Last weekend, on March 2nd, my first solo solo show with Thinkspace Gallery in Culver City opened. The show is titled "Ghosts Upon the Walls" and features 8 new paintings. The show runs from March 2nd - 23rd. Here are all the paintings from the show.
If you are interested in purchasing any of the pieces, please click here to go to Thinkspace's website to see prices and availability. Please contact the gallery directly. Thanks!
This Saturday, May 26th, Thinkspace Gallery in Culver City will be hosting a show titled "Wild at Heart - Keep Wildlife in the WIld" curated by Andrew Hosner and Amanda Erlanson. 20% of all sales will go to Born Free USA, a national animal advocacy organization aimed at protecting and promoting the ethical treatment of wild animals all over the world. Over 100 artists have submitted work.
Here's my painting.
Where You've Wandered. Oil on Canvas. 16" x 12"
If you can, please come to the show. Also, you can also help out the cause by participating in Born Free USA’s new Animal Sponsorship program and by bringing blankets, comforters, dog and cat beds, and toys for donation to Operation Blankets of Love which works to assist homeless animals.
Tonight, Friday May 4th, Gallery 1988 opens their 8 year anniversary show "Memes" where artists pick their favorite internet meme and make something based on it. For mor info on Memes you can check out http://knowyourmeme.com/
For my painting I chose The Slender Man.
The Slender Man. Oil on Canvas. 12" x 24". 2012
From KnowYourMeme.com: Slender Man (a.k.a Slenderman) is a mythical creature often depicted as a tall and thin figure wearing a black suit with a necktie and a blank face. According to the legend, he can stretch out or shorten his arms at will and has tentacle-like appendages protruding from his back. Depending on various vloggers and bloggers interpretations of the myth, the creature can show a wide range of abilities, ranging from causing memory loss, insomnia, paranoia, coughing fits with or without blood spitting (nicknamed Slendersickness) to triggering photograph/video distortions and statics as well as having teleportation power. Slender Man has inspired fan arts, fictional creepypastas as well as a mockumentary series done in the style of the 1999 indie horror film Blair Witch Project.
Please come check out the painting in person at Gallery 1988: Melrose.
Show opens Friday May 4th 7-10pm. Show runs from May 4th - 26th www.gallery1988.com
This Saturday and Sunday, Spoke Art in San Francisco is opening their new show Bad Dads, a tribute to the films of Wes Anderson. I'm a big fan of him and his movies and the show is bound to be awesome. Here's my painting, based on the movie Rushmore:
She's My Rushmore. 24 x 12. Oil on Canvas
If you're going to San Francisco be sure to check out this show.
This weekend is Beyond Eden, an art fair in Los Angeles featuring some awesome galleries. I am very excited to have my work in TWO of the shows: Cannibal Flower and Spoke Art's "Quentin vs Coen Round III"
For Cannibal Flower I'll have this painting up:
Where the Birds Gather. Oil on Wood. 20" x 16". 2011
and for "Quentin vs Coen" I made this:
Traditional American Folk Song. Oil on Wood. 16" x 12". 2011
Based on O Brother, Where Art Thou?
With all the galleries participating, this should be an absolutely amazing show.
The fair will be at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery on Saturday, October 1st 6PM-11PM and Sunday, October 2nd Noon-5PM
Lots of updates. First of all, Crazy 4 Cult 5 was awesome this year. Went to the opening and it was packed but went back last week and actually got to check it out and the work was amazing. Very honored to be part of it. Still on display til July 30th.
Check out G4's coverage of the show and watch out for my painting at the very end, right when the gallery's website is given!
Also, this whole weekend, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday I'll be in an art show hosted by MUFON (The Mutual UFO Network) as part of their 2011 Symposium, with this painting, as well as a few others.
Over 100 artists make art based on their favorite cult classic movies. It is their 5th year doing this show and it's my first time participating in it, and I'm very excited.
So here's my piece, based on Spirited Away, and a bunch of others:
Oil on Canvas. 15" x 30"
The show opens on July 8th, and I hear the opening nights are crazy crowded. I'm really looking forward to this show.
I thought it might be interesting to come up with some notes on a few of the things that inspired this this little painting I did. I've always liked the idea of leaving my paintings completely open to interpretation, but I thought explaining some of the concepts behind this one would be fun. For me at least.
Electronic Voice Phenomenon. 2011. Oil on Canvas. 18" x 24"
1.Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) are audio recordings of noises that resemble human speech but are not the result of intentional voice recordings.At the time of recording, they are inaudible to the human ear, and they can only be heard upon playback.They are typically brief, usually only one word or a short phrase.
Some claim that EVPs are of paranormal origin and could be evidence of ghosts, demons, or other paranormal entities.Skeptics argue that EVPs have more natural explanations such as static, radio transmissions, background noise, pareidolia, or hoaxes.
2.Pareidolia is the psychological phenomenon of finding significance, meaning, or patterns in vague or random stimuli.Examples include automatically seeing a smiley face when combing two dots and a line :), seeing the man on the moon, seeing shapes in the clouds, or seeing a religious icon in a grilled cheese sandwich.
In relation to EVPs, misinterpreting random, meaningless background noise as understandable words or phrases would be an example of pareidolia.
(The Face on Mars)
(A box that appears adorably shocked)
(The Virgin Mary miraculously appeared on a grilled cheese sandwich)
3.The Fiji Mermaid – The mermaid is one of the most iconic products of the human imagination. They can also represent the hidden, mysterious, and undiscovered – the secret, distant, unexplored realms of the earth where anything could exist.
Popularized by P.T. Barnum, the Fiji Mermaid was a common feature of sideshows, presented as the mummified body of a creature that was half mammal and half fish. It was made by sewing the torso and head of a baby monkey to the back half of a fish and covering it with paper-maché.It is a classic example of a hoax.
(An actual factual fiji mermaid!)
4.Retro-futurism – an artistic aesthetic influenced by depictions of the future prior to the 1960s, blending old-fashioned styles and futuristic technology.Such futuristic visions, offer a nostalgic, imaginative, and counterfactual image of what the future might have been, but is not.
(Forbidden Planet, featuring Robby the Robot)
[Sources: What I didn't just come up with myself is paraphrased from Wikipedia. Scholarly!]
