Seen: Robbie Conal- No Spitting No Kidding

You’ve undoubtedly seen Robbie Conal’s work in places like the LA Weekly. He combines social comment with undeniable technical expertise to produce rad paintings, drawings and mixed-media pieces, most of them pleasingly large-scale. 

“No Spitting No Kidding,” a retrospective of 25 years of his art, opened Oct. 18 at the Track 16 Gallery at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica. The opening was packed with an enthusiastic crowd who checked out the wide range of his work, including political portraits, collages involving Smurfs, skeleton baseball players and playful kittens. Although I recognized many of the politicians and scandal-ridden characters depicted, I was even more inspired by his heavy layers of paint and the carefully sketched lines that depicted every wrinkle, falsehood and bit of hope in their faces.

The piece at the top of this page was my favorite – I found it absolutely beautiful – but I tried to capture a sampling of his diversity in the accompanying images. (And the fella with the orange cap is skateboard legend Stacy Peralta.) The show runs until Nov. 22.