To read my exhibition review of Tom LaDuke’s Love Letters exhibition in Art Spiel, click here: Tom LaDuke’s Dream Sets for a Lost Message
By Stephen Wozniak
Love Letters
November 22-December 27, 2025
Phase Gallery
1718 Albion Street
Los Angeles, CA 90031
www.phasegallery.com
EXCERPT
Borrowing its title from the 1945 torch song later immortalized by Ketty Lester and woven into David Lynch’s noir classic film Blue Velvet, Tom LaDuke’s Love Letters, at Phase Gallery, opens with the suggestion of misdirected intimacy and perceptual slippage. The exhibition frames a suite of large, quasi-abstract paintings and three sculptures through the conceit of the love letter—private, elliptical, addressed as much to other art as to viewers. LaDuke’s “love letters” become homages to cultural touchstones across media: songs, paintings, films, and digital detritus that have shaped his sensibility.