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Pure Logo at New Image

October 18, 2011 – 7:19 PM

PURE LOGO curated by Skullphone
October 22 – December 10, 2011
Opening Reception Saturday October 22,  7-10pm

New Image Art
7920 Santa Monica Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90046
*Please note new location. Same block, 4 doors west

New Image Art is pleased to announce PURE LOGO, a group exhibition co-curated by Los Angeles artist Skullphone, which features the diverse multimedia artists Evan Gruzis, Curtis Kulig, Takeshi Murata, Cleon Peterson, Skullphone, Paul Wackers and Hugh Ziegler.
PURE LOGO explores the omnipresence, necessity, form and functionality of logos as they metamorphose to communicate within increasingly brief discourses. The trajectory of each individual artist informs the exhibition’s overarching investigation of logos, both literal and symbolic, and links the artists through investigations of representation.

Evan Gruzis was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1979 and received his MFA from Hunter College.  His technically rigorous ink and watercolor paintings are known for their combination of seductive light and absurd, vacuous pop imagery.  In 2008, he published his first monograph, Dark Systems, in conjunction with a solo exhibition at Deitch Projects.  Gruzis belongs to numerous collections, including that of the Whitney Museum of American Art.  Currently, his work is on view in two solo exhibitions:  Exotic Beta at The Hole and Shadow Work at Nicole Klagsbrun, both in New York.  Abroad he is represented by DUVE Berlin and Galerie SAKS, Geneva. He lives and works in Brooklyn.

Curtis Kulig is best known for obsessively covering his canvases and the streets of New York City with the two-word phrase “Love Me.” An inversion of New York’s famous slogan, Kulig’s ubiquitous plea speaks at once to humans’ most primal desire and belies self-doubt and -criticism. “Whatever it’s become,” Kulig says, “It’s kind of my everything.” Kulig was born in North Dakota and got his first taste of creating in his father’s screen-printing shop at age 13.His work has been featured at Mallick Williams & Co, Leo Kesting Gallery, and NYEHAUS in New York; Subliminal Projects, in Los Angeles.

Multimedia artist Takeshi Murata’s immersive, painstakingly hand-drawn animations exploit broken code and programming glitches to fracture video footage into hypnotic, pixelated distortions and flowing color fields. His evolving processes, visualized in computer-aided hand-drawn forms onscreen, shift and morph into organic forms that teem and pitch, creating images that at once gesture toward technological fragmentation and painterly abstraction. The Chicago-born artist received his BFA in Film/Video/Animation from the Rhode Island School of Design and his work has been exhibited at The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo; Peres Projects, Los Angeles; and Deitch Projects, New York; among others. Murata lives in Saugerties, New York.

Born in Seattle, Washington, Cleon Peterson currently lives and works in Los Angeles. Peterson paints an anxiety-ridden dystopia where corruption and injustice plague the social order. Deviance prevails, as desperate characters struggle for power and control over their environment. The indiviudual is displaced and forced to navigate this brutal world alone, finding hollow bits of pleasure and meaning in violence, sex, religion and drugs. In this show Peterson has evolved full circle creating utopian symbols that are uniquely unrepresentative of any past movement. The Los Angeles-based artist has shown at galleries internationally, including Alice Gallery, Brussels; Deitch Projects, New York; and Guerrero Gallery, San Francisco.

Los Angeles-based Skullphone first gained notoriety on city streets in 1999 for his iconic image of a black-and-white skull holding a cell phone. He drew attention once again in 2008 when his work appeared on the then-new digital billboards above the streets of L.A. Skullphone’s Digital Media paintings document our world – one which is increasingly communicating with brief encounters via technology – through a laborious painting process. Through painted pointillism on mirror-polished aluminum panels, these images dislocate when the artwork is approached. Skullphone’s work has been shown at Mallick Williams & Co, New York; Subliminal Projects, Los Angeles; the Riverside Art Museum; and was featured in MOCA’s 2009 FRESH Silent Auction.

Paul Wackers’s work is rooted in inventive means of figuration. “My work is first a response to the world and then a reaction to what is has to offer,” notes Wackers. The formal quality and sensibility of his work is reminiscent of a 17th-century Dutch still-life painter à la Margareta Haverman or Willem van Aelst merged with atmospheric, broken-down geometric landscapes or a diptych-inspired composition on a single canvas. In these works, dreamlike non-places are populated by objects and elements that interact as part of another world that is jarringly similar to our own. Trained in fine arts at the Corcoran College of Art and Design and as a painter at the San Francisco Art Institute, Wackers’ works have appeared in solo exhibitions at Eleanor Harwood Gallery, in San Francisco, and group exhibitions in Los Angeles, London and Brussels.

Hugh Zeigler originally hails from Richmond, Virginia, and lives in Los Angeles. He received his BFA in painting and art history from the Rhode Island School of Design and was awarded an artist fellowship at the Ox-Bow School of the Arts in Saugatuck, Michigan. Zeigler’s work confronts the intersection between painter and viewer. Using and relying on the vocabulary established by prior painting, he describes his work as “touching on existing components and tropes as clues, directing the viewer not to a finished narrative, but rather to a self-awareness of the legibility of painting. Zeigler has exhibited his work in Los Angeles; Providence, Rhode Island; Saugatuck, Michigan; and Richmond, Virginia. In addition to contributing to Pure Logo, he’s currently creating a body of work for a December exhibition Johansson Projects, in Oakland.

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TIM BISKUP solo show at THIS! Thursday, Oct. 14, 2011

October 7, 2011 – 12:21 AM

THIS los angeles is proud to present:

TIM BISKUP : Former State
New Paintings & Sculptures…

October 14th – November 4th, 2011.
Opening Reception: October 14th, 7-10pm

After party at The Little Cave – DJs and Drink Specials. DJs include: Tim Biskup, MFG, Paul Tao & ERIC WAREHEIM!

– ABOUT THE EXHIBITION–

Tim Biskup’s new collection of paintings looks strangely familiar. Maybe it’s the unavoidable Biskup-ness of his color palate or the uncomfortable, slightly “off” expressions of his characters. Whatever it is, it is intentional. This exhibition was carefully planned out from the very beginning of it’s conception. Something that skews dramatically from Biskup’s improvisational past. It’s not like he hasn’t put a lot of thought into his shows (His last NYC show was accompanied by a 60 page book of text.). The difference here is the level of focus. The show is almost entirely made up of large scale paintings in the artist’s polygonal style. To add another layer of unity, the subjects are a series of small mask-like heads. These are not the carefully produced characters that make up his vast array of vinyl figures, but small, roughy hewn, crudely painted things that the artist sculpted himself. The twist comes from the expert craft and expansive scale of the paintings. To see those spontaneous lumps turned into carefully composed geometric images with months of meticulous paint application going into their creation is quite surreal. The original sculptures will be displayed (and sold) along with the paintings. Thus the title of the show. But the title also refers to the growth that Tim Biskup has gone through over the last 10 years. Both in his work and in his life. It seemed at one point that we would never see characters popping up in his work again, but now he’s gone back to his roots to re-examine and re-invent his past. What he’s come up with is a refined, elegant and mature version of his former state.

http://timbiskup.com/

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FREEDOM SUITE by West One | Friday September 30, 2011 | Los Angeles

September 28, 2011 – 3:53 AM

Abstract Expressionist “West” Launches Art Exhibition at Environment Furniture

Exhibition Opens in October with Street Art Mural on Beverly Boulevard

Environment Furniture, part design consortium, part modern craftsman, creates timeless contemporary collections for the home that respect the planet. Environment’s allure remains not only in its firmly entrenched environmental commitment, but also in its aesthetic: an understated elegance and rugged sophistication.   Today, the company is excited to announce a collaboration with West, a renowned Graffiti artist turned Abstract Expressionist, to bring people together both in and outside of the showroom in a celebration of street art.  West will paint a huge mural on the exterior of Environment’s Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles location creating community through shared ideas, knowledge, culture and art.  The mural will be unveiled at a kick-off event September 30 along with the opening of an exhibition of West’s work inside the showroom.

“We live in a vast city where everything’s at right angles,” West said.  “My work is movement and energy.  It’s organic.  The viewer will see different things – maybe themselves, maybe the city.  Maybe the broader environment.  I hope to make us look at our space, our environment, a little differently.”

The partnership was fostered when West was shopping in the Environment showroom and met owner and CEO Davide Berruto.  They discussed large-scale murals, art in general and how Environment’s recent addition of Topanga shelves to its collection celebrated the contributions artists have made in the design space.  Over a few month’s time, expanding the impact of those Topanga shelves, and with the currently strong influence of street art in Los Angeles (thanks to the current Museum of Contemporary Art [MOCA] exhibit), Berruto and West landed on this unique idea to expand street art in a more permanent fashion to Beverly Boulevard’s landscape.

“Our designers scour the world for unique, special and environmentally responsible pieces inside our showroom,” Berruto said.  “We are really excited to offer something as cutting edge as this mural outside as a gift to everyone who passes by.  West plans for the artwork to have no beginning and no end, in essence, no environment.  I find a grand and wonderful irony in that.”

At the invitation-only, kick-off event, Environment will auction off Topanga shelves specially painted by West.  Proceeds from the auction will benefit www.Jamaicankids.org.  Jamaican Kids is based in Los Angeles and was formed to help Jamaican children who live in difficult conditions in ghettos by providing them with all they need, including clothes, school supplies, medical care, and in some extreme cases, even a new home.  A percentage of each sale of West’s paintings on display throughout the exhibition will also benefit the charity.

West is best known for his Graffiti work in New York City in the 1980s and ‘90s.  In 2000, he had a fundamental shift in his work and began to feel confined by the rules and strict technical codes of Graffiti lettering styles.  West began to study the work of the Abstract Expressionists particularly Franz Kline, Willem DeKooning, Robert Motherwell, and Clifford Still, and in their work saw “an opening, a freedom, that was missing from the mannerism of traditional Graffiti.”  West now encourages viewers to enjoy his work with no preconceived notions.  People can literally take what they want from these abstract pieces.

Open to the public starting October 1, 2011, the West Exhibition will be on display at the Environment Furniture Showroom, 8126 Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles through December 31, 2011.

http://westonefc.com

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Eric Haze – New Mathematics & Greg Lamarche – I Can See For Miles (9/17/11 – 10/3/11)

September 17, 2011 – 12:14 AM

Known Gallery is proud to present “New Mathematics”, a new collection of paintings and drawing by Eric Haze.

With strong roots in the graphic arts, New York-based artist Haze has crafted a vocabulary of personal symbolism that delivers departures of an abstract and minimalist nature.

Recognized worldwide for more than three decades for his iconic design work and artistic productions – From the Beastie Boys to Casio to Nike – the 21st Century has also seen Haze returning to his fine art roots. His work in acrylic, ink and charcoal culminated in a critically acclaimed solo exhibition in 2008 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Hong Kong. Now, with New Mathematics, the artist continues to promote a bold new language that reflects a truly unique style and vision.

Building on his commitment to the development of more organic personal work, New Mathematics displays a complex relationship between design, gesture and abstraction, incorporating geometric elements both with and without a basis in typography.

With repetition and the interplay of positive and negative as an underlying theme, New Mathematics reveals the development of a mature signature iconography that epitomizes Haze’s fine art work.

The roots of Haze’s history as a graffiti artist can also be felt in the nature of New Mathematics, with both speed and control as determining factors in the end result. Trading in the perfection of the imperfect, the intuitive confidence of stroke and line quality displayed in this new collection offers a celebration of form and gesture over narrative, presenting a fully realized dialectic that is steeped in the majestic flow of his signature hand style.

With this new body of work consisting of 35 new paintings and 15 new drawings, Haze marks yet another evolution in his commitment to expanding the scope of his creative process.


Known Gallery is pleased to announce, I Can See For Miles, an exhibition of recent works by New York collage/ graffiti artist Greg Lamarche.

This show offers a wide range of styles from hand cut letter pieces to abstracted paper remnants as well as representational collages.  The exhibition also features a site-specific wall drawing of hand drawn and designed letter forms.

Inspired by the dynamism of his native New York City and its role as an incubator of the outlaw art of graffiti, Greg Lamarche’s collages combine the city’s relentless rhythm and graffiti’s aggressive presence to express the power, elegance and rebelliousness of urban creativity. Using found materials and commercially printed papers from his vast collection of vintage printed matter, Lamarche abstracts graffiti’s visual language, playing with a profusion of font styles, word fragments, multiple layers, bold colors, rhythmic repetition, multiple perspective and movement. Each unique work of precisely hand-cut paper thus becomes an interplay of the directness of graphic design and the aesthetics of fine art.

Born and raised in New York, Greg Lamarche created his first collages in the sixth grade when he used fireworks wrappers found in his schoolyard. In 1981 he began writing graffiti on the streets and subways, and published SKILLS, a seminal graffiti magazine, in the early 1990s.

Lamarche has worked as both fine artist and graphic designer since 2000, and has been featured in numerous publications including the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Phoenix, Print, Juxtapoz, Modern Painters and Arkitip among others. He recently designed the cover of WORLD PIECEBOOK, (Sascha Jenkins and David Villorente, 2011, Prestel Publishers) and is featured in CUTTING EDGES: CONTEMPORARY COLLAGE, (R. Klantin, H. Hellige and J. Gallagher, editors; 2011, Die Gestalten Verlag, publishers).

He recently completed a limited edition of Post-Pop wood boxes printed with the Krylon logo, which will be officially released this month at the Art-Platform fair September 30 – October 3, 2011, Los Angeles.  He will also be exhibiting at the Pulse art fair, Los Angeles September 30 – October 3, 2011 where he has been commissioned to create a site-specific wall painting.

Always open at:
www.KnownGallery.com
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Known Gallery
441 North Fairfax Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90036
310-860-6263

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