An Artist Who Makes Absurdist Paintings in a Former Church

THE NEW YORK TIMES | MAGAZINE
By Janelle Zara

The artist Calvin Marcus in his Los Angeles studio with one of his two dogs, Francis, a 3-year-old mutt. Chantal Anderson

In Los Angeles, daylight sifts into Calvin Marcus’s studio through panes of pastel-stained glass set in lancet windows. The San Francisco-born artist has lived and worked in this cavernous former synagogue turned Baptist church, constructed in 1928, since May. He found the property in 2016, by which time unknown years of neglect had led to severe structural damage. Nevertheless, “I had a vision for how it could be a great studio,” Marcus said recently, ahead of the opening of his current solo show, “Go Hang a Salami Im a Lasagna Hog,” at David Kordansky Gallery. [More]