FROM WITHIN OUTWARD: THE COSMIC EGG, PRS Salon 3
Saturday, June 28 - Saturday, August 16, 2025
The ancient symbol of the Orphic Mysteries was the serpent-entwined egg, which signified Cosmos as encircled by the fiery Creative Spirit. The egg also represents the soul of the philosopher; the serpent, the Mysteries. At the time of initiation the shell is broke. and man emerges from the embryonic state of physical existence wherein he had remained through the fetal period of philosophic regeneration.
- MPH, The Secret Teachings
An opening reception will take place on June 28, from 2-6pm. RSVP
FROM WITHIN OUTWARD: THE COSMIC EGG with work by:
Guadalupe Arellanes
Amanda Brass
Syd Buffman
dama
Devon Deimler
Michael Dorsey
Paige Emery
Kristal Gittens
Victoria Kraus
Matt Marble
Kristen Phillips
Lezley Saar
Bailey Salwey
Jarrett Schaefer
Alison Stevenson
Eric Tanner
Justin Taylor
Emilía Turner
Elizabeth Vazquez
Radha Vishnubhotla
Alicia Wells
Senon Williams
Amy Zimmitti
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Guadalupe Arellanes, PhD is a Los Angeles artist and researcher working in a variety of media (oil paint, photography, film, and the written word). Her art explores existential questions and often centers ecological themes, elements of surrealism, and liminal spaces. Her visual poem, “Ungrounded Silhouettes of Desire” is an official selection of the 2025 International Poetry Film Festival.
Amanda Brass (b. 1975) "The DNA of Stardust" is made with children's art supplies on office supply paper. This expression supports the ongoing theme of giving your inner child permission to feel like a real artist (despite having a day job). Amanda is grateful to be given another opportunity to communicate creatively alongside PRS staff and volunteers. Syd Buffman is a perfumer and interdisciplinary artist living in Los Angeles, California. She graduated with a BA in Graphic Design from California College of the Arts in San Francisco. Syd began as a graphic designer, spending a decade studying clinical herbalism, incense making and laboratory alchemy before learning the art of perfumery from Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, a pioneer in the world of indie fragrance. In 2022, Syd founded the perfume house/art project SYD Botanica, which explores the transformative effects of scent on the mind and body, influenced by the poetry of nature, transformation and emotions. Through SYD Botanica, she has created a multi-sensory body of work exploring the operations of alchemy, including visuals, poetry, and scent, with shows at PRS and the Keystone Gallery. She also teaches perfume making workshops and has collaborated on scents with The Golden Dome School, disco-pop star Maraschino, and Stanford d.School. dama (aka Amanda Maciel Antunes) is a Brazilian artist based in Los Angeles. Her auto-didactic and transdisciplinary practice merges language and durational performance to create paintings, photography, writing, sculpture, sound, film and assemblage. She works in collaboration with public libraries, nature and communal spaces, reflecting on the selective nature of memory, inherent language and anthropological references written by women as points of departure. For reasons of political, historical and cultural urgency, her artistic journey aims to learn from the side of language that requires getting in touch with the unfamiliarity of times past to bring up the inner depths of the present. She has exhibited nationally and internationally. Her first book titled Second Birth was published in the Spring of 2023 by HEXENTEXTE. She’s also a librarian at the Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles where she also curates and hosts a monthly Surrealist Study Group focusing on women authors and artists, creating community engagement, social practice and arts programming. Devon Deimler, PhD is a writer, artist, and researcher. She is an Associate Professor in Pacifica Graduate Institute’s Mythological Studies program, Curator at OPUS Archives and Research Center, and a lecturer for Morbid Anatomy. She is the former Scholar in Residence and a Contributing Artist-Scholar at the Philosophical Research Society, where she has given several talks, co-curated exhibits and screening series, and served as a special editions editor. She holds a BA in Interdisciplinary Sculpture from the Maryland Institute College of Art. Her experience in the arts includes founding an independent record label, Wildfire Wildfire Productions, and working as Assistant to the Director at the Dennis Hopper Art Trust. Paige Emery is an ecological artist and herbalist exploring rituals of remembering the Earth. Her work is interweaves healing arts and critical ecology, ancestral memory and embodied futurities, ecopoetics and socioenvironmental praxis. As a way of life, her practice is rooted in reverence for and reciprocity with the Earth. Stemming from a background in art, herbalism, ecophilosophy, environmentalism, and learning from the Earth, Paige’s work serves as a bridge between the internal and external landscapes of ecological consciousness. This takes shape through multitudes of entangled forms, such as music for plant meditations, multispecies installations that help plants grow, paintings made with handmade plant paint, plant rituals for multispecies communication, guided ecology walks, herbal consultations, and plant remedies shared with her community. Previous works include art installations for more-than-human divination systems at Biosphere 2, Arizona, multispecies ecopoetics at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, guided sonic hypnosis for healing in the dream state at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, performance lectures on divinatory ecologies for more-than-human time at Gray Area Festival, plant rituals for memory gardens at Biennale Gherdëina, Italy, guerrilla gardens with houseless neighbors as acts of social resistance and care at Echo Park Lake, guided ecology walks with Architecture and Design Museum, and her plant remedies for transitioning between worlds at Earth Medicine Apothecary. Kristal Gittens is a Los Angeles-based visual artist whose work merges the organic with the digital. Through photography, digital design, and experimentation with fabric art and watercolor, she creates naturalistic pieces that celebrate the beauty and resilience of native and tropical plants. With a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a background in digital colorization and design, Gittens’ art seamlessly blends traditional techniques with contemporary technology, inviting viewers to explore the intricate and ephemeral qualities of nature. Matt Marble is an artist, author, audio producer and director of the American Museum of Paramusicology ("brilliant and humbling," The Paris Review). Both creatively and through historical research, his work explores the inspired intersections of art and metaphysics and the intuitive disciplines they mutually employ. Matt is the author of Buddhist Bubblegum: Esotericism in the Creative Process of Arthur Russell ("groundbreaking work," New York Times), and the producer/host of Secret Sound, a podcast exploring the metaphysical biopics of American musicians, and The Hidden Present, an audio interview series exploring intuitive discipline and spiritual imagination. Additional works have been featured by the California Festival, Warp Records, and the Philosophical Research Society. His writing, research, media production, and personal archive constitute the American Museum of Paramusicology (AMP), through which he also publishes the monthly AMP Journal. Matt's visual art and music are often rooted in his own dreamwork divination practice--the Astramira or "Wondering Stars." This work has been featured as a solo art exhibition at Greensboro Project Space, as well as through releases of instrumental guitar music and dream songs. His album of solo acoustic guitar music, The Living Mirror (2021), was released by UK label The Crystal Cabinet. Matt holds a BA in Speech & Hearing Science from Portland State University, a PhD in music composition from Princeton University, and a black rattlesnake from his dreams. Kristen Phillips is a Los Angeles based sculptor, designer, fabricator, and writer. Since 2004, she has created masks, props, sculptures, and costume pieces for film, TV, theater, live events, the haunted attraction industry, and private collectors. Her work has been shown at LACMA, Copro Gallery, Lethal Amounts Gallery, The Hive Gallery, and The Hansell Gallery at PRS. Her current ongoing projects include The Membrane, an illustrated novel published serially on Patreon and Substack, and Liminal Credential(s), a video essay series available on YouTube. |
Lezley Saar is a mixed-media artist and painter. Her artwork deals with themes of identity, race, gender, beauty, normalcy, and sanity. Daughter of influential African American artist Betye Saar, her work exhibits a diverse range, from collages to installation pieces. Throughout her work, Saar explores notions of femininity, spirituality, and power. She has exhibited internationally, and nationally, and her work is included in museum collections such as The Kemper Museum, CAAM, The Ackland Art Museum, and MOCA. She is currently represented by Walter Maciel Gallery in Los Angeles.
Combining found objects, paint, and fabric, Saar’s work comments on themes of “hybridity, acceptance, and belonging.” Saar’s work is narrative, often inspired by literature or historical figures. She stated, “I like the idea of a painting sucking you in like when you really get sucked in by a good book…I use that kind of metaphor as a vehicle for doing my art.” Saar is the recipient of the California State Senate Contemporary Art Collection award (2000), the J. Paul Getty Mid-Career Grant (1996), and the Seagram’s Gin Perspective in African American Art Fellowship (1995). Bailey Salwey is a cinematographer and photographer originally from Montana. Her career began as a painter and photographer focusing on experimental and alternative processes. She recently graduated from the American Film Institute with a masters degree in cinematography and is living and working in Los Angeles. Bailey strives to push the boundaries of how she views filmmaking and continues her search for humanness within a moving and still image. Jarrett Schaefer is a PRS Bookstore clerk, AV tech and co-host of PRS's monthly Esoteric Game Night. He is an award-winning feature-length writer/director currently finishing the dresspattern for his next film, a very serious comedy about gematria called 888. He lives in Los Angeles. Justin Taylor is Jamaican-Kiwi dance-pop sensation/one hit wonder, (Jutty Ranx, 2013), and a raised-eyebrow winning Hermetic Qabalist. He is the frontman for shoegaze boy-toys Drag Talk, and anonymous sideman for a popular occult rock band. Emilía Turner is a multidisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles, California. Working in a variety of media (alternative process photography, mixed media sculpture, experimental music, and performance), they explore subjects that are ephemeral and dichotomous -- growth and decay, humans’ complicated relationship with the planet, and paradoxes found in nature. They have exhibited both visual and performance-based work in New York City, Los Angeles, Rome, and Iceland, and participated in residency programs in Joshua Tree, North Carolina, Seyðisfjörður, and more. They have composed and performed across the USA in various experimental music projects (Paradot, Sloppy Jane, Kisskadee), and own the audiovisual production business Studio Liminals. Elizabeth T. Vazquez is an artist, writer, and filmmaker from Los Angeles. After studying cultural anthropology and philosophy at Moorpark College, they received their BA in Film Production with a focus on cinematography at the Arts University Bournemouth in the UK. From 2021 to 2022, they were an artist-in-residence at The Philosophical Research Society. In 2022, they graduated from the American Film Institute Conservatory with an MFA in Screenwriting. Liz's work incorporates experimental video art, painting, drawing, assemblage, photography, and narrative filmmaking. Radha Vishnubhotla is a multi-disciplinary artist and first-generation Indian-American based in Los Angeles. Her work is shaped by deep roots—her heritage, a reverence for nature, and an enduring love for music. From an early age, she immersed herself in painting, illustration, and photography, later studying animation & digital arts at USC. Though graphic design has been her primary medium, she continues to explore organic forms of expression, most recently through linoleum and woodcut printmaking. In 2018, Radha co-founded mmarz, an open-format online mix series spotlighting DJs from across the world. By 2019, she began Sacred Space, a monthly residency on NTS Radio that drifts through folk, jazz, downtempo, ambient, and electronic soundscapes. Each of these creative channels allows her to honor the stories and traditions that resonate most deeply. Proudly part of LA’s vibrant artistic community, Radha seeks to inspire, connect, and collaborate—building bridges through sound, image, and shared experience. Alicia Wells sees spirits in sticks and follows where they lead. Influenced by Bosch, McQueen, and Deadsy, she lives in Downtown LA, works as a life coach, practices Shaolin stick forms, and is writing a play about bipolar love and telepathy. Senon Williams is a lifelong visual artist and musician, and a Los Angeles native. Ranging in media from paintings on paper and canvas, to wood sculpture and assemblage. Senon explores poignant visualization of the inherent human struggle both ancient and contemporary. He finds space in the natural world, exposing stages of human evolution. His love of language play, sounds, textures, and associations of word and object often explore the triumphs and conflicts inherent in identity, history, and community. Senon’s search for truth leaves him amazed and baffled. Creating art is his meditation on meaning, or no meaning in the face of our turbulent existence. We are invited to support or defy multiple conclusions, how do we help and how do we hurt? The written word and poetry is a consistent part of his practice. He has published four books: Hunted & Gathered (2017, Hamilton Press), Words Don’t Mean Much (Hat & Beard Press, 2021), Rituals (Lauren Powell Projects/Keep or Gift After Purchase, 2023) and Scrapyard (Hat & Beard Press, 2025), as well as multiple zines. Senon’s work has been shown at Five Car Garage (LA), The Hole NYC (LA), Rusha & Co. (LA), PRJCTLA (LA), The Lodge (LA), Auxiliary Projects (NYC), Beyond The Streets, Southampton Arts Center (NY), FT Gallery (Phnom Penh), amongst many others. Amy Zimmitti is an artist and sound engineer living and working in Los Angeles. In 2008, Amy relocated from the East Coast to become a course director for The Los Angeles Film School. She develops instructional content for several degree programs and mentors students in the sound production of their filmmaking, animation, and game development projects. |
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