Gallery Hop Manhattan Beach 10.24 - with artist Q&A

Bluerider ART WALKER - free guided tour with artist Bryan Ida, for his new solo show "Portrait Remix". About Bluerider ART at Manhattan Beach WALKER: Saturday, October 3rd, 2pm - 4pm Join us for the Bluerider ART WALKER, a free guided tour with an artist Q&A session through our current exhibition, Portrait Remix, Bryan Ida's 2026 solo exhibition, from 2–4 PM on Oct 3rd. Event Schedule: 2pm-4pm Bluerider WALKER at Bluerider ART LA • Manhattan Beach with artist Bryan Ida Current Exhibition: Portrait Remix, Bryan Ida's 2026 solo exhibition Bluerider ART Los Angeles · Manhattan Beach is proud to announce American artist Bryan Ida's 2026 solo exhibition, Portrait Remix, opening September 19, 2026. This marks Ida's return to Bluerider ART after ten years. From Floating California (2014) and City Symphony (2016) to today's Portrait Remix, a clear creative trajectory emerges: from urban landscapes to natural water surfaces, and now, his gaze converges on "the face" — human and animal alike, placed within the same logic of looking. Bryan Ida (USA, b. 1963) graduated from San José State University, where he majored in electronic music composition, and lives and works in Los Angeles. Drawing on his musical sensibility, Ida has developed a distinctive layered style combining acrylic and polyester resin. His work has long engaged with minority histories, endangered species, and humanistic concern. It has been exhibited at institutions including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Bakersfield Museum of Art; the de Saisset Museum; the Japanese American National Museum; and the Lancaster Museum of Art and History, and is held in permanent collections including the de Saisset Museum in California and Microsoft..etc. The title Portrait Remix points directly to the core methodology of Ida's practice — "remix" describes not only the layering of technique, but serves as a metaphor for a creative logic. Just as electronic music resamples, layers, and blends different tracks into new sonic textures, Ida transforms human and animal faces into new visual identities. The title also marks his focus onto "the face" — placing human and animal within the same logic of looking, blurring the boundaries between species around identity, consciousness, and existence. At the core of Bryan Ida's practice is a concern with the relationship between humanity and the natural world. His paintings consider the delicate balance between human existence and the fragile ecosystems that sustain life — reflecting on nature's extraordinary beauty on one hand, while confronting the consequences of humanity's relentless demand for energy, resources, and expansion on the other. Through painting and drawing, he explores the intersection of minority identity, personal history, institutional discrimination, environmental fragility, and the human condition. His work spans multiple series, examining both contemporary social realities and the lasting impact of historical events. Using a refined polyester layering technique, he builds up successive strata that render each image increasingly rich in content and detail. Portraiture is one of art history's oldest and most enduring subjects — it has never simply been about "painting a face," but about answering the question of "how a person is remembered." Four thousand years ago, the mummy portrait masks of ancient Egyptian pharaohs sealed identity in a pose of eternal permanence; in the 2nd century BCE, realist busts of the Roman Republic obsessed over wrinkles and age, insisting that power came from experience rather than bloodline. In the 15th century, van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait brought portraiture out of the realm of religion and royalty and into the civic sphere for the first time; in the 16th century, Dürer painted self-portraits with an almost sacred bearing, making "the individual" for the first time a subject worthy of gaze and preservation — portraiture becoming inextricably bound to the Renaissance rise of self-awareness. In the 17th-century Dutch Golden Age, Rembrandt and Vermeer used light and shadow to shape inner psychology rather than surface likeness, turning portraiture inward. In 18th-century Britain, Reynolds and Gainsborough used aristocratic commissioned portraits to convey temperament and status; in the 19th century, the academic realism led by Ingres pursued precision of line and classical idealization. In the 20th century, the Expressionism of Munch and Schiele distorted form to externalize anxiety, while Picasso's Cubism shattered the single viewpoint to present multiple perspectives at once; the London School's Bacon and Freud used distorted, heavily impastoed brushwork to explore the body and the anxiety of existence — portraiture no longer competed on likeness, but on what the painter could see that a machine could not. Bryan Ida: Portrait Remix stands at the latest point in this four-thousand-year history of inquiry, a new tributary at the far end of this genealogy. Contemporary portraiture no longer assumes that "a face" is a stable, singular fact — identity, like memory, is a construct built up in layers. Ida neither pursues resemblance nor relies on distortion to externalize emotion; instead, he uses material accumulation itself as the language of portraiture — not reproducing the likeness of a single moment, but materially re-enacting how identity is built up, layer by layer, over time. Process becomes meaning; the number of layers is itself the content. This continues the inner tradition, descending from Rembrandt, of "painting time rather than likeness," while also applying the layering logic of electronic music to offer a new answer — one belonging to the age of digital remix — to portraiture's oldest question. The exhibition includes several series: con.Text — Examines the relationship between historical events, institutional documents, and personal life experience, touching on racism, civil rights, human rights, and the lasting consequences of institutional oppression. Ida's 2024 self-portrait is constructed from the text of the 1924 Immigration Act, situating his personal and family history within the longer history of anti-Asian immigration policy in the United States. Portraits 2017 — Born from Ida's response to the political and social climate surrounding the 2016–2017 election, this series indirectly examines the mood of the era through portraits of artists and curators. The multiple angles and layered brushwork of each face reflect the intertwined, subjective nature of personal experience, while hinting at the layered nature of identity and perception. Nature — Fragments images of trees and natural environments, breaking their original continuity through layering and reassembly. By bending, merging, and juxtaposing these fractured worlds, the series creates a visual metaphor for the environmental challenges facing the planet, reflecting on humanity's responsibility to balance growing resource demands with the needs of the natural world. Fading Light — Focuses on endangered species, depicting animals emerging from or receding into deep darkness. For Ida, fading light becomes a metaphor for declining populations and the threat of extinction; at the same time, twilight evokes the passage of time and the impermanence of life, while light itself suggests hope, awareness, and the possibility of change in the face of adversity. Funny Animal — This series originated from an unexpected moment in the studio, when the image of a cigar-smoking rat surfaced unexpectedly beneath a floral-themed painting-in-progress. Ida decided to incorporate it into the work, and this chance encounter became the starting point for the Funny Animal series. From city to nature, from water to face, Ida's creative trajectory ultimately converges on a question at once ancient and thoroughly contemporary: how is a face built up, and remembered, layer by layer? Portrait Remix is not only a material accumulation of technique, but a contemporary inquiry into how identity is constructed through time — two hundred layers of resin standing in for four thousand years of the painter's brush, offering a new answer, one for the age of digital remix, to portraiture's oldest question. Exhibition Details Bryan Ida: Portrait Remix Exhibition dates: September 19 – November 21, 2026 Bluerider ART LA · Manhattan Beach 1030 Manhattan Beach Blvd, Manhattan Beach, CA 90266 Open: Tue.–Sat. 10am – 6:30pm info.usa@blueriderart.com T: 424-282-6288 Read more Toggle Painting Drawing