Oct 21 Opening Reception at 6pm Pacific
636 Cypress Avenue, Hermosa Beach
Right about the time the actor's strike began, Kymm Swank called and said, "Hey...looks like I'm gonna have some time on my hands. Any chance the gallery is going to be available in October?" We were quick to a yes after Kymm explained to us that she had been working on a series of photorealistic landscape paintings inspired by discarded fortune cookie titles that she finds along the route of her morning runs. She said, “Sweet, I’m on it,” and we began waiting to see some of the new works.
About the same time as the actor’s strike popped off, the writer’s followed suit and Kymm found herself with even more time on her hands and doubled down on the commitment to her show. The working title of which was, “Best Summer Ever.” She chose the title before her cat ran away. The anxiety of waiting for the cat to return proved painful and one night Kymm threw a bucket of black paint across one of her landscape paintings and grabbed a rattle can, throwing a fit all over a canvas (so to speak). “No Worries,” she thought. “I have 15 more landscapes to show. Then she chipped a tooth and needed dental work.
The morning after the dental bill arrived, Kymm took her frustration out on another of her landscape paintings and not really feeling fully expressed from the cathartic endeavor, decided to rip through a few other pieces, covering each with a deep coat of black and a massive explosion of spraypaint, mops, streaks and a few dabs of krink. Any glimmer of hope that this might be the, “Best Summer Ever,” was fading to black and this was before somebody stole her purse.
She walked into the opening of something that was happening at ShockBoxx and exclaimed “Dude…I am definitely NOT having the best summer ever.” This is when Veronica and Astrid said, “Kymm, grab your car. We are going to Barnacles.” Kymm’s only reply (and biggest mistake) was when she tossed Astrid the keys and said, “You drive.”
A few hours later, and after several rounds through Hermosa Beach Parking Lot A, the three of them excepted the reality that Kymm’s car was missing, if not actually stolen. Fortunately for Kymm and Astrid, V’s house wasn’t’ far away. It was V’s balcony where the three of them hatched the plan to write that song about it, and where Kymm asked V if maybe V wanted to get in on the action and play at the opening of her solo show here at the gallery.
We are not sure yet who to wholly blame, but one of those three came up with the idea that Kymm ought not use this show to debut her Discarded Fortune Cookie inspired Landscape Painting show and instead paint over everything and launch a celebration of meltdowns, tizzies and tantrums, but here we are, just a few days away from the opening of Kymm and V’s show, “Our Year’s of Tantrums.” A visual and auditory romp through cats, love, loss, strikes, dental work, divorces, misdemeanors and felonies.
“Our Year of Tantrums,” opens on Saturday evening at six pm. See you at the gallery.