Reacting to the LA’s new policy of requiring permits for street artists and performers for the downtown art walk, Citizen LA opened their Downtown Art Park for the time this past Thursday (5.14).  Located on Main between 4th and 5th, the art park is a 9000 sqft parking lot transformed into an equal opportunity exhibition space hosting numerous local artists and vendors.

Seeking to show support for the new event and promote their artists, Thinkspace Gallery made the trip from Sunset Junction to downtown LA.  They also invited Ekundayo and graff legend Mear One to mesmerize the crowd with live painting.  Here’s a a look at the art park, Thinkspace’s booth and Ekundayo’s live painting.  We’ll bring you shots of Mear One’s live painting shortly.

Ekundayo’s a live painting veteran and it shows — able to create impressive work on the fly without need for a sketch reference or a specific plan.  Due to the short notice, Ekundayo went with an untreated board and relied much more heavily on acrylic paint and brushes rather than spray paint.  The combo of brush strokes and sprayed accents works quite well in our opinion.

The Downtown Art Park goes down the 2nd Thursday of each month coinciding with the art walk — the next event is June 11th.

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In response to the city of LA’s decision to require permits for street artists and performers during the Downtown Artwalk, Citizen LA magazine has organized an inclusive alternative – the 9000 sq. ft.  Downtown Art Park.  It goes down this Thursday May 14th from 3 to 10 PM on Main street between 4th and 5th downtown.  This much needed art collective effort promotes expression for artists and art vendors that might not be otherwise represented by the Downtown Artwalk with which it coincides (second Thursday of each month).

Thinkspace Gallery will be among the vendors at Thursday’s event.  In addition to offering original art, they will be bringing Mear One and Ekundayo for a live painting session.

Citizen LA Downtown Art Park
458 S. Main Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013

Johnny 'KMNDZ' Rodriguez

Featuring an extremely talented and diverse group of artists, Movers and Shakers opened to packed house on Valentine’s @ POVevolving in LA’s chinatown. If you are even remotely interested in low brow/pop surrealist art, this show has something to offer. In fact, it’s likely that several of your favorite artists have work in the show.   Curator Gino Joukar has drawn widely to provide a broad look at this ‘new’ art genre.  In fact, the diversity speaks to what is at once thrilling and daunting in terms of describing or labeling this art world.

Spanning both the main floor and a previously unused bottom floor, the massive collection of work is anchored by a large mural on panels by Ekundayo and KMNDZ.  The artists are frequent mural collaborators – the familiarity with one another shows itself in the eye-catching results dripping with detail and atmosphere.

In addition to the original art, POV has released a special print box-set featuring  8×10 prints from thirteen artists including : Ana Bagayan, Andy Kehoe, Bob Dob, Brian Despain,  Cathie Bleck, Damon Soule, Glenn Barr,  Johnny ‘KMNDZ’ Rodriguez, Mia, Lola, Naotto Hatori, Nicoletta Ceccoli, and Yosuke Ueno.

If you missed the opening, Movers and Shakers is definitely worth a prolonged visit.

POVevolving Gallery
939 Chung King Road
Los Angeles, CA 90012

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Tonight’s the opening (7-11 PM) of the large Movers and Shakers group show @ POVevolving in LA’s Chinatown district.  The show offers a broad offering of pop surrealist work from an exciting lineup of artists.  To tie the diverse show together, curator Gino Joukar commissioned Johnny KMNDZ Rodriguez and Ekundayo to create a large cityscape installation. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at the installation in progress including shots of KMNDZ putting the finishing touches on the work.   Come on out to enjoy all the original work in the show and this large panel installation. Thanks to Jeremy @ POVevolving for the pics.

POVevolving Gallery
939 Chung King Road
Los Angeles, CA 90012

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Not on my usual list of galleries, but we stopped into Nucleus this Saturday to say hi to a few freinds in the east side of LA. Two concurrent group shows were running, but what caught our eye was the show curated by Art Center student David Jien. The show was raising money for one of David’s friends, who is apparently having some issues in Spain. A very nice gesture on the artists, the gallery and David’s part to put together the benefit.

There was also some great work from some young illustrators, as I believe most of the art was from current Art Center students or grads.

This is particularly interesting to me as we are still trying to add one or two young artists to the upcoming Tour we have planned for this year…more to come on that later.

David had some of his own work in the show as well which was quite impressive. I had a chance to chat with the young artist/curator and he seems to have a great plan for his work in the future. It is certainly nice to see when young artists have a clear vision of what they want out of their work…

A few other things caught my eye, but I did not do a great job of writing everything down. If you want to see more check out Nucleus‘ website…

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It’s been a few hours since we left the opening of Ekundayo and Johnny KMNDZ Rodriquez’s stunning Red Forest joint show which packed Thinkspace throughout the night from 7:30 on. The work from both artists is extremely good – each artist has a strong vision and the excellence in execution to draw viewers in completely and totally. Perhaps more importantly, both artists manage to mix the visual sugar with a sense of contextual depth that elevates the work beyond mere eye candy.

For instance, KMNDZ’s work is almost flawless technically. Even when viewed extremely closely, the line work and shading are meticulous. Worn metal has texture and light gleams off personable robots with hyper-realistic highlights. The glint of glass eyes and the glow of drops of radioactive goo really need to be seen in person to be truly appreciated. Yet if that was all there was to this work – it would not move us the way it does. The seductive visuals present a world that we want to understand better, that in fact we wish we could visit and experience.

This is art that resonates with those of us who grew up on a steady diet of fantasy and science-fiction delivered through video games, graphic novels and countless movies. Today’s new generation of art buyer rightly sees no contradiction nor defect with fine art that features beautifully rendered, hyper-real yet unreal characters.

Some onlookers proclaimed the show, “the best of the year”. That’s arguable but it’s safe to say this is one of the highlight shows of the year and should definitely put people on notice about both Ekundayo and KMNDZ. If you’re not watching both of these young artists, you need to start – now.

Thinkspace Art Gallery
4210 Santa Monica Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90029
323.913.3375

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We had the pleasure of rolling through Thinkspace to get an early glimpse of Ekundayo and KMNDZ’s Red Forest joint show which opens this Friday, October 10th [7-11 PM]. The show explores the toll of a nuclear accident on the people and surroundings and symbolically extends the discourse to a consideration of the fallout of everyday negativity.   First impression – this show is wicked, both artists have produced excellent new work.  You can judge for yourself by checking out the four selected pieces after the jump.

Both Ekundayo and KMNDZ are quite friendly and readily willing to share insights into their work.  Perhaps the most conspicuous aspect of Ekundayo’s pieces is that he does not force himself to work within a square or rectangular shape.  Many of his new pieces have a jagged almost jigsaw appearance.  Impressively he creates the frames by hand for each piece.  In the future he plans to use thicker frames which will allow him to carve characters into the frames themselves.

It’s a Thinkspace tradition to have artists create a front room installation.   We caught the work-in-progress which spans two walls. Ekundayo and KMNDZ collaborate regularly on huge murals for clients so it’s no surprise that their approach was clearly defined and orderly. Essentially it’s a tag-team, with each artist playing to his strength.    The short wall features a show marquee mural punctuated with a brilliant starburst.  This work by KMNDZ appears to use stenciled letters but in fact following in the footsteps of  his hero Aaron Horkey, he created them by hand.  Since he doesn’t regularly do sign painting anymore, he projected the letters (a common technique by many painters) onto the wall.

The larger wall features a huge bluish (well he was blue when we left…) creature  from Ekundayo spanning the doorway and hunching down to pickup a nuclear reactor (created by KMNDZ)  – presumably Chernobyl.  We’re used to seeing wall muralists relying on detailed sketches or other reference material to create their work.  So we were a little surprised to see Ekundayo going straight to the wall without any drawings – his 10 years of graff experience clearly are at play here.  From a rough blue outline, ‘Dayo added definition with a lighter blue and texture with darker spray paint.  In the span of a couple hours of so, the basic creature had come to life. Apparently there’s plenty more to be done but it’s already looking pretty sweet.   See the progression after the jump.

Don’t miss the opening of Ekundayo and KMNDZ’s Red Forest opening this Friday, October 10th 2008 [7-11 PM] @ Thinkspace.  You’ll be sorry if you do.

Thinkspace Art Gallery
4210 Santa Monica Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90029
323.913.3375

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Johnny "KMNDZ" Rodriguez - Closeup of 'Lemmings'.

Red Forest (flier) featuring the work of Ekundayo and Johnny “KMNDZ”  Rodriguez considers the effect of the Chernobyl nuclear tragedy and extends this to an examination of the damaging effects of negativity.  Both LA artists have bridged the gap between street and gallery art and in the process have created signature styles that have earned them growing collector and fan bases.   The show opens on Friday October 10th [7-11 PM] @ Thinkspace Gallery on Santa Monica Blvd.  In the mean time, enjoy some previews (after the jump) of both artist’s work drawn from Thinkspace’s preview set on flickr. If you’re looking to learn more about both artists – check out Sourharvest’s interviews with Ekundayo and KMNDZ.  Not to be missed.

Thinkspace Art Gallery
4210 Santa Monica Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90029
323.913.3375

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