The Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery is pleased to present COLA 2025, the visual artist exhibition of the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs Independent Master Artist Project (COLA IMAP) Grant Program. COLA 2025 marks the twenty-eighth edition of the COLA IMAP Grant Program, celebrating the creative visions of nine exceptional Los Angeles-based artists in visual, literary, and performing arts. COLA 2025, includes Carmen Argote, Olivia Booth, Bryan Ida, Flora Kao, and Jemima Wyman, who will debut bold new works ranging from video, sculpture, painting, photography, drawing, and installation with the freedom to center their core artistic impulses. 

This non-thematic exhibition presents a diverse assembly of artworks, offering viewers a rich and in-depth exploration of each artist’s individual practice. The works span a wide range of themes, including the history and application of glass, a fever-dream study of Barnsdall Art Park, portraits composed of legal language, visual strategies like camouflage shared by both the natural world and social movements, and culturally specific mourning rituals amplified through scale and color to connect with broader global histories. This constellation of artists exemplifies the complexity, rigor, and poignancy that Los Angeles-based artists bring to local communities and the international stage. COLA 2025, the COLA IMAP design and visual artists exhibition continues the DCA Grants Division’s mission to directly support artists, while honoring Los Angeles’s rich artistic legacy, and reinforcing its status as a global hub for the arts.

About COLA IMAP 

The City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs Independent Master Artist Project (COLA IMAP) is a collaborative effort between DCA’s Grants Administration Division, Community Arts Division, and Marketing, Development, Design, and Digital Research Division awarding selected artists a grant of $10,000, as well as an exhibition or performance platform in partnership with Grand Performances, and a printed catalog. Founded in 1997, the COLA IMAP is an annual grant awarded to a selection of the City’s most exemplary mid-career artists to support the creation of new works. Artists are chosen by a peer review panel that includes curators, cultural workers, and past COLA IMAP grantees. COLA IMAP is a driving force in supporting artists, honoring Los Angeles’ rich artistic legacy, and reinforcing its status as a global hub for the arts.

The COLA IMAP grantees in the Design/Visual Arts, Literary Arts, and Performing Arts are:

Carmen Argote 

Olivia Booth

Bryan Ida 

Flora Kao 

Jemima Wyman 

Yozmit The DogStar*

Charles Jensen*

Azar Lawrence*

Wilfred Souly*

*Performing artist

This year’s cohort of COLA IMAP grantees were selected by a distinguished panel of community experts including: a curator from a prestigious art museum; a curator from a civic art gallery; a regional performing arts presenter; a director at a nonprofit performing arts organization; a founding editor of a literary arts journal; an administrator from a philanthropic arts foundation; and three past COLA design/visual, literary, and performing arts grantees.

In collaboration with presenting partner Grand Performances, the Department of Cultural Affairs for the City of Los Angeles will premiere the new work by four Los Angeles-based artists at Grand Performances on June 27 at 7:00 p.m. This year’s recipients of the COLA IMAP grants in performance and literary arts are Charles Jensen, Azar Lawrence, Wilfried Souly, and Yozmit Kwon (Yozmit the DogStar). For more information please click here. 

The 2025 COLA IMAP catalog is designed by Garland Kirkpatrick, featuring detailed information about each artist, with commissioned essays capturing the breadth of each artist’s practice.  

The presentation of COLA 2025 is organized by Hugo Cervantes, LAMAG Curator.