Spotlight 24

Since 2009, Durden and Ray has been curating shows with artists in LA and from around the globe. For the first time in its history, the well-known and respected artist/curatorial collective invited new and unknown artists to show in their gallery via an open call. 

After accepting applications for SPOTLIGHT24, the Durden and Ray member committee reviewed the applications and selected two artists to host concurrent solo exhibitions in the gallery. We are thrilled to announce the two winning artists are Céline Brunko and Dylan Ricards. Join us on August 24th from 7-10pm at Durden and Ray gallery to experience a presentation of new work by both artists. 

Céline Brunko is an artist and videographer from Zurich, Switzerland who studied Photography at the Zurich University of the Arts, and Fine Arts at the University of Art and Design FHNW Basel. Since 2021, she has been teaching at the Lucerne School of Art & Design for the Art & Mediation program. Previously, she worked for the Fotomuseum Winterthur and curated the artist-run space Reaktor in Zurich. Her video, audio, and object based works are primarily focused on topics as land use, mining, and new materiality. In her work she uses speculative narratives as a method to create a possible future scenario. Her works have been presented, among others, at the MAK Center L.A., US; Kunsthalle Winterthur, CH; Haus Konstruktiv, CH; Helmhaus Zürich, CH; Photoforum PasquArt, Biel, CH; Schaulager, Basel, CH; Kunsthaus Baselland, CH; Kunstraum Kreuzlingen, CH; Heiligenkreuzerhof, Wien, AT; «re|vision» European Experimental Film Festival at MIT, Cambridge, MA/US; Fondazione Fotografia Modena, IT. Besides her exhibition practice, she is part of an architectural research project in Chisinau, Moldova since 2016 and had the chance to work on an interdisciplinary project at the University of Toronto.

Dylan Ricards is an artist and educator from Long Beach, CA. He received his MFA from California State University, Long Beach in 2024 and his BA in Cinema Studies from San Francisco State University in 2003. Ricards is endlessly fascinated with the murky in-between spaces of modernity where the potential of the post-natural blooms and the cosmic hum of the world reverberates. The Port of Los Angeles/Long Beach is the conceptual foundation of his most recent work. Through this site he imagines the port as an amplifier of materiality; receiving and redistributing goods and commodities from distant origins, generating a rhythmic cycle of extraction, transformation, and redistribution. These systems contaminate and interlace with one another creating feedback loops of ecology, economy, and culture making that manifest as installation, abstraction, performance, and AV works. Ricards co-founded the experimental performance group Pure Filth Society in 2023. The group has performed at Automata in 2024 and with Heidi Duckler Dance Studio as part of Ebb and Flow 2024. He has participated in group shows throughout Southern California, including at Artbug in Los Angeles, Idolwild Gallery in 2024, NOMAD II in Torrance, CA (2023), Palos Verdes Art Center in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA (2023), and at California State University, Long Beach in 2024. He is the co-curator of GLAMFA 2022-2024. Dylan currently teaches at Otis College of Art & Design in Los Angeles, CA.