LOS ANGELES, August 30, 2022 —Haleh Mashian does not hold back. The painter, poet, musician and dancer derives all her work—her oeuvre—from a seemingly endless pool of profound creativity. Founder of the gallery space, MASH Gallery, now ensconced in its new West Hollywood location after its departure from DTLA’s Arts District, Mashian makes her presence known with a tour-de-force signature show that cements her presence as one of LA’s brightest artists. Mashian’s solo show, MASH MUSE, highlights the contemporary artist’s broad creative approach covering multiple disciplines: painting, music, dance, pattern-making, housewares and fashion design. This solo event also marks Mashian’s debut into the NFT space, with unique digital designs hand-drawn in Mashian’s signature witty style. A coterie of savvy collectors has already discovered Mashian’s bold works: large abstract canvases that depict portraiture or figurative imagery that commands attention. These pieces are not reclusive, subdued works. The canvases call to mind Mashian’s vision, which is grand, complex, viscerally impressionistic — a Baudrillardian sense of the hyperreal. Her Sacred Waters series presents oceanic portals that appear to undulate and churn. These mixed media works capture the movement of voluminous ocean waters through generous applications of plaster and resin. Each canvas reveals both surface and depth, icy calms and dark surges. Mashian’s large-scale, three-panel “Glistening Heights”, overtakes the viewer with its sheer size and startling depiction of a human-sized wave—tidal in its force. Mashian employs a handbuilding technique to create patterns in plaster to impart the essence of the ocean onto canvas. MASH MUSE highlights Mashian’s newest large-scale forest paintings which are expansions of her original explorations into the concept of environmental harmony with impressionistic lighting. Works such as “Embrace” and “Of the Beyond '' suggest an envelopment, a taking over of the beckoning of nature and of the release of tension. To stroll amongst the bigger-than-life-size canvases is to walk into a forest of the senses. As in her ocean series, Mashian bombards the viewer with the sensation of natural elements: forest light, textures, a fracas of color — that transcends into something sublime upon further investigation. The soul uplifts, beckoned on a journey of the spiritual. Not to be contained by canvas alone, Mashian takes her creative bounty to fabric to create wearable art. From head-to-toe, Mashian’s wearable pieces showcase her whimsical side — a reminder to not take oneself too seriously — and to always wear your art on your sleeve! Such boundless creativity is Mashian’s preferred state-of-mind. For creators, this state of immersive creativity is ideal – where creating and living are one in the same. “Creativity is my religion,” Mashian shares, as she describes the act of creating derives from a divine consciousness, which is akin to what psychologists call “flow:” a mental state of deep creativity and complete immersion in the task at hand. In a flow state, one is completely present and open to the act of creating. Mashian, coupled with a daily practice of mindful meditation, enters this creative state frequently in her creative process, whether it’s painting, designing, dancing or through music. To catch a brief moment of creative lightning in a bottle, MASH MUSE is a must-see: a one-woman authored immersive experience of multitudes. You’ll walk away with a souvenir: a jolt of creative inspiration to jump-start your spark.