Best Things to Do in SoCal This Week: January 5-11, 2026
Surrealism with glitter
Artist Junna Maruyama makes her solo debut in Who Am I? at Corey Helford Gallery. A seductive meditation on identity and femininity, Maruyama showcases pop surrealist paintings, prints, and sculpture that uses glitter, heart stickers, and other feminine materials. Inspired by fairy tales and folklore, her works convey an innocence that interrogates how femininity is constructed, consumed, and presented.
571 S Anderson St
A pioneering plein air painter
Art historian and former museum director Jean Stern presents a look at one of California’s plein air pioneers in The Life and Art of Edgar Payne. This slide-illustrated lecture traces the remarkable journey of Edgar Payne, a self-taught artist who arrived in Southern California in 1911 and fell in love with the landscape. Featuring archival photographs and numerous artworks, Stern explains the artist as both a painter of the Sierra Nevada mountains and a founder of the Laguna Beach Art Association.
307 Cliff Dr.
History and heritage stitched
Quilt-making becomes a powerful act of storytelling at the Pasadena Museum of History in this intimate panel with members of the African American Quilters of Los Angeles. The conversation explores how quilts function as platforms of personal expression and cultural memory, while panelists offer insight into the creative processes and personal stories behind selected pieces featured in Stories, Traditions & Designs: Spotlighting the African American Quilters of Los Angeles, an exhibition celebrating AAQLA’s nearly four decades of artistic legacy.
470 Walnut St
Manga meets breaking news
Artist Koichi Enomoto returns to Nonaka Hill Los Angeles with Broadcasting / Dreaming, a sharp new body of paintings that dissect social behaviors and ideologies shaping contemporary life. Blending the graphic language of manga with photorealism, Enomoto creates scenes that are both humorous and biting, mirroring the internal and external tensions of post-capitalist life. Dense patterning and uncanny juxtapositions pull viewers in, while the work’s deeper questions about conformity, news, and modern identity linger long after.
720 Highland Ave
Photography that remembers
A Matter of Things Seen offers a powerful meditation on how photography can surface the forces that shape our shared humanity. Working in black-and-white photography and collage, artist John Simmons turns everyday scenes into evidence: moments of joy, tenderness, and injustice unfolding across ethnocultural and socioeconomic communities. These images ask viewers to look closely, revealing how inequality is embedded in the ordinary. Rooted in observation, the work layers street photography with historical fragments to challenge systems that diminish us while honoring the resilience that endures.
5080 West Pico Blvd