There’s a three alarm fire occurring  at the Huntington’s Grand Opening this week during ArtWalk, and it’s a real scorcher!

By Martha De Perez

‘CONSUMED BY THEIR FIRE’, celebrates the diverse work of a trio of artists who are at the forefront of Los Angeles’ new figurative movement: Dan Milnor, Rachael Rendon and John Paul Thornton.

Curator Martha De Perez has staged a real ballet of construction cones, canvases, doors and drawings ablaze with haunting imagery.

Against the barren concrete and mirrored walls of the Huntington, the art could be that of an abandoned insane asylum, with draped wrapped beams accentuating the feel of a straight jacket!

At the entrance there’s Milnor’s phantasmagoric imagery emblazoned on actual construction cones.  They in turn are encircling a round canvas with a writhing figure wearing a conical head adornment. Dan’s florescent iconography continues on in canvases spaced barricades apart on the walls.

Like Virgil guiding Dante through the crimson colored cellars of Hell, Rachael Rendon’s self- portraitesque femme fatales literally cry tears of blood and dare us to explore varying levels of pain and introspection.  Her delicate graphite drawings on vellum are in stark contrast to Thornton’s door paintings that perform their quiet choreography round about us.

John Paul’s larger than life size figures take our breadth away as they inhale and exhale a multitude of delicate oil glazes.

Using a quote by Auguste Rodin on the creative process being akin to being engulfed by flames, Martha has performed a seance of subtle madness by a trio of disturbingly gifted artistic arsons.  ‘Consumed By Their Fire’ is a triptych of self immolation.

‘Consumed By Their Fire’ is an ArtWalk only event.  The Huntington is located at 748 Main St.breadth away as they inhale and exhale a multitude of delicate oil glazes.