Philip Martin Gallery is proud to present, “Moment to Moment,” an exhibition of new paintings by Los Angeles-based artist Rema Ghuloum. The exhibition focuses on Ghuloum’s sustained investigation into painterly abstraction as an experiential space in which color, atmosphere and the physical act of painting emotes visually, psychically and physically.
Rema Ghuloum’s luminescent paintings invite the viewer into a space that unfolds gradually, rewarding sustained attention while resisting fixed interpretation. “I create a surface that breathes and remembers,” Ghuloum writes, noting that, “My works are like records, memories.” Rather than composing images through direct representation, Ghuloum constructs pictures via layered accumulation with passages of paint laid in one over another over weeks and months, then sanded back, reworked and sanded back again. While some paintings evoke atmospheric conditions with only a hint of identifiable landscape—light dissolving into mist, the glow of dawn, the depth of twilight—other works suggest architectural thresholds or interior spaces that exist only as emotional impressions.
A dialogue between physicality and immateriality is a hallmark of Rema Ghuloum’s practice. The atmospheres of Ghuloum’s pictures seem to extend expansively beyond the physical boundaries of the canvas into infinite space; at the same time, her paintings are anchored as objects by scale—from very small to very large—and by the multicolored bands of brushwork that frame their edges. Ghuloum’s bands of brushwork index the colors of the overall composition with Ghuloum adding to them throughout the painting process, marking and wiping paint as she goes.
Central to Rema Ghuloum’s practice is the belief that paintings are activated through encounter. Meaning is not fixed within the object, but rather develops through the viewer’s sustained engagement. And while the works resist narrative illustration, they are deeply informed by lived experience, family history, and an ongoing meditation on displacement, healing, and belonging. An Arab-American artist of Lebanese-Jordanian-Kuwaiti heritage, Rema Ghuloum has often spoken about painting as a way of holding emotional complexity without reducing it to symbols or biography. Every decision, whether adding pigment or sanding away a surface, reflects a careful negotiation between intuition and intention.
For maker and viewer alike the result is a continual awareness of the material presence of paint; the illusion of limitless space; a continual state of becoming. Rema Ghuloum approaches the studio as a site of focused attention and embodied awareness. A certified Reiki practitioner, Ghuloum’s emphasis on energy distinguishes her work within the broader context of contemporary abstraction, connecting it to that of figures like Emma Kunz or Mark Rothko. Rema Ghuloum’s pictures ask us to slow down; to allow perception to adjust over time; to experience energy in oneself and in the work. Colors that initially appear uniform gradually reveal subtle shifts in temperature and tone. Delicate veils of pigment seem to hover above deeper layers, creating an optical vibration that changes with light, distance, and duration of looking. In Rema Ghuloum’s work, seeing and feeling are reciprocal acts in which perception, memory, and feeling continually shape one another.
Rema GHULOUM (b. 1978, North Hollywood, CA) received her BFA in Drawing and Painting from California State University, Long Beach (Long Beach, CA) in 2007 and her MFA from California College of the Arts (San Francisco, CA) in 2010. Rema Ghuloum’s recent and upcoming exhibitions include Philip Martin Gallery (Los Angeles, CA); Tabari Artspace (Dubai, UAE); David De Boer, (Antwerp, Belgium); Long Beach Museum of Art (Long Beach, CA); Forest Lawn Museum (Los Angeles, CA); Et al. (San Francisco, CA); Emma Grey HQ (Los Angeles, CA); Edward Cella Gallery (Los Angeles, CA); Five Car Garage (Santa Monica, CA); Sargent’s Daughters (New York, NY); Contemporary Art Matters (Columbus, OH); Hawthorn Contemporary (Milwaukee, WI); Jacob’s (Los Angeles, CA); Sonce Alexander Gallery (Los Angeles, CA); The Pit (Los Angeles, CA); Make Room (Los Angeles, CA); La Loma Projects (Los Angeles, CA); Odd Ark LA (Los Angeles, CA); Part 2 Gallery (Oakland, CA); Harris Gallery, University of Laverne (Laverne, CA); Nathalie Karg (New York, NY); Mother Gallery (Beacon, NY); Taymore Grahne Projects (London, UK); Meyer Reigger (Berlin, Germany) and Baik Gallery (Seoul, Korea). Ghuloum’s work is included in the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts Works on Paper Collection at the Legion of Honor Museum (San Francisco, CA). Ghuloum’s work has been reviewed in Art Forum, Hyperallergic, CARLA, the Los Angeles Times, Fabrik, and LA Weekly. Ghuloum lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
Rema Ghuloum’s exhibition, “Moment to Moment,” is online July 15 - July 29, 2026. All works can be viewed at the gallery by appointment.
Philip Martin Gallery is open Wednesday - Saturday from 11-5. For additional images, or information please email info@philipmartingallery.com, or call 323-507-2037. Philip Martin Gallery is located at 3342 Verdugo Road, Los Angeles, CA 90065.
