Building the Perfect Painting

For local artist Rebecca Levy, building a body of work literally begins with the building. "Each one is different and has a charm of its own," Levy said of her fascination with edifices from all over the world. "Rebecca Levy: A Visual Wanderer’s Retrospective," a one-woman show opening Sept. 16 at The Workmen’s Circle’s A Shenere Velt Gallery, invites the public to take in the angles and archways, doorways and dormers that populate her paintings.

Levy, who moved to Los Angeles from New York many decades ago, has produced numerous paintings based on edifices that caught her eye during her travels with her late husband, Herbert. Subjects include buildings in Mexico City, Rome and Amsterdam. One intriguing painting is a based on a photograph inside a El Salvadorian church, where a mother and child sit in one corner, while a lone man sits across the aisle. Another painting depicts a storybook house that used to stand before the Beverly Center was erected in the early 1980s.

"As we were traveling, I was really attracted to the architecture," Levy said. "It really struck me that the people who build them don’t live in them."

Levy admits that she is not particularly religious, and yet the nonarchitectural, abstract and figurative paintings that fill her home convey a Chagallesque spiritual whimsy.

While there are gems among the exhibit, many of her best works will not be in the show. But the good news is that the Workmen’s Circle is the first of a slew of art connoisseurs with interest in displaying her work.

Levy has plenty of architectural paintings ahead of her, and despite her incredible view of the Grove from her living room window, "I never approached the Farmer’s Market," she said with a twinkling smile.

"Rebecca Levy: A Visual Wanderer’s Retrospective," Sept. 16- Oct. 10, The Workmen’s Circle/Arbeter Ring’s A Shenere Velt Gallery, 1525 S. Robertson Blvd., Los Angeles. Levy will appear at a Sept. 20 reception, 4-7 p.m. For more information, call (310) 552-2007.