After serving in the U.S. Air Force during the Second World War, Charles Garabedian worked various jobs as tirebuilder, auto assembler, and night-shift railroad clerk, and only started painting in 1954 at the age of 32. Later, the artist studied with William Brice at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and obtained his MFA in 1961. Garabedian continued to live and work in southern California until his death.

Garabedian’s work often treats mythologies and origin stories as the subconscious repositories of their respective civilizations. Here, figures blend or become abstracted into landscapes, and grotesque bodies in odd postures propel almost unintelligible narratives forward. The drawing titled Where Seldom… shows a landscape sparsely populated by two bulls, two scorched tree stumps, and an indeterminate bouquet (of harvested grain plants? Flowers?). While the bulls struggle to cohere as material bodies due to Garabedian’s tremulous brushstrokes, a gigantic eye presents itself as an extension of rolling hills in the distance, staring directly back at the viewer. Artist John Baldessari, an admirer of Garabedian’s work, gifted the work to LACMA.