Since the 1920s, Culver City has been a significant center for motion picture and television production. It was the home of MGM Studios, the headquarters for the Hughes Aircraft Company, and has since become the headquarters for NPR west and Sony Pictures. There was a decline of the studios during the 1960s, and in 1976, the sets were flattened in order to make way for redevelopment. But in the 1990s, Culver City launched a successful revitalization program, renovating downtown as well as several shopping centers. The relocation of Sony’s motion picture operations (Columbia Pictures) to the former MGM studios brought much needed jobs to the city. The influx of many art galleries to the formally designated Art District has evolved into a comprehensive arts neighborhood, inspiring The New York Times to praise the art scene of Culver City as a “nascent Chelsea.”

I recently made the trip from Hollywood to explore these galleries on a day I knew they would all be open – Artwalk day. I got there early to catch an invitational brunch at project:gallery, who had put together an exhibit called “Insider Trading,” featuring many of their represented artists. This gallery’s roster is a hotbed for illustration. I was particularly taken with Nate Frizell’s work, heavily laden with the suggestion that his human subjects yearn to be birds–enthralled by their freedom, attempting to camouflage themselves in order to be part of avian society, offering string and often even their own coiffure as nest space.

Tom Haubreck’s work is completely on the opposite end of the spectrum–dark and brooding, rendered in black ink typically, with one color element–a light to show you the way into the emotional space of the images. Many of the works show a young man in a suit whose head has become a black hole with a light shining out of it, and a young woman that seems to be the object of his obsession. One image shows him floating above her with an umbrella as an angel to keep the rain off her. Another shows him waiting under a window she is in, catching the petals she pulls off of a yellow flower. Many of his images show his subjects floating with their heads in black clouds, anchored more to black thoughts than the earth below them.

The offerings at Cardwell/Jimmerson Gallery were minimal. The exhibition “Colorblind: Black, White and Gray in Contemporary Art” offered up clean, black framing and what seemed like very simple images, but upon closer inspection revealed a complex art making process of incredible detail. Robert Hite’s work was the only photography in the gallery. A house reminiscent of Brazilian favellas sits on stilts over a lake. A thin five-story building with a pagoda-esque roof presides gracefully over a foggy swamp. A stilted long house falls into slow decay among the roots of giant trees. These environments seem so natural, until your mind catches up to the scale. Where are there trees so large that their roots almost match the size of a house? Robert Hite has built every single one of these structures. Models averaging eight feet in either length or height, they are constructed so masterfully, fooling the eye when placed in context of beautiful black and white photography. Not only has Hite mastered photographical application, but he is incredibly adept as a sculptor. The gallery owner informed me that the artist usually shows the sculptures in tandem with the photographs.

What seemed to be photographs of window displays, featuring models behind the glass and very detailed reflections of the street behind the photographer, was in fact photo-realistic renderings in graphite. Bob Burchman’s work is so flawlessly rendered that, straining my eyes as hard as I could, I was able to only find some marks of evidence that this was, in fact, not photography. Beyond just skill, Burchman’s choice of using just black and white recalls a time before digital manipulation, when skill with a camera and prowess in the dark room had artists skilled in rendering wondering if they would be put out of business.

Joshua Levine professes an admiration for biotech and “better living through science,” as well as an interest in creating his own pets and displaying their mutated forms on trophy stands and their heads on walls. Visions of animals with two heads that would make most of us nauseous, he has elevated to the “ultimate catch”–a point of pride for any collector. Mishaps of science are re-envisioned as accelerated evolution, survival of the fittest manipulated by godlike scientists. This is the artist’s first time exhibiting at Den Contemporary Art.

Kinsey/DesForges hosted a stunning exhibition of artist Tiffany Bozic’s latest work. Detailed renderings of animals, evocative of the works of famous botanists, are placed in narrative configurations. The scenes illustrate the life and death cycle, survival, birth, death; the harmony and beauty of the natural world and the balance in tragedy. Owls block the sun to swoop upon naked baby mice; ribbon eels weave through each other in aquamarine waters to prey upon sea urchins; frogs share a dwindling pool. Red crabs fight with white starfish on a crowded blue shore, and two crabs battle for supremacy atop hills of dead ancestors. The metaphors in the paintings illustrate the inevitability in the outcome of every endeavor, yet the beauty and balance of it all shines through in Bozic’s use of glowing color and attractive composition.

My absolute favorite exhibit of the day was at LA><ART. Michelle Lopez’s exhibition, “The Year We Made Contact,” was three pieces. The first involved tree branches suspended on c-stands, situated seemingly haphazardly. The branches start out natural and, about a third of the way into the air, turn into plastic prosthetic continuations. The next piece was laying on the ground towards the wall, a giant bronze condom tipped with the head of C3P0–one of the robots from Star Wars. The last piece continues this theme–a 5-foot wide exploding Death Star, complete with white goo flying from the center, suspended midair by c-stands. This exhibition spoke strongly to me about the way art is made–the interests we draw from and how they mingle on a cultural level. Icons become ideas we change by rearranging, reshaping, or exploding all together to find something new inside of them.

In much the same way, Culver City has been rearranged by successes in the Hollywood industry. Like any city renewal project, it has been reshaped into something that can move forward, complete with an art scene that is literally exploding.