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Monthly festival attracts community with art

Artist Robert Vargas lets the audience in on his artistic process as a model poses.

Big bulbs flood light onto colorful artwork. Ambient tunes by DJ Gravitas underline the warm, party-like atmosphere. Visitors stop by to look at artwork before moving to the next gallery.

It happened again in Los Angeles: the Downtown Art Walk. This monthly festival presents an umpteen number of galleries where visitors can view and purchase contemporary art.

“The festival attracts up to 10,000 visitors after sundown,” director Richard Schave said. “Now, the celebration includes up to 45 gallery stops and draws visitors interested in exploring the area’s bars and restaurants as well as its cultural attractions,” Schave said.

Mediums from traditional paintings to photography to drawings by artists such as Robert Vargas, David Cortes and Rowynn Michelle Dumont decorated the inside of the Regent Theater.

The highlight of the evening was Vargas’s painting and drawing with a live nude model, who sat on a red chair, surrounded by curious watching visitors.

One of the artists was Cal State Long Beach student Andrew Cortes, who is earning a bachelor of fine arts degree in drawing and painting and a bachelor’s in comparative world literature.

“The Art Walk is unique because it takes place once a month in a city that is actually growing, changing and evolving right before our eyes,” Cortes said. “The art, I believe, in many ways is a reflection of the growing interest in Los Angeles and what its people have to offer the world of the future.”

This is the second time Cortes displayed his work at the Art Walk.

Of the many galleries and venues housing artwork at the event, Cortes showed three of his naturalistic and abstract paintings.

“The piece with the elephant is from my first Art Walk showing and the other two are my more recent abstract-expressionistic works,” Cortes said. “I [brought] the new and the old together and allow people to see what and how I enjoy expressing myself.”

Art Walk is the perfect place for artists like Cortes. The purpose of the event is togetherness within a community, except Cortes’s vision is on a global scale. He plans to work with artists from the Czech Republic in the future.

“I want to one see other places to experience their culture and worldview and then hopefully share with them my work to give them an idea of myself,” Cortes said. “Visual communication is the only universal language and I hope I can show them how fluently I speak this language through my work.”

The Art Walk is a unique place, getting larger and better every month.

“It’s an amazing urban adventure. Students should definitely come and explore!” founding curator Kim Cooper said.

The Downtown Los Angeles Art Walk is held every second Thursday of the month. It is located in and around the Historic Core’s Gallery Row. For more information, visit www.downtownartwalk.com

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