Los Angeles Art Fairs 2026: Startup Venice Beach Review

Feature image: Mido Lee, Startup Art Fair Los Angeles, 2017. © 2017 Mido Lee via Startup Art Fair

The 2026 edition of Startup took place from February 27 to March 1 at The Kinney Venice Beach. Conceived as a platform specifically aimed at empowering mid–career and emerging artists, the fair is recognized for offering an alternative to traditional gallery representation. By decentering intermediary structures, this model expands artists’ visibility through art fairs, curated exhibitions, and formats that facilitate direct engagement with collectors. In this sense, it is one of the rare fair structures in which artists interface directly with the organizing body. Correspondingly, it establishes a framework through which collectors can access high–quality contemporary art at relatively attainable price points, fostering unmediated relationships between production and acquisition.

Ongoing gallery closures and the contraction of artist–centered opportunities have deprived many practitioners of sustainable exhibition platforms, and continue to do so. Emerging in 2015 as a critical response to this transforming art ecosystem, the project was founded by artist and entrepreneur Ray Beldner, with its inaugural edition staged at Hotel Del Sol in San Francisco. The conversion of hotel rooms into exhibition spaces significantly reconfigured the regional fair format: each room was conceived as an immersive, concentrated environment dedicated to a single artistic practice. This spatial strategy foregrounded personal narrative and holistic presentation over the anonymity of the conventional fair booth aesthetic. Frequently encountered at Miami fairs as well, this model offers a warmer, more intimate visitor experience [personally, it remains my preferred format]. Unlike many others, the absence of music at disruptive decibel levels, the spatial generosity of the rooms [in contrast to business/vertical hotels], and the artists’ ability to transform the spaces autonomously render the model particularly valuable within the art market context.

Among the most memorable spatial interventions were Inga Frick’s paintings arranged on the floor rather than mounted on the wall [09:07], Amy Thornberry and Christina Shurts’ Reveal project utilizing the bed as a projection surface [10:26], and the exhibitions by Fernando Carnauba and Peter Hiers, which stood out as some of the most professionally resolved presentations within the fair.

Fernando Carnauba’s practice [12:06] is grounded in a creative process that investigates the transformation of mathematical ideas into aesthetic experience. The Brazilian–born artist, who teaches mathematics at Stanford, operates on the premise that every individual possesses strong potential for mathematical thinking. His pedagogical work centers on encouraging students to recognize and embrace their own mathematical brilliance. Within the hotel setting, the use of a textile backdrop transformed the room into an abstract spatial dimension, while the hotel telephone [originally present in the room], positioned in the corner as a last–minute addition, functioned as an experimental complement to the paintings. Had it been accompanied by a wall label, it could have operated as a fully articulated installation element.

The geometric forms and depth perception in his work emerge from subtle variations of line. Drawing inspiration from the Brazilian concrete art tradition, Carnauba balances chromatic ratios and spatial relations with precision, particularly in his line-based compositions. This approach allows complex visual orders to arise from minimal variations, inviting the viewer into a mode of mathematical contemplation. The processes oscillate between chance and systematic structuring, offering audiences the opportunity to experience aesthetic harmony through mathematical possibility.

Peter Hiers’ works [11:12], by contrast, interrogate the contradictory emotions of modern life and the long-term cost of contemporary comforts for other life forms and human continuity. Since 2000, he has shaped his works from exploded tire fragments collected from highways, rendering visible the ecological and ideological crises produced by contemporary consumption culture. Exploiting the material’s elasticity, torn textures, and metaphorical richness as both formal and conceptual tools, Hiers constructs each piece as an embodied encounter with the contradictions of modernity.

His process is shaped by the sensory intensity of highways [the vibration of air and asphalt, roadside debris, and animal remains] experiences that materialize the violent tension between culture and nature that he perceives as a defining formal condition of our time. Reassembled into new configurations, these materials generate a provisional sense of hope derived from the very contradictions of modern life, suggesting the possibility of alternative ideological formations.

Hiers’ artistic formation traces back to his early engagement with discarded materials, producing three–dimensional works from found objects. As a self–taught artist, he has exhibited nationally and internationally for over three decades. His works have been presented beyond the U.S. on China National Television, at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing, The National Art Center Tokyo, the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art, and in numerous museums and galleries across France, Italy, Greece, and Canada. His practice stands out for translating the socio–political and economic seductions and dangers of the American Dream’s pursuit of 'more, bigger, better, faster' into a tactile and formal visual language.

Hannah Moore’s works [02:35] reveal a practice that merges the ocean’s unpredictability with everyday lived experience. Based in Merritt Island, she continues to work simultaneously as a marine biologist and diving instructor. Having lived in Germany, Cambodia, Indonesia, Australia, Hawaii, and Miami, Moore emphasizes that the ocean constitutes a lived environment rather than a subject. With over 1800 hours spent underwater in rivers, lakes, and oceans of varying temperatures, she has consistently produced work alongside her sketchbook, watercolor materials, and underwater camera.

Her playing–card–like works engage themes of chance and play. Inspired by blackjack and poker, she visualizes what she describes as the ocean’s 'winning moments'. Discovering a perfect seashell or encountering an extraordinary fish during a dive is, for her, as exhilarating as winning a blackjack hand. Her print editions aim to bridge originality and accessibility. Produced as giclée prints on museum–quality textured paper with archival inks [paper that mirrors the tactile quality of her watercolor surface] each piece is further hand–embellished with gold, silver, or copper details. As a result, the foil accents and surface textures ensure that each collector receives a uniquely modified work.

Shannon Milar’s mirror series, constructed from collages [06:00], also stood out. The works are based on the transformation of imagery sourced from mid–century magazines. Figures are excised from their original contexts and suspended between transparent and mirrored acrylic panels, transforming each piece into a 'visual fusion' object that demands active spectator participation. Milar’s practice investigates perceptual slippage and how the act of looking alters what we think we know. The conjunction of collage and reflection simultaneously activates visual memory and positions the viewer as an unavoidable participant within the work’s perceptual field.

In Stephanie Vaughan’s exhibition, the works [01:20] materialize through intuition, primal gender expression, and the evolution of the human soul, rendered visible through organic earth tones, feminine forms, and masculine textures. Her practice is structured around honoring lived experience and transmitting the wisdom that emerges from it. The creative process unfolds as an ongoing dialogue between interior and exterior worlds, with each artwork functioning as a visual resonance of that exchange. Often painting before fully naming what she feels, Vaughan explores the tension between control and surrender, aiming to awaken in the viewer an ancient, quiet, yet latent emotion; a familiar but unacknowledged interior terrain.

Her work focuses particularly on femininity, gender differences, and symbolic structures. Following emotionally intense experiences and abuse in 2009, she began articulating pain and struggle through doll figures. Barbie, as an iconic cultural signifier of womanhood and a potent vehicle for visualizing the darker dimensions of gender conflict, became central to her inquiry. Vaughan regards the figure as embodying socially imposed expectations and as an effective means of exposing their absurdity. Through humorous yet striking sculptural interventions, the works question the social pressures and irrational norms frequently imposed on women, generating dialogue and ultimately conveying a possibility of liberation.

With editions staged in both San Francisco and Los Angeles at different times, Startup continues to produce a horizontal, experience–driven, and intimate alternative to the hierarchical structure of the traditional art market. Frankly, among hotel–based fairs [particularly in the context of LA], it offered an even more refined and comfortable experience than Felix.

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