Featuring Shooka Afshar, Soprano, accompanied by Anthony Cardella, Piano, and Shane Guffogg, International Artist, plus Stevie Kincheloe, Movement
Opera performance, art exhibition, and movement interpretation
Shane Guffogg, 2022, “At the Still Point of the Turning World - The Conscious Occupation of a Praying Mind, oil on canvas, 78 x 108 inches
For Immediate Press
EL NIDO art space presented by VC Projects
“Translations of Being Through Sight and Sound”
Shooka Afshar, Soprano, accompanied by Anthony Cardella, Piano, and Shane Guffogg, International Artist, plus Stevie Kincheloe, Movement
Opera performance and art exhibition
Opening Reception: Saturday, April 23, 2022, from 3 to 6 pm, performance at 4 pm
Exhibition dates: April 23 - June 10, 2022
1028 N. Western Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90029
Curated by VC Projects | www.vcprojects.art | victoria@vcprojects.art
Curatorial Statement
The word opera comes from the Italian phrase, opera musica which means works in music.
For one performance only, during the afternoon of April 23rd, 2022, from 3 to 6 pm, performance starts at 4pm, Shooka Afshar, Quantum Soprano, and Shane Guffogg, International Artist will make known their creative voices capturing the essential moment of their artistry. The event is curated by VC Projects, and will move between two rooms, where guests will not only hear a vocal performance but also view works of art that are related to sound.
Shooka Afshar’s artistic language comes to us by performing arias. Selected compositions, Giacomo Puccini, “O Mio Babbino Caro” Gianni Schicchi opera, Vincenzo Bellini, “Ah Non Credea Mirati” La Sonnambula, “I Have Been Wandering” Wuthering Heights, George Gershwin “Summertime” Porgy and Bess are a few from the list that she will perform. Anthony Cardella, who is an esteemed pianist, and has performed in concert halls in the United States and Europe will be accompanying Shooka’s performance. Another aspect of Shooka’s performance is to pay homage to celebrated female sopranos, such as Leontyne Price, the first black female opera singer who made it to the Metropolitan Opera House as a leading voice. Shooka’s selections for the event are personally meaningful and important. Her reputation as The Quantum Soprano is nothing less. Her expressive talents will also include the art songs “Trois Mélodies” by Messiaen, “Bachianas Brasileiras Aria No. 5” by Heitor Villa-Lobos, and pieces by Benjamin Britton, Debussy, Schubert, and “Ave Maria” by Caccini, to name a few.
Shane Guffogg’s artistic language often experienced as ‘visual harmonies’, (the artist hears color and sees sound), comes forth through modes of color, and transparencies of light. On view will be selected works from 3 recent series of paintings – “A Rose is a Rose is a Rose”, series, which calls upon the ‘laws of identity’, “At the Still Point of the Turning World”, influenced by T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets”, and “The Counting of Days” partly inspired by the Gregorian Calendar and the days the artist has lived. These visual proclamations reflect not only the artist’s expression of color but his concepts of time and space, capturing what is often referred to as ‘the eternal moment.’ Shane Guffogg’s art looks through the lens of humanity at civilizations both past and present and views time as threads that connect all people. Guffogg, The Post-Post-Modernist artist sees his work as a visual language that is informed by the spiritualism of abstraction and the realism of the old masters. These two ideas are usually seen as separate but Guffogg fuses them into works that transcend and become testaments to thoughts that inform us of who we are in the 21st century.
The afternoon promises to bridge together not only two artists but two art forms; visual poetry and music, skillfully bound. Both of these masters of their craft, see their role as universal, and Shaman-like, communicating a truth and raising the spirit to the next level. The atmosphere is designed to share the fundamental elements between visual and performing arts, and the explosion of beauty in all its multifaceted forms. This program is created to lift one out of this world into the next and should not be missed.
“Shane Guffogg’s artistic language, often experienced as ‘visual harmonies’, (the artist hears color and sees sound), comes forth through modes of color, and transparencies of light.”
Shooka Afshar, The Quantum Soprano
“Anthony Cardella, who is an esteemed pianist, and has performed in concert halls in the United States, and Europe.”
Shane Guffogg, 2019-2020, “A Rose is a Rose is a Rose #6” oil on canvas, 72 x 108 inches (triptych)
PART 2 - POST RECEPTION, ARTIST DIALOGUE EVOLVES WITH STEVIE KINCHELOE
“As I listen, I move. As I move, I listen. And what I begin to hear is my truth.”
After the initial artist performance and reception, we invited Movement artist, Stevie Kincheloe to the exhibition to interpret Shane Guffogg’s paintings via sacred modes of time and space. As an interdisciplinary artist, Stevie Kincheloe understands movement as a conversation between the physical and metaphysical planes. What began as a path to opening that notoriously elusive portal of inspiration, her movement meditations are becoming a medium all their own. A dismantling of the masks and false faces we show to the world, the intuitive moment is channeling the raw expression of the truth, moment to moment.
We recently invited Movement Artist, Stevie Kincheloe to interpret Shane Guffogg’s paintings through modern dance techniques entering sacred modes of time and space.
Stevie Kincheloe inside the “Blue Room” with Shane Guffogg’s, “At the Still Point of the Turning World - The Conscious Occupation of a Praying Mind”, oil on canvas, 78 x 108 inches
Shane Guffogg, 2022, “The Counting of Days #21694”, oil on canvas, 32 x 24 inches
Biographies
Shooka Afshar, Iranian soprano, composer, and City of Boston Certified Artist, is an active recitalist in classical and Iranian repertoire. She received her Master’s Degree in Music in classical vocal performance and her Teaching Artist certificate in May 2014 from Longy School of Music. She made her operatic debut as the “Princess” in Dvorak’s opera The Cunning Peasant in its U.S. premier produced by the Calliope Ensemble at the First Unitarian Church of Boston in February 2014. Some of her recent appearances include The Coded Birth at the Institute of Contemporary Arts Boston, Turn Me Into A Mannequin at NYU, and her new opera Women / Immigration / Fight or Flight, at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston in 2021. Shooka is going to expand her mixed media opera at an artist residency near Milan, Villa Emma, in July 2022 and she’s planning to tour her opera nationally and internationally.
Anthony Cardella is a Wisconsin native who is currently residing in Los Angeles. He received his Bachelor's of Music from Lawrence University and Conservatory of Music. While at Lawrence, Anthony studied piano performance with Michael Mizrahi, a Yale-educated teacher who studied with Claude Frank, and piano pedagogy with Mary Van De Loo. He worked on campus as a student teacher and piano tutor and, after graduating with honors, Anthony was offered multiple jobs at Lawrence - a staff collaborative piano position where he collaborated with vocalists and instrumentalists, and also a teaching position at the Lawrence Academy of Music. After working at his Alma Mater for a year, Anthony began studies at the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles to receive his Master of Music degree. Anthony is currently working on his Doctorate at USC.
Shane Guffogg was born in Los Angeles, California and raised on an exotic bird farm in the San Joaquin Valley. His interest in painting began as a child, leading him to traveled to Europe and was exposed to the Masters. He received his B.F.A. from Cal Arts, and during his studies he interned in New York City. He relocated to Los Angeles, where he lived in Venice Beach and worked as a Studio Assistant for Ed Ruscha from 1989 until 1995. In 1989, Guffogg traveled to the Soviet Union on a peace Walk, Meeting and learning the history of Russia and the role of the artist as juxtaposed to the West. His work began exploring the iconography of art and cultures through the ages, and the connections between various times and people. During this exploration, he found that painting is one of the few art forms that may express what language cannot. The resulting work contains its own language of sign and symbol, and in its patterning, visual depth, and light, simultaneously seems to refer to emotion, to the human spirit, and to the unseen worlds of Quantum Physics and Super String Theory.
Stevie Kincheloe was born on the east coast, raised in middle-America, and currently based in Los Angeles, Kincheloe’s creative expression has been a slow and multi-disciplinary journey toward her truth. “Each medium that draws me to itself— songwriting, poetry, photography, sculpting, movement, acting, writing— reveals more of that mysterious truth in the process. Expression is a teacher and I am ever the student.” Her approach to creativity is more of a philosophy, a way of moving and being in the world and her work is an outpouring of the experiences she has and the lessons she learns along the way.
Shane Guffogg, 2018, “At the Still Point of the Turning World - Dahlias Sleep in Empty Silence #2”, oil on canvas, 42 x 42 inches
Shane Guffogg, 2022, “The Counting of Days #21664”, oil on canvas, 32 x 36 inches
Shane Guffogg, 2019, “A Rose is a Rose is a Rose 2” oil on canvas, 42 x 20" inches
Shane Guffogg, 2019, “Fanaa”, oil on canvas, 36 x 35 inches
Stevie Kincheloe, “The Rose” expressive movement
An enchanting capture of movement, organic and industrial sound featuring Stevie Kincheloe whilst she communes with nature. An experience in collaboration with the current exhibition, “Translations of Being Through Sight and Sound.” The movement, entitled, “The Rose” was planned on 06/02/2022 at 3:00 pm (PST) and took place at The Rose Garden located at The Natural History Museum Los Angeles. Shane Guffogg’s painting, “A Rose is a Rose is a Rose #6” was in part an inspiration.
About VC Projects and El Nido art space
VC Projects (Victoria Chapman) Founder/Director of VC Projects (2014), is a Los Angeles-based curator. Victoria has spent the past 30 years working domestically and internationally in a variety of means with art directors, curators, art consultants, artists, galleries, museums, and art institutions, assisting with administrative, curatorial, and exhibition planning.
El Nido “the nest” in Spanish, opened in 2021 and makes its mission to share visual, performing arts, including the written word, and is presented by VC Projects. The intimate art space is set off the beaten path on N. Western Avenue in East Hollywood (Route 66/Santa Monica Blvd), and is set inside an art compound recently dubbed Western Avenue Collective by its residents. The historical enclave consists of twenty-two artist studios dating from 1922.
PODCASTS
VC PROJECTS PODCAST “Conversations About Art” Listen on Spotify
In this episode, we speak to The Quantum Soprano, Shooka Afshar, this is our second interview with the dynamic opera singer, and composer. This discussion centers around her performance at El Nido art space, curated by VC Projects, titled “Translations of Being Through Sight and Sound” where she sings opera arias and art songs and is accompanied by pianist Anthony Cardella. Oil paintings by Shane Guffogg are also on view during the event.
This discussion begins by Shooka Afshar sharing some basic opera history, and discussing some key elements of composing and singing. The event at El Nido features Shooka’s selections of arias and art songs that she performs. In addition, her program pays homage to legendary sopranos and celebrated composers, and speaks briefly about important research she has uncovered. What she shares in this talk is quite fascinating. We get a taste of what she may be sharing during the performance at El Nido touching on the life of Claude Debussy, and some of the women in his life that shaped his career. These stories are quite interesting. We also learn about English Soprano Florence Easton (1882-1955), and her incredible range and colorful life as an opera singer. This is a very sincere conversation with Shooka Afshar, I am always grateful to spend time learning about her world and the many facets of being a Quantum Soprano.
VC PROJECTS PODCAST “Conversations About Art” Listen on Spotify
In this episode, we speak to Shane Guffogg about the upcoming event at El Nido art space in Hollywood curated by VC Projects, where it not only features his oil paintings but also features an opera performance of arias and art songs by Shooka Afshar, Soprano and Anthony Cardella, Piano.
During this conversation, we learn that Guffogg sees color as sound and this informs his paintings. He explains, that he hears his paintings as much as he sees them. And when he sits down to play the piano, which he often does as another creative outlet, the sound he plays becomes for him a color, as in the act of painting, he listens to the colors and the movement of the brush. The artist shares that “painting is like peeling an onion” and as he gets deeper into the center of the onion, each layer is the center of his being and the memory banks of his mind. What you see in his painting is the deepest part of his memory. We also discuss the purity of sound without words, and how Guffogg reaches into his creative process.
This is such a fascinating conversation. The artist continues to touch on what it means to be “human beings”, and brings up some very interesting thoughts about existence and how one might reach creativity. I interject here and there asking questions to learn more about his intellectual thought process. After all, it was Guffogg who came up with the title of the event at El Nido, “Translations of Being Through Sight and Sound.” For 40-plus-minutes we dissect just that, the intent of sound, the means to making marks, cave art, and the desire to capture the ‘eternal’ moment. Towards the end, we talk about “visual harmonies” and how Guffogg makes this happen in his artwork.
Shane Guffogg is an American Artist that looks through the lens of humanity both past and present and views time as threads that connect all people. His work is a visual language that is informed by the spiritualism of abstraction and the realism of the old masters. These two ideas are usually seen as separate but Guffogg fuses them seamlessly into works that transcend and become testaments to thoughts that inform us of who we are in the 21st century.
VC PROJECTS PODCAST “Conversations About Art” Listen on Spotify
In this episode I speak to Anthony Cardella, a Los Angeles-based Concert Pianist, who accompanied Shooka Afshar, Soprano, in the musical program, “Translations of Being Through Sight and Sound” and art exhibition presented by VC Projects. Anthony is a very gifted musician, we learn his musical career began at the age of 3 years old, and at five years old he placed third during his first piano competition. A great deal of this conversation is about creativity, collaboration and interpretation. But before we arrive at this, Anthony shares his childhood-training, love for competitions, and an epic performance of Samuel Barber, Piano Concerto MVT. 1, accompanied by the Lawrence Symphony Orchestra, which he did after winning first place in the LSO Concerto Competition. Within this talk, Anthony bears a great deal of insight not only on the rewards, but also the challenges musicians face in the classical music world. Anthony generously shares his authentic approach to being a successful, motivated and dedicated concert pianist. We also talk about how he learns new pieces and continues to inspire his audiences to feel their way through each composition he performs.
Anthony Cardella studied with Barbara Hay growing up, a teacher following the Russian School of Rosa Levine. At this point, Anthony was already collaborating frequently, playing for local choirs, musicals, instrumentalists, and vocalists, all of this giving him a background in popular music and improvisation, in addition to his Classical training. He received his Bachelor's of Music from Lawrence University and Conservatory of Music. While at Lawrence, Anthony studied piano performance with Michael Mizrahi, a Yale educated teacher who studied with Claude Frank, and piano pedagogy with Mary Van De Loo. He worked on campus as a student teacher and piano tutor and, after graduating with honors, Anthony was offered multiple jobs at Lawrence - a staff collaborative piano position where he collaborated with vocalists and instrumentalists, and, also a teaching position at the Lawrence Academy of Music.
After working at his Alma Mater for a year, Anthony began studies at the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles to receive his Master of Music degree. Anthony is currently working on his Doctorate at USC, studying with Stephen Pierce, and is also working as a teaching assistant - teaching private lessons to undergraduate students, as well as group courses - and as a staff pianist.
Learn more about Anthony at: anthonycardellapiano.com.
VC PROJECTS PODCAST “Conversations About Art” Listen on Spotify
In this episode, we speak to interdisciplinary artist, Stevie Kincheloe about channeling truth through movement. We begin discussing Stevie’s collaboration in “Translations of Being Through Sight and Sound” (May 23 – June 10, 2022), curated by VC Projects at El Nido, Los Angeles. The exhibition is in part, three aspects, a music performance by Shooka Afshar, The Quantum Soprano, accompanied by pianist, Anthony Cardella, and an art exhibition of oil paintings by Shane Guffogg, and Stevie’s interpretation of Shane Guffogg’s artwork through movement. We heard from Stevie firsthand about how she entered this sacred space between the dimensions of Shane Guffogg’s paintings in order to interpret to her own unwinding and being. Stevie’s sharing of her experience was nothing less than fascinating. We also hear about her other creative outlets; songwriting, poetry, photography, and acting. Towards the end, I ask Stevie how to begin exploring a creative path through movement, she shares some influential books.
Stevie Kincheloe was born on the east coast, raised in middle America, and is currently based in Los Angeles, Kincheloe’s creative expression has been a slow and multi-disciplinary journey toward her truth. “Each medium that draws me to itself— songwriting, poetry, photography, sculpting, movement, acting, writing— reveals more of that mysterious truth in the process. Expression is a teacher and I am ever the student.” Her approach to creativity is more of a philosophy, a way of moving and being in the world, and her work is an outpouring of the experiences she has and the lessons she learns along the way.