here’s the magic.

Congrats to La Luz de Jesus‘ own JAW Cooper, who has three great paintings in the Kitsch ‘N Sync show, the same week that her art graces the cover of the LA Weekly! Cooper’s got a featured exhibition here in June, too, so be sure to sign up for her preview list on our constant contact sign up box. She’s been dropping hints about what we can expect, and I’m feverishly anticipating another faux-fur rug, because I know some hard-wood floors that need a stylish companion.

We expected a great turn-out on Friday, but we could never have expected over 2000 people!

The folks from SinoTequila were working overtime to blend enough margaritas for the ravenous crowd, and several artists had complete sellouts of multiple pieces. Brandon Steen, Frijol Boy, Jasmine Worth, Tennessee Loveless and Walt Hall all sold three or more paintings each, and many of our newbies experienced the very first gallery sales of their artwork. That list is far too extensive to list, but you can check out what’s sold and what’s available by clicking on the Current Exhibition link.

The following evening, we said goodbye to Billy Shire Fine Arts.

The live, musical performance by Unextraordinary Gentlemen was off the chain, and we were able to give away some mementos from the past five years’ exhibitions. The aesthetic that was established at BSFA will be incorporated into the new La Luz de Jesus, which will soon have a second enclosed space behind the current main gallery. Take a look at the upcoming shows and you’ll see what I mean.

Next month, Scott Hove will be taking over the new, second gallery space at La Luz de Jesus with his installation of surreal, anthropomorphized cakes. The exhibition, called Iced Out has already received coverage from Hi-Fructose, Boing Boing, Planet Oddity and The Food Network. Ace of Cakes -eat your heart out, as the centerpiece of this show is a gigantic cake chandelier that will hang suspended from the center of the ceiling in gallery II. We’ll be coordinating some other special events around this opening on April 2nd, which will likely involve some edible sweets to accompany visual ones, so check back for updates.

Dennis’ work is 3D relief sculpted paintings in acrylic on canvas and paper. He was just covered by the New York Times for his part in the museum hosted New York Historical Society Grateful Dead Exhibition, coinciding with the release of his book, Startling Art: Revealing the Art of Dennis Larkins, which he’ll be signing at La Luz de Jesus on Saturday, April 3rd from 6-9PM as part of the west coast release tour. Max Grundy’s paranoid propaganda paintings of enamel on metal are a hellacious futurama meets constructivism. Larkins & Grundy are La Luz veterans, and their work will juxtapose nicely with Scott Hove. Each will have prints, too. You’ve never seen anything quite like this, I promise you!

White Walls Gallery founder and artist Andres Guerrero has been busy spreading his wings with his new independent project: Guerrero Gallery. The gallery will open on March 6th with the works of Richard Colman, Aaron Noble, AJ Fosik, Shepard Fairey, Bill McRight among others.

“Moving forward with the new space has been really exciting and a challenge at the same time. The plan is to expand off of what has been developed at White Walls, and there will be some familiar faces from there. But, at the same time much work has been made to expand the program and on elevating the representation of the work that will be shown.”—Andreas Guerrero (excerpt from Juxtapoz magazine’s feature interview with Guerrero on 1/31)

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Paper Tiger’s print shop just launched a new website and released several new prints at the same time. New prints are now available from Nate Frizzell, Morgan Slade, Nathan Ota, Bob Dob and Karen Hsiao. Plus news that an apparel line is coming soon along with additional artist products. For starters all purchases from now until March 15th get a free postcard set and apparently some other surprises – at least from what PT tells us.

Order directly at www.papertigerstore.com

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One of the perks of this job is getting to work with truly amazing people all of the time. But occasionally, I get to collaborate with people who have had a direct impact on my life. Such is the case with Dave McKean.

Dave McKean is what we used to refer to as a “hyphenate.” He’s a multi-talented illustrator-photographer-comic-book-artist-graphic-designer-filmmaker-musician, who just happens to excel at each one of his specialties.

As an artist, Dave McKean changed the look of comic books when his illustrated-photo-assemblage works began gracing the covers of Neil Gaiman’s reboot of the Sandman character at DC Comics. He next tackled an incredibly ambitious Batman tale that focused not on the caped crusader, but instead on the mental institution that housed the more macabre among his rogues’ gallery. That story written by Grant Morrison was Arkham Asylum, and it quickly became (and remains) one of the best selling graphic novels of all time. His comic book works have won numerous well deserved accolades and awards, but he’s also won a World Fantasy Award for “Best Artist,” three Spectrum Awards in the categories of “Advertising”, “Book”, and “Comic,” A British Science Fiction Award in “Short Fiction” (shared with Neil Gaiman), and his film directorial debut, MirrorMask premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005. His concept designs shaped the look and feel of two entries in the Harry Potter film series, and if your CD collection veers on the darker side of pop, metal, and avant-garde, odds are you’ve got a few Dave McKean images there, too. Did I mention that he’s an accomplished jazz musician and discerning foodie?

So it would be an understatement to say that I’m feverishly proud to welcome Dave McKean this weekend at two incredible events:

On Friday, February 12th, from 6-9 PM, Dave is signing comics, books, DVDs, CD’s and limited edition art prints at La Luz de Jesus Gallery (inside the Soap Plant / Wacko complex at 4633 Hollywood Blvd., LA, CA 90027). For every item that purchase at the signing, Dave will sign one item that you bring from home. NO EXCEPTIONS! So don’t bring your entire collection of Sandman comics for him to autograph unless you plan on buying 75 items at the signing. He’s a wonderful guy and he’ll be happy to speak with you and answer questions -especially about his new body of work, which is debuting on Saturday night at Billy Shire Fine Arts.

New Works from Early Cinema is showing in conjunction with Nitrate & Kinogeists, an event sponsored by Chicago’s Century Guild and includes highlights from their inventory of historically significant and undeniably beautiful silent film posters, most of which have been lost and unseen by the public before now. In addition to large format paintings, Dave has included a series of ten smaller ink illustrations that are priced for fans. Believe me -you can totally afford these, so check out the preview on Thursday evening. Whether you’re a comic book fan or a patron of the fine arts, if you’ve been looking to add a McKean original to your collection, this is your opportunity to do so. There are also some limited edition prints for which this will be a Release Event.
Since the exhibition references and pays tribute to lost films from the silent era, there will be Video Installation with two screens playing footage of recently unearthed and restored films previously thought lost.
The artist’s reception is Saturday, February 13th, from 7-10 PM at Billy Shire Fine Arts, 5790 Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232. A full and complete preview will be available by Thursday evening. The paintings and posters are live on site now.

This Saturday, Joshua Liner Gallery opens a group exhibition featuring works by artists Damon Soule, David Choong Lee, MARS-1, Nome Edonna, Oliver Vernon, Robert Hardgrave, and Tomokazu Matsuyama. The exhibition coincides with the release of Further, a new book that brings together the seven artists and their varied takes on contemporary abstraction, mysticism, futurism, and surrealism.

“Further” is the third in a series of books the artists have published over the past few years – releasing a new volume every two years or so. Expect to see book launches/shows in SF and LA later this year.

“Further”
Saturday January 9th, 7-9p
Joshua Liner Gallery
548 W. 28th St. 3rd Fl.
New York, NY

The screening for my friend Patrick Epino’s film Mr. Sadman is finally here.  You can buy tickets for $5 (till 11/17) or $10 thereafter.  Come by for a fun time!!!  Also, did I mention that I cameo as a Boba worker in the film? Um, I do.

“Mr. Sadman” is now available as a download for purchase at http://mrsadman.com. We’re donating a dollar from every download to Oxfam’s typhoon relief efforts in the Philippines and other parts of the Asia-Pacific region. And for those of you in Los Angeles, we will be doing a week-long theatrical run (Nov. 20 – Nov. 26) at the Downtown Independent Theater. Please join us on Friday, November 20th for the launch party and screening!

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Next week we open our first pop-up exhibition with “Go East” in New York November 7th. The gallery will be taking over a space in the Lower East Side for a 3 day exhibition featuring Yoskay Yamamoto, Nate Frizzell, Edwin Ushiro, Tessar Lo, Mia, Joao Ruas and Eric Fortune.

We received a few amazing paintings from Eric Fortune just in time to pack them in the crate and take care of some print editions which will debut in NY. The gallery will be producing and releasing new prints from several artists including Yoskay Yamamoto, Nate Frizzell, Joao Ruas, Mia and Eric Fortune.

We hope to see you there. Details on our website or Facebook.

This weekend several LeBasse Projects artists help celebrate Hello Kitty’s 35th birthday at Royal/T in Culver City.

Yoskay Yamamoto, Melissa Haslam, Nate Frizzell, Edwin Ushiro and Tessar Lo all have prepared Hello Kitty themed paintings for the show. Make sure to check out the celebration this weekend. We just came back from the VIP event which was true madness. A packed house including Paris Hilton, Dave Navarro, Kimora Lee Simmons and more importantly artists including Tim Biskup, Friends With You, Mr. Gary Baseman, THE LBP CREW, Mark Dean Veca, Natalia Fabia, James Jean and too many more to list.

More pictures coming soon.

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Make sure to stop by LeBasse Projects on October 8 from 7-9 p.m. for a catalog signing with artist Edwin Ushiro. The color catalog includes all of the paintings from Ushiro’s show at the gallery and early attendees will also get a special treat: Ushiro has created a limited edition “Rusty” bookmark to give away to the first 30 guests. Check out Ushiro’s blog here and take a look at the bookmarks after the jump!

LeBasse Projects
6023 Washington Blvd.
Culver City, CA 90232
310.558.0200

www.lebasseprojects.com

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Title Wall - Human Pyramid Opening

Visiting Human Pyramids artist Pacolli (Brazil) was recently in town and invited me to attend this opening.  It was a great show with lots of nice works from an international group of artists.  The show opened on Saturday September 26th at GhettoGloss – 6109 Melrose Ave. Los Angeles, CA.

The Human Pyramids Artist Collective is an international group of friends with a shared impetus for art and design. The collective is comprised of painters, illustrators, designers, film makers, and photographers, from countries such as Switzerland, Japan, France, The United States, Brazil, Sweden, England, and Mexico. Members regularly collaborate on group shows and a multitude of creative endeavors which can result in scrupulous harmony or projected chaos. – Press Release.

Check out the artist page
Pacolli
Teddy Kelly
Hovin Wang
Tiffany Liu
The Love Movement
Claudia Marclay
Pjota
John Mitchell
Noel Ill
Mari Araki
Ana Bagayan
Philip Evans
Soy Panday
Steven Burke
Teri Hendrich
Ben Brough
Nick Jensen
Karen Jonz

Photographs provided by Taylor Brittenham, Pacolli, and my crappy iphone.

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Show & Tell Gallery is set to open a Pop Up Print Shop the first week of October at 107 Shaw Gallery in Toronto. The show will feature affordable screen and lino cut prints from some of North America’s most cutting edge contemporary and street artists including Other, Labrona, Vladimir Kato, Rcade, Cody Hoyt, Alena Skarina, Jamiyla Lowe, Jon Todd, and Nick Fox.

The Pop Up Shop opens on October 1 (7 – 11pm) at 107 Shaw and all the prints will also be listed for sale online at Show & Tell Gallery if you can’t make it out. More details can be found on the Facebook event page here.

The image on the flyer was done by Toronto graffiti artist Rcade and is the original reference for a mural he recently did with DOH crew member Wysper.

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This Friday at noon pacific on my site I will be releasing the last of the two Fancy Haircut Earth Restroyer Pupu Bros. Little Bandit.
Another long name, but we can just call him Little Bandit.
He is Glow green vinyl with pearl white, black, yellow, and my most favorite color right now for vinyl- deep dark turquoise.
He will come with a silk screened header. Handmade by bovine press here in portland.

Same day later that day Kicking Ass and Taking Names opens at GH. Le Merde, Itokin Park, Tim Biskup, Scrappers, Martin Ontiveros, Uglydolls, and me. New works by all. Customs and paintings and GH runs.
Opening Reception is 6-9pm this Friday September 4th.
We will be here and ready for some good times.