From the ashes Artists devastated by California fires unite for new show

When Jeffrey Sugishita visited the burnt husk of the house he had called home, flames were still smoldering inside. For about 30 minutes, Sugishita wandered the wreckage, looking at the empty space where his room had been.

- Lois Beckett

"What's burnt is burnt," the 26-year-old artist said. "I told myself: 'I'm going to make something new out of this.'"

Sugishita went to his car, took out the helmet sculptures he had saved from the blaze, and started photographing himself, using only his iPhone and a tripod.

One of those self-portraits - Sugishita amid the ruins, wearing a helmet of flowers - is now at the center of a Los Angeles exhibit that brings together the work of nearly 100 artists who lost homes, studios and work in January's historic fires.

Highlighting the ongoing toll of California's extreme weather, the show for artists displaced by the fires opened on Friday as the gallery was being flooded by torrential rains; water seeped across the floor and workers swept away puddles as new emergency alerts were issued.

Some of the artists who contributed to the show are well-known, such as Ruby Neri, Kelly Akashi, Kathryn Andrews and Paul McCarthy. Others have mostly exhibited their work locally or are just beginning their careers, like Sugishita, who graduated from art school in 2023.

Aram Moshayedi, who is the interim chief curator of the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles but put together the show independently as part of a volunteer effort, said: "It felt really necessary to create a context where people who have been displaced could converge together, in an exhibit that could be as far-reaching and inclusive as possible."

Moshayedi said 100% of any sales would go to the artists, inspiring the show's name: One Hundred Percent.

The thread of the exhibition is the artists' common and very recent devastation. Some of the works are what they threw in their cars as they fled the flames.