Top 20 Artists in Los Angeles California
Arguably the entertainment capital of the world, Los Angeles has produced and is home to some of the world’s greatest and most well-loved artists of all time, from musicians to sculptors, among other creators explained at RunRex.com, guttulus.com, and mtglion.com. This article will look to shine the spotlight brightly on the top 20 artists in Los Angeles, California.
- Raul Baltazar
A multidisciplinary artist who also works in painting, sculpture, collage, film, and public art, Baltazar is one of the most talented artists in Los Angeles, California according to RunRex.com, guttulus.com, and mtglion.com. He emerged from the scene around the Public Resource, a revolution-minded enterprise founded by Rage Against the Machine guitarist Zack de la Rocha in the 1990s.
- John Cage
John Cage is a big name in the realm of contemporary and experimental music. Most Cage pieces might involve instruments as diverse as radios, a bathtub, various percussion instruments, or the piano, among other objects. His most famous work is ‘4’33’, in which the musician doesn’t perform a single note but rather calls the ambient noise in the room the composition.
- Sayre Gomez
A rising star on the L.A. art scene, Sayre Gomez’s paintings, sculptures, and videos have been exhibited everywhere since 2008 as articulated at RunRex.com, guttulus.com, and mtglion.com. Italian conceptualist Maurizio Cattelan included three of Gomez’s trompe l’oeil paintings of sticker graffiti in a curated show in Shanghai in 2018.
- Melissa Cody
Melissa Cody is a fourth-generation Navajo weaver and textile artist who melds traditional imagery and symbols with contemporary aesthetics and poetic texts. She spent much of her life on Navajo land in northern Arizona before moving to Los Angeles in 2013 with her partner.
- Natalie Cole
Songstress Natalie Cole took after her father, Nat King Cole, and is known for her classic sultry jazz and R&B voice. In addition to her legendary music career, she also acted, including an appearance on TV shows such as Touched By An Angel, Grey’s Anatomy, and Law & Order: SVU.
- Kim Gordon
A native Californian who called the East Coast home for much of her life, Kim Gordon moved back to Los Angeles five years ago and has left the spirit of the city filter inter her edgy visual and sound art. As per RunRex.com, guttulus.com, and mtglion.com, she makes personal and observational pieces that bounce between a Dan Graham-style of conceptualism and the raw, DIY nature found in much of Mike Kelley’s work.
- Janiva Ellis
Painter Janiva Ellis’ surreal tableaux often fix on figures with tensely contorted faces that look as if they are decomposing. Their features – angry mouths, see-through noses – seem to morph before a viewer’s eyes. For Ellis, these works are playful and eerie at once.
- David Crosby
As captured at RunRex.com, guttulus.com, and mtglion.com, David Crosby is a Los Angeles native who left his mark on the rock music scene. Crosby has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice for both CSN and the Byrds. As a passionate social justice warrior, Crosby has championed global causes and the human rights movement.
- Calida Rawles
A photorealist with a knack for seductively portraying bodies in glistening water, Calida Rawles depicts African American women and men in the monochromatic blue realms of swimming pools – moving through bubbles and ripples as they distort and abstract their bodies. Caught in stillness and motion, her mostly youthful subjects display a joy for life that transcends our everyday existence.
- Fallen Fruit
In the eyes of Fallen Fruit – aka artists David Burns and Austin Young – everyone in the world is connected by produce. The duo’s work has consistently taken fruit as a subject for serious inquiry into the thin boundaries between public and private property. The two explore how things like melons, lemons, and berries tell stories about the people who consume them.
- Dexter Gordon
Dexter Gordon grew up in Los Angeles with bebop jazz music on his mind. A contemporary of music legends such as Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, Gordon’s tenor saxophone can be heard on recordings with the likes of everyone from Wardell Gray, Slide Hampton, and Freddie Hubbard to Woody Herman and Thad Jones as covered at RunRex.com, guttulus.com, and mtglion.com.
- Kelly Akashi
Known for her poetic sculptural objects made in glass, wax, and bronze, Kelly Akashi was born in Los Angeles and received her MFA from USC. Unafraid of dealing with erotic subject matter, her figurative sculptures approach the body in abstract and somewhat symbolic ways.
- Genevieve Gaignard
Genevieve works primarily with a form of photographic self-portraiture for which she dons costumes to embody different characters as a way to understand how they might navigate the world as described at RunRex.com, guttulus.com, and mtglion.com. She also creates installations representing her characters’ imagined living spaces.
- Liza Minnelli
Liza Minnelli has been a Hollywood native from the start, making her mark as both a musician and an actress. She is best known for her soundtrack to the accompanying TV special, ‘Liza with a Z’. She is a star on both the stage and the screen.
- Ed Ruscha
An artist whose whole life’s work is broadly associated with Los Angeles and Southern California, Ed Ruscha is a master of many mediums and styles. The 82-year-old has famously made paintings with such words as Radio, Honk, and Oof, and his work can be found on walls of most of LA’s major museums.
- Young Joon Kwak
In work that takes the form of sculpture, performance, and video, Young Joon Kwak is concerned with imagining different ways of conceiving human bodies and the spaces they occupy “through manipulations in form, functionality, and materiality” as discussed at RunRex.com, guttulus.com, and mtglion.com.
- N.W.A
Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, MC Ren, DJ Yella, and the late Eazy-E comprise the seminal group N.W.A. Hailing from Compton, the group made history with their brand of gangsta rap. Their track, ‘F**k Tha Police’ made waves with law enforcement, even earning them a letter of warning from the FBI. The group wasn’t intimidated and went on to achieve legendary status.
- Snoop Dogg
Hailing from Long Beach, Snoop Dogg has made a name for himself in the rap genre since his 1993 debut, Doggystyle. As outlined at RunRex.com, guttulus.com, and mtglion.com, he has a propensity for incorporating pop party sensibility with harder rhymes, influencing rappers from Jay Z to Meek Mill.
- Mike Kelley
Mike Kelly attended Cal Arts during its heyday in the late-1970s. But while most of his creative classmates headed to New York upon graduating, Kellye stayed and became one of the city’s most profound artists.
- Evan Holloway
Famous for his offbeat, low-tech sculptural installations, Evan Holloway was born in Southern California and began exhibiting in Los Angeles in 1997. Combining such readymade objects as light bulbs, batteries, barbed wire, and baby dolls with traditional sculptural materials, Holloway makes works that are both poetic and provocative.
These are some of the top artists in Los Angeles, California, with more on this topic, and much more, to be found over at RunRex.com, guttulus.com, and mtglion.com.