All posts by Maria Anderson

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With our limping economies, the power flux between corporate giants, and the  rover Curiosity landing on Mars, it could be said that the human climate here on earth is unstable at best, despite our steady technological progress.

Eddie Colla, Hugh Leeman, and D Young V have come together to envision a post-apocalyptical future, and do so by melding their perspectives into a single narrative. “We tried to find a point at which all of our work intersects. The idea of this ‘epilogue’ seems to be a natural progression for everyone’s work in one way or another,” says Colla. The word apocalypse comes from the Greek, meaning uncovered, and in religious contexts stands for a revelation of meaning hidden from mankind. This immersive installation will take place in LA’s Hold Up Gallery, and reveals a world by way of detritus, weaponry, images, and other objects in what the artists describe as a challenging but ultimately rewarding collaboration.  Leeman forgoes oil paint in favor of the less traditional carbon soot emissions and 14 karat gold, billboard posters, and appropriated images from Facebook, while D Young V makes objects familiar to us strange, using weapons, flags, helmets, and vehicle parts.

One message these three are trying to convey is this: societal collapse may not be a bad thing. Leeman is painting females for the first time in years, and says that for him, “painting females is the light at the end of the tunnel.” They speak to rebirth, procreation, of a future and an exchange of power.  When we spoke on the phone, Leeman told me about the time he almost drowned in Colombia on a rafting trip. The raft was sucked into a hole, which knocked the guide out, and the guide grabbed onto Leeman on his way out of the boat. In the water Leeman says he was thinking, “The world is amazing. It was the craziest thing, kind of beautiful in hindsight, totally quiet down in the water, I remember thinking this is so comfortable, I’m so glad i’m here.” This image of Leeman underwater, feeling at peace, makes me think of “Epilogue,” and of the irrational solace that could come when one is confronted with the possibility of death.

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It reminds me of this fifty-year-old family friend, the boyfriend of my father’s ex-girlfriend Elena. His relation to me is a mouthful, unlike his name: Hash. His last name, really. Hash is a nice enough guy who when sober turns ugly as his steadfast booze addiction takes the reins for the night. We took a taxi from his house. My younger sister, his girlfriend, and I were already pretty high. I had the feeling things would go south when at one point I disagreed with Hash over something stupid. You don’t get to be a millionaire by being wrong, he said.

For Megan Wolfe, dry media has always felt more natural. “It’s easier to fall into,” she says, “while painting has always felt like more of a process.” A San Francisco-based artist known for her avian subject matter, Megan has long worked on hyperrealist, graphite drawings inspired by her own migration from Mississippi to sunny California. “There’s something to be said for dwelling in a medium for a long time,” Megan says, “but when you reach that place where you have so much control, it’s time to go discover something else.”

With that in mind, Megan transferred her natural energies from a well-honed graphite process to painting, which suited her move toward a more abstract style. Patron of the Arts (our partner site) is proud to present the first look at Megan’s transition in the online gallery.

“Reformation: Movement in Color” is Megan Wolfe’s first solo show of paintings, and we are excited for you to take a look at these ten originals and see for yourself how this promising artist has evolved in style, medium, and color (the originals can be viewed here). In addition Patron of the Art’s is offering a very exclusive companion, limited edition Giclee print, of Megan’s work, which can be viewed and purchased, here.

Megan’s process reflects her identity as an artist: linear, logical, and organized. These qualities allow her to relinquish control in a measured way. The challenge for Megan was to feel as natural painting as she did drawing, which proved difficult at first. “My graphite drawings came from a very emotional place, initially born out of frustration, and I was searching for the same sensation of accessing those emotions, feeling raw, aggressive, intuitive.” Snapping a few photos of pigeons for references, she experimented with how dry and thick she could make the paint, and found she preferred kitchen and palette knives to a hard brush. The knives allowed her to carve and build up layers, and to access the raw emotional space she’s used to working in with a more visceral technique.

To read the rest, visit: http://warholian.com/2012/02/16/megan-wolfe/

Ham­mer Gallery’s head cura­tor, Dou­glas Fogle, has put together an exhi­bi­tion fea­tur­ing a pair of men who have had some seri­ous impact on doc­u­ment­ing America’s cul­tural land­scape over the years. In Ed Ruscha’s large can­vas acrylic paint­ings, he takes bite-​size chunks from Kerouac’s On The Road and places them over nature back­drops. As a writer I’m always inter­ested in what images can do for the words, whether the pure grit of fic­tion can be enhanced at all with­out los­ing some­thing. But as small clips, these words grow to rep­re­sent some­thing larger than them­selves, some­thing iconic, with that moun­tain peak below, and loom larger even than from their con­text in Kerouac’s famed scroll. A quote of epic pro­por­tion. At first I didn’t love how the white “prob­a­bly” blends in with the snow, but on sec­ond glance I liked it. The barely there ‘prob­a­bly’ gives a fluc­tu­a­tion to the end of the sen­tence, shift­ing it to “one that means heaven.”

The spac­ing between the words and the way in which they float seems to iso­late the phrase in such a way that a sin­gu­lar impact is cre­ated. The sense that Kerouac’s words are here, on a large can­vas hung on a wall, gives them a tan­gi­ble per­ma­nence that is hard to gain from read­ing them on a page amid their fel­low sen­tences. And the sur­real, almost alien-​like shadow on the moun­tain below makes me think of the peaks with their great mys­tics perch­ing, small men sweat­ing up moun­tains for a grain of advice from an illu­mi­nated sage, the immea­sur­able sky of an envi­ron­ment that is not too shabby despite man’s messy habitation.

Mixed Greens has a show up right now called Cabin Fever that has some work sim­i­lar to Ruscha’s, and I think it would be inter­est­ing to look at them side by side. These are small laser print and spray paint pieces by Tyler Matthew Oyer that are mounted on alu­minum. There is more going on in these and less neg­a­tive space. The scale and beauty of the desert land­scapes and hills together with the gold word­ing and portal-​like door­way fram­ing a painted peak, when com­bined with names of Broad­way musi­cals, cre­ate a tem­po­rary vision of a place and an era, much like Ed Ruscha’s paint­ings do for Kerouac’s words. These remind me of the black and white of old tele­vi­sion, and of alien sight­ings and spec­ta­cle. Where mys­tics would be climb­ing Ruscha’s hills for wise words, men climb­ing these desert hunks of rock could be look­ing for hints of some­thing beyond what mankind has found before, for extrater­res­tri­als or door­ways into other worlds. Happy Monday.

Curbs & Stoops Interview with Fefe Talavera : Primal Urges

“Fefe Talav­era is an inter­na­tion­ally known mural­ist whose per­son­al­ity is some­times mis­un­der­stood because of the mon­sters she cre­ates. Her inten­sity of expres­sion speaks to the irre­press­ible instincts and deep­est urges of the cre­ative process, and rev­els in the joy of this feroc­ity. Rework­ing pain, suf­fer­ing, and ugli­ness she encoun­ters is a pos­i­tive, regen­er­a­tive process for Fefe. Sheworks to reach the true depths of emo­tion. The rigor of the search and the furia with which she con­ducts her life are not acts of an unquiet and pes­simistic mind, but rather demon­strate her strength at cop­ing with and mak­ing beau­ti­ful all that life serves her.

Fefe isn’t the only artist whose con­tent often causes peo­ple to mis­un­der­stand her inten­tions and demeanor. The Jeal­ous Cura­tor takes her inspi­ra­tion from that gut­tural twinge of envy she gets when she sees art she loves. Tin­ke­bell is an Amsterdam-​based artist whose work at times involves taxi­dermy. Her work is often per­ceived as a per­verse exploita­tion of ani­mals for art’s sake, when in fact Tink’s process is grounded in rais­ing aware­ness of ani­mal rights. Repress­ing noth­ing and open­ing them­selves up to cre­ate free from any impo­si­tions, both overt and sub­con­scious, that the out­side world may impose on them, Fefe and those like her set the tone for a menagerie of free think­ing and unre­strained expres­sion that dares to graze the inner­most lev­els of the human psyche.”

To read the interview, go here.