New! LA’s Venice, dipped in dreamy evening light.

Venice Twilight by Lindsey Warren
8"x10" ($35) | 11"x14" ($75) | 16"x20" ($260) | 20"x24" ($750)

Collect this edition

It’s been one week since California officially reopened and 2 days since the start of summer. What better time to debut an ode to Los Angeles, the biggest city in The Golden State and home to some beautiful, summer-friendly beaches? Introducing Venice Twilight, our newest print from painter Lindsey Warren, whose pieces have been making us go gaga over La La Land since she first joined our artist roster in 2018.

Venice Twilight draws out that brief, totally transfixing daily dance when the sun dips below the horizon by LA’s Venice Beach. In the corner of the neighborhood that Warren’s captured here, the sky becomes a layer cake of broad pastel swaths, the rest of the view dimmed by mauve-y shadows. The windows of the structure at center funnel the descending sun, glowing as if lit from within. They give the building a sense of import and elegance, a sort of personified face. Palm trees—a recognizable sign of a SoCal setting—break up the architectural scenery, their eccentric silhouettes like lanky spectators taking in the twilight. If the image feels a little fantastical, that’s because it represents the artist’s efforts to paint her perception into reality.

Going about her daily life, Warren pauses to photograph various viewpoints and observations, paying special attention to those easy to overlook. Ephemeral phases of light and idiosyncratic color palettes often catch her ever-vigilant eye. Later, approaching her canvas, she compares those photos to her own recollection, adding, subtracting, and revising until she arrives at an image that’s as true as possible to her memory of the moment. What emerges in her paintings is equal parts authentic and elusive, the visualization of something slippery, experiential, and largely emotional. A Warren landscape is as much a mood as a picture of a place. It’s also a reflection of the ways ambient changes transform the urban environment—and one’s relationship to it.

In Venice Twilight, shades of gold, powder blue, and cotton candy pink suffuse so much of the visual plane that they sway the overall vibe: magical, playful, glamorous, with a nod to nightlife. The artist’s angle leads the sunset’s diagonals to the right hand corner of the frame, giving the image a sense of motion that might call to mind coastal joy rides or the sort of sweeping vistas you see standing near the ocean. It’s a cinematic scene, which feels right for Tinseltown. You can’t help but sip a little of the Kool-Aid soaking up Venice Twilight’s dreamy atmosphere—Warren’s love for her city and the local perspectives that particularly enchant her pours out like an easy-drinking wine.