Merion Estes’ stunning, multi-layered paintings explore the destruction caused by present-day environmental crises and the lasting impact of these events. Estes combines found fabrics with mixed paint applications and photo transfers to create evocative, saturated landscapes that are simultaneously beautiful and disturbing. Estes was part of the Pattern and Decoration movement and feminist art movements in New York City and California in the 1970s, and her early foundation in these movements continues to influence her work. Curated by Howard N. Fox, Emeritus Curator (Curator of Contemporary Art, LACMA, 1985-2008). Los Angeles-based Egyptian-born artist Sherin Guirguis addresses neglected histories in social and artistic hierarchies. Her first solo museum exhibition in Los Angeles, Of Thorns and Love, presents her research of Egyptian feminist poet, activist, and writer Doria Shafik (1908 —75). Shafik was a prominent leader of the Egyptian feminist movement where her publications and political actions helped ensure the rights of women. Guirguis’ will generate a new body of two- and three-dimensional works that draw upon important architectural sites, poems, and political actions in Shafik’s life as a way to echo the silenced voices of the past and the invisible histories they represent. New York-born Los Angeles-based artist Uzumaki Cepeda makes interactive, site-specific soft spaces where she covers furniture and housewares in brightly colored faux fur. This installation is her daydream of a safe and happy childhood, mixed with the loud palette of New York bodegas, the countryside of her homeland, the Dominican Republic, and freshly painted acrylic nails.