawing visual inspiration from moments of her remote upbringing in Southern America, she uses imagery of animals and nature to critique human interaction and the significance of connection and honesty. Britt studied visual art and psychology at New York University and lives and works in Los Angeles. She is the Co-Founder and Co-Creative Director of Future Tongue.
Originally from Midway, Utah, Tess Hewlett began her dance training very early. At the age of 18, she was invited to join 19 other young dancers in the Scholarship Program at the Edge Performing Arts Center in Los Angeles. Tess has enjoyed success in both commercial and company work. She has been featured in music videos, commercial advertising, films and television. A few of her credits include: Transparent (TV); Acura (Ad); Panera (Ad); Jay-Z, Pentatonix, Lawrence Rothman (music videos); EndHIV (PSA); Code Black (Documentary); and High School Musical 3 (film).
B. Justine Jaime is a Los Angeles based Chicana photographer and multimedia artist. She received a BFA in Photography and Media from CalArts. Extracting memories from her past in efforts to reclaim her Mexican- American heritage, she pushes the boundaries of photography to create abstracted, re-imagined narratives that take the form of large-scale collage, short film, immersive video installation, and sculpture. Justine actively works in collaboration with various artists and musicians as a conceptual portrait photographer, videographer, and art director. She is the Co-Founder, Co-Creative Director and Director of Photography for Future Tongue.
Jeremy Radin is a poet, actor, and teacher living in Los Angeles. He's appeared on several television shows including It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, CSI, ER, and Zoey 101, in films such as Terrence Malick's The New World and Wrestlemaniac, and in many plays. His poems have been published in Cosmonauts Avenue, Nailed, Sundog Lit, Union Station, Winter Tangerine, and elsewhere. He teaches acting at The Beverly Hills Playhouse and is the current coach of the Get Lit Players. He is the author of two collections of poetry, Slow Dance with Sasquatch (Write Bloody Publishing, 2012) and Dear Sal (not a cult press, 2017). He lives for the biscuits and dies for the briskets. Follow him @germyradin
Nick Thurston grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, and now lives and works in Los Angeles. Since graduating from the University of Southern California (BFA, 2010), he has appeared in many television shows and movies. In 2016, he founded New Guard Theater Company along with fellow Trojan alum Matt Little. He is an avid climber and mountaineer, and the proud father of a New Caledonian Crested Gecko named Luna.
Frohawk Two Feathers is one of many aliases of Los Angeles- based artist Umar Rashid. He has spent his artistic career archiving 18th-century colonial history, however this narrative of urbanized rebel militiamen and archdukes with tear drop tattoos don’t seem to match up with most history books. Unable to trace his family history beyond southern America and the Caribbean, Umar decided to create one for himself and began detailing a re-imagined history. Through drawings on stained paper and epics scribed on stretched hide, Umar adapts traditional folk art and colonial imagery to comment on race and power.
