'Beauty War' | Exhibit Opening in LA's Chinatown
by Lina Savage
Cakeland Gallery LA at 936 Mei Ling Way
Opening this Friday at LA’s Cakeland Gallery in Chinatown, Scott Hove’s Beauty War exhibit offers an artistic experience that challenges the turbulent state of our socio-economic and environmental climate. Hove explores the battle between the forces of light and dark, actualized through his signature expression of hallucinatory cake.
The exhibit takes visitors through a cake-inspired labyrinth of delicately crafted rooms. A dark room of struggle and fear is essential for the transcendence into the following room of light and serenity. Each white rose is contrasted with a black flower; every layer of white frosting is embedded with a threatening dagger.
Hove is dedicated to the idea of balance. One of the happiest rooms in the exhibit, which is saturated with whites and pinks, still leads to a looming “hell pit” that is walled with mirrors to create an infinite evil dimension. Even his face mask—a design of two intertwined dragons, one white, one black—projects this everlasting truth.
The opening of the exhibit was originally scheduled pre-COVID, but the hardships of quarantine have only amplified the Beauty War’s importance. Hove recognizes that the lockdown has forced people to get in touch with their feelings, which consequently triggered a social rights movement that he believes would not have been as impactful without the constraints COVID. Because of the current climate, people are more sensitive, uncertain, and fearful, he asserts, which causes them to be more vulnerable and, ultimately, more accepting of art. Hove invites showgoers to come away with a revelatory experience, unique to each person.