Thursday, February 23, 2012 02:21

Archive for the ‘Around Los Angeles’ Category

Sacrilege Group Art Show at Congregation Gallery

Monday, February 20th, 2012
Congregation Gallery

A selection of profane artworks shown in Sacrilege. The large central piece, Obris Non Sufficit by Cam Rackam, shows Baphomet. Baphomet is an imagined pagan deity often confused with Satan. In reality it represents the duality of nature: dark and light, male and female, heaven and hell. Written on its arms are the latin words Solve and Coagulate.

Sacrilege, the desecration, profanation, misuse or theft of something sacred is the theme of a group art show currently on display at Congregation Gallery in Los Angeles.  I attended the opening on Saturday night along with a slew of other deliberate blasphemers.

One of the show’s central pieces, a large monochromatic painting by Cam Rackam entitled Obris Non Sufficit, depicts Baphomet.  Illustrations of Baphomet, including Cam’s, incorporate the words “Solve” and “Coagulate” written on each arm.   The translation of the Latin words are dissolve and congeal and they characterize an alchemical concept about breaking something down into its base elements, cleansing it of impurities and reassembling it into something more valuable.  This can be applied to metals or knowledge.  In the case of this group art show, artists deconstructed traditional religious iconography, cleansed it of its hypocrisy and dishonesty, and rebuilt it to reflect their own experience with organized religion.

You could tell artists had a lot of fun visually railing against aspects of religion and other things held sacred to our culture such as patriotism.  Everyone at the opening was in good spirits considering we’re all probably damned to Hell.

Birth of the Beast by Chris the Creep is my favorite piece I've seen from the Creep thus far. I love the vaginally suggestive composition, the mother's red eyes and the umbilical cord attached to the beast. The painting is available for $500.

Congregation Gallery

Keri and her husband Chris the Creep talking to Tatomir

Denunciation by Tatomir Pitariu is bursting with symbolism including the vile rot spilling out of the inverted Christ figure's torso. The nail in his hand has a star of David carved on top and the words "Made in China" along the side. The Christ figure covers the flaming sun god and pagan pentagram. The painting is available for $466.

Congregation Gallery

Works by Chris Peters, John Charles, Chris the Creep, Tatomir, Jean Paul Miller, Jacob Cass, Don Farrell, Mary J. Sheridan, Kat Gun and Derek Harrison

Congregation Gallery

Artist John Charles

Congregation Gallery

This Jesus is a Cunt t-shirt was perfectly on theme.

Congregation Gallery

Three line works by Liv Rainey Smith and two pieces by Colm McCarthy

False Prophet

False Prophet by Tony Cupstid available for $1100

Congregation Gallery

Pieces by Corey Urlacher, Scott Holloway, David Lozeau, and Jethaniel Peterka

In addition to the art, the Sacrilege opening included very special performances by puppeteer to the stars, Scott Land. Probably best known for his work on the 2004 film, Team America, Scott designs, constructs and performs with one of a kind marionettes. Each marionette takes approximately four months to build. His performances breathe remarkable life into the puppets.

Scott’s show opened with a very shady, trench-coat-adorned flasher who lurked around the room to the Pink Panther theme song.  He paused in front of members of the captive audience to reveal his light-up genitalia (the twinkling lights around his penis flashed when he opened his coat, so he really was a flasher).

The second number was surprisingly touching.  A tender clown blows up a balloon and takes flight (yes the marionette actually blows up the balloon!) until the balloon pops and he falls down to earth.  The contrast between the amusing flasher and the vulnerable clown was night and day and speaks to Scott’s artistry.

I was incredibly charmed by Scott’s show.  It was such a treat!  Watch his dancing skeletons, the final number of the night, tap their way into your heart in the video I took below:

YouTube Preview Image

Visit my YouTube channel to see videos of the perverted Flasher and the sad Clown.  For more information about Scott’s remarkable marionettes, visit his website.

Congregation Gallery

Dahlia Jane with the skeleton marionettes. I could have watched these little guys all night.

Congregation Gallery

Artists Jean Paul Miller and Matt Levin

Lamb of God

I love this painting. The colors and compositions are beautiful and the freak lamb is awesome. Lamb of God by Steve Rodgers available for $750

Last Eucharist

Gorgeous! Last Eucharist by Jel Ena

Congregation Gallery

Artist and Gallery Curator Cam Rackam and Dahlia Jane

To see previews of the rest of the pieces in the show, or for more information, visit Congregation Gallery’s website.

Share

Hyaena Gallery’s Art Autopsy Live Art

Thursday, February 16th, 2012
Art Autopsy Hyaena Galery

Clint Carney live painting at the first Art Autopsy at Hyaena Gallery

Last night Hyaena Gallery in Burbank hosted its first Art Autopsy. Conceived as a monthly interactive live art experience, Art Autopsy features Hyaena artists creating art in the gallery.  Free and open to anyone, Art Autopsy offers a fantastic opportunity to observe artists at work and talk to them about what they’re doing.

The atmosphere was so casual and everyone involved was approachable and happy to discuss their process and mediums.  Sick dark artist and musician (of System Syn, God Module, & Imperative Reaction) Clint Carney serves as informal host. He set up his easel and acrylic paints in the back corner of the gallery and proceeded to paint a demonic compost of agonized faces and animal forms.

Art Autopsy Hyaena Gallery

On the left you see Clint's painting in process and on the right the finished painting.

Clint was joined by sculptor Matt Levin, who creates gnarly and grotesque polymer clay sculptures using Super Sculpy.  Artists Clint Carney and Jason McCormack were picking his brain for techniques.  Matt builds the clay around a wire and tin foil armature and works it with tools until baking it in the oven at a low temperature (never higher than 225 degrees).  Because the clay is so sticky, with an almost chewing gum-like consistency, he can’t touch it directly when he gets to the detailed stage.  Instead he has to use small metal tools to carve out the texture he wants.

Matt showed me the original sketch he did for this piece, and it looked like a blobby caterpillar contorting.  It’s evolved into a more veiny, almost human form and it will continue to change as he decides how he wants the face to look.  It was fascinating to see how meticulous and detail-oriented he is.  He spent the whole evening working over the lower part.

Art Autopsy

Matt Levin works on his sculpture across from Jason McCormack.

Hyaena Gallery

This is one of Matt Levin's finished sculptures, Photophobia, available from Hyaena Gallery for $850

Across from Matt Levin, Jason McCormack dashed off this fantastic emaciated zombie drawing in ink on watercolor paper.  I haven’t really watched an artist dipping a brush in ink to draw before and I really liked the quality of the lines.

Jason McCormack doing an ink drawing on watercolor paper.

Art Autopsy

I was surprised to see Jason take out a toothbrush and dip it in ink to create the stippled background texture. I love the vacant eyes in this drawing!

Hyaena Gallery Art Autopsy

Clint's System Syn bandmate, Atom Strange, working on his second painting. He's starting with acrylics on canvas and I really admired the fact that he's not intimidated to be working alongside more practiced artists. I like the ghostly forms coming out of the fire. It's a cool concept.

Hyaena Gallery art Autopsy

DW Frydendall drawing portraits of comic book characters for the Hyaena Gallery Art Vending Machine

Across from Atom Strange, DW Frydendall set to drawing small pieces for Hyaena Gallery’s Art Vending Machine.  What is an Art Vending Machine? you ask, well it’s a vending machine stuffed with little tubes of art by fantastic Hyaena artists.  Each tube is only $5 and might have a drawing, tiny painting, a Hyaena gift certificate, or knowing Bill, something disturbingly sinister.  It’s a lot of fun to open one of those tubes and an unbelievable opportunity to score an original piece of art.

I enjoyed watching DW Frydendall work because he whips up these comic book characters without any reference in front of him.  He looks off into space every so often and then puts his head back down to the paper and Batman appears.  Not being much of a comic book fan (I’m a girly girl, I don’t like comics, I do like dead babies), I requested a dead baby for his final drawing.

Art Autopsy Hyaena Gallery

DW Frydendall's dead baby drawing. awwww...

Dahlia Jane

DW Frydendall and Dahlia Jane

Besides the artists working in the gallery, the event also drew a great crowd of other artists looking to soak up tips and inspiration as well as art fans such as myself.  Conversation turned to weird Americana destinations along Route 66, TV and movies and DW Frydendall’s African execution axe.  It was a fun social event and I recommend it to anyone in the LA area looking to meet other dark art enthusiasts.  The next Art Autopsy is scheduled for Wednesday March 14. Visit Hyaena Gallery’s website for more information.

Here is a link to Clint Carney’s website.  To see more of Matt Levin’s work, click on his website. And DW Frydendall’s website is here.  Jason McCormack posted on his blog, The Real Zombie Muse, about the experience of creating art alongside the other artists.

Share

Emilie Autumn FLAG El Rey Show

Wednesday, February 8th, 2012
plague rat

Plague Rat Dahlia Jane in front of the El Rey Theater in Los Angeles

Tight-laced Corsets, delicate ruffles, striped stockings, glinting crystals, sugar dusted cookies, Suffer the teddy bear, blinding rage, lust for blood, sexual deviance, and mental illness all take center stage in Emilie Autumn’s dreamy concert.

I attended the Los Angeles stop of Emilie’s Fight Like a Girl (FLAG) tour at the El Rey Theater on February 4, 2012.  In many ways watching her show was more like watching a musical than a concert.  The unique blend of vaudeville, burlesque, cabaret and electronic industrial melodies, as well as her superb sense of story elevates Emilie’s shows to thrilling spectacle.

With her colorful and plaintive voice, Emilie slices her veins open and bleeds all over the stage.  Her emotions carry the show, which to quote from her new song “Girls! Girls! Girls!” becomes “a portrait of insanity, approached with pure humanity.”  The cell block number from her stint in a mental hospital is tattooed on her bare right arm.  Emilie’s audience embraces her because she is authentic.   She incorporates vaudevillian form to satirize the injustices society still places on women, the mentally ill, and especially mentally ill women.

Much like her bipolar condition, Emilie appears as a patchwork doll of contradictions.  With splayed legs and head high she’s a pillar of strength.  But her frayed beauty and wide eyes convey vulnerability.  She seems to be both excessively transparent, an open book to fans who have read her autobiographical The Asylum for Wayward Girls, and hiding behind a facade of pageantry and spectacle onstage that transports the audience to a world of make-believe.  Lithe and graceful, she’s undeniably feminine and adept at striking coquettish poses.  But her low growly singsong rants pervert her femininity into something snarling, vicious and harpy-like.

The FLAG tour picks up where Asylum and the Opheliac album left off.  Emilie and her companions are imprisoned for the good of misguided society, and must adapt to survive.

Emilie Autumn silhouetted behind the clock with Naughty Veronica, the Blessed Countess and Captain Maggot draped on the rails

I was deep in the Asylum from the moment the lights went down, the red velvet curtain rose and a large clock prop with a silhouetted rat was revealed onstage.  Spending most of the show in a sparkly corset and wild, white mohawk, Emilie was attended by her marvelous and scrappy Bloody Crumpets, Captain Maggot, The Blessed Contessa and Naughty Veronica.

El Rey

Most of the songs performed are unreleased cuts from the upcoming Fight Like a Girl album.  While I do prefer being familiar with songs before I go to a concert, it was exciting hearing all of her new material for the first time.

Setlist:

  1. Best Safety Lies in Fear
  2. 4 O’Clock
  3. Dr. Stockhill/Opheliac Hidden Track (Speech Intro)
  4. Fight Like a Girl
  5. Time for Tea
  6. The Art of Suicide
  7. Take the Pill
  8. (video I took below)

YouTube Preview Image
  1. How to Break a Heart (Poem)
  2. Liar
  3. God Help Me
  4. Dominant/Veronica’s Feather Dance
  5. Girls! Girls! Girls!
  6. Rat Game
  7. Gears (Sound Effect)
  8. We Want Them Young
  9. (video I took below)

YouTube Preview Image
  1. Gaslight
  2. I Know Where You Sleep
  3. (video I took below)

YouTube Preview Image
  1. Let the Record Show
  2. One Foot
  3. Thank God I’m Pretty (Encore)

Bloody Crumpets El Rey

Each number was well choreographed.  The Bloody Countess did some gorgeous aerial work in front of a wheel chair bound Emilie in the dark and dramatic “Take the Pill”.  ”Girls! Girls! Girls!” featured my favorite choreography as Emilie appeared as a boy advertising the delightfully nutty Girls who mimed hanging themselves and other lewd antics.

I want to be a Bloody Crumpet.  Not only do they get to wear adorable Victorian-inspired outfits and cavort onstage.  But they’re also given license to be wildly naughty.  During “God Help Me” the Bloody Crumpets brought out tea implements and proceeded to generously include the audience by tossing out deliberately licked pink sugar-dusted heart cookies and dumping tea pot water upon their heads.  And Captain Maggot plunged into the audience for some crowd surfing.  Veronica indulged in corrupting not one, but two female audience members when she brought them up for the Rat Game (a girl on girl kissing game).  Picking one whose homemade glittered sign read, “Veronica!!! Be My First Lady Kiss” and another who asked her to be her Valentine, Veronica slyly planted devilish smooches on both their lips.

 

El Rey FLAG

Emilie’s own story is one of abject despair.  A survivor of abuse, rape, a suicide attempt and genuine artistic/meaning-of-life angst, she conquers demons everyday.  I found myself strangely comforted when her main set ended with the new song “One Foot in Front of the Other.”  It’s a survival anthem for wayward girls everywhere asking, “How do we move beyond all of this misery?” and responding, “One foot in front of the other foot.”  It’s not overdone or melodramatic.  It simply offers solace for those dealing with similar feelings of hopelessness.

Rat Game El Rey

Emilie Autumn teaching Veronica to kiss in preparation for the Rat Game

I loved this show and cannot wait for Emilie’s new album Fight Like a Girl.  Meanwhile I’ve been replaying Opheliac on a near constant loop all week.

Visit my Youtube channel to see more videos from the show including Fight Like a Girl, Time for Tea and Let the Record Show.  Sorry there’s some sound distortion, but the picture quality is very good. For more information about Emilie Autumn, visit her website.  And Gothic Charm School has a delightful interview with Emilie discussing the FLAG tour here.

Are you an Emilie Autumn fan?  Have you seen her live and if so, what did you think of the show?

Share

Conjoined 2 in 3d Art Show

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012
Copro Nason Gallery

The opening of Conjoined 2 at Copro Nason Gallery

Saturday night I attended the opening of Conjoined 2 in 3d at Copro Nason Gallery in Santa Monica.  The large group show was curated by dark artist Chet Zar and includes an impressive roster of sculptors, mixed media assemblage builders, toy makers and a few painters.  Ranging from classically inspired to contemporary surrealism to pop art, the theme seemed to be skin crawling grotesqueness with many pieces eliciting cries of thrilling disgust.  It was as much a display of mad scientist constructed monstrosities as a group art show.

The opening was a mad house!  A thick crush of people massed around all of the art and it felt oppressively claustrophobic.  But when you navigated your way through the crowd you were rewarded with some extreme weirdness.

Here's a handsome devil. I failed to note who did this gnarly piece, and it isn't up on Copro's website yet. But it definitely disgusted me and I had to resist touching to see if the material oozed.

The Fast Supper

Close-up of part of The Fast Supper by Jason Hite. This piece is mixed media and electric and really, really unappetizing. It brings to mind Jabba the Hut and the Matrix and makes me squirm. So appetizing.

Humpty Something by Chet Zar is oil on canvas. Humpty Dumpty is freaky with his squirmy spider legs, wrinkles, creases and folds. The translucent ghost is eerie and beautiful. I love love love the custom frame with skull corners.

skull frame

A close-up of the frame for Chet Zar's Humpty Something

Lustmord

I like Lustmord by Tas Limur a lot. My favorite part is the incredible frame covered in crushed animal bone fragments. The repurposed material gives the frame a gorgeous texture and color.

David Richardson

An Age of Innocence by David Richardson is cast bronze with a black granite base. David Richardson is a master of metal and this piece is outstanding. Details like the pajama fabric texture and the protruding spine around the back really give the piece a forlorn, demented character.

Chow Monstro

Chow Monstro by Johnny Chow is a prefabbed plastic doll with skull, glass eye and meat cleaver. This just makes me smile. I love the juxtapositions at play.

Angelus Domini (top) by Craig La Rotunda is a beautiful modern reliquary. The grotesque sculpture by Simon Lee is a monstrous creature covered in human privates and sinewy arms. The back is covered in saggy breasts and another face. Shivers!

Neil Winn

Lil Devil by Neil Winn is cheeky and seductively naughty. He's like a gremlin devil.

La Llarona

La Llorona: Mother of Tears by Black Mass is a mixed media piece with hauntingly beautiful resin dripping eyes.

The Lookout by David Simon 1/3 scale bronze feels heavy with pain and sadness. She has no arms to cover her nakedness.

Dahlia Jane, Joanne Augustine, Dan Harding and Tatomir outside Copro Nason

Conjoined 2 can be seen at Copro Nason through February 11.  For more information or to see previews of most of the work, visit their website.

Share

Freakshow Wrestling

Monday, January 16th, 2012

freakshow wrestling

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, no it was just Freakshow Wrestling, an insane, nonstop parade of comedy show meets sideshow meets wrestling.  Freakshow Wrestling had me laughing, shaking my head and cringing all evening.

Dr. Paul Koudounaris invited me and once I heard there was something called Freakshow Wrestling, I knew I had to go.  So I found myself waiting in line outside a shady warehouse in Sun Valley, California last Saturday night.  Everyone in line stepped aside for a man with long hair, dark messy face paint, a multi-hued ensemble including a yellow tie, tattoo sleeves, and mismatched striped socks.  He disappeared for a few moments, came back and said, “I did not just pee in that alley” and reentered the building.

I told the oversized clown handling tickets that I was “just one,” but that my friend was already inside so I wasn’t sure I needed a seat.  He replied, “I find it hard to believe you have any friends.” Ouch.  Semi-witness to an act of public indecency and dissed by a clown.  The evening was already living up to its weird expectations.

The makeshift arena with its random assortment of chairs and benches surrounding a wrestling ring was packed.

I’ve never been to a live wrestling event, so I can’t be sure, but I don’t think they usually go like this.  A magician followed up a fire illusion with a bout in the ring.  An extra curvy lady had dollar bills stapled to her bare ass cheek.  Two elaborately costumed and noisy rock bands traded insults.  And a black Santa and an overweight Jesus pummeled each other.

Here is a video of the Ghost of MachoMan and Mathimatico Dos facing off in a  Last Man Dancing challenge (Ghost of MachoMan does an awesome impression of old-school wrestlers’ voices):

YouTube Preview Image

Clownvis treated us to a surprisingly straight version of Viva Las Vegas

The girl fight was one of the most realistic looking of the evening. They were out for blood.

Two bands, RoseMary’s Billy Goat and Radioactive Chicken Heads, goaded each other in a bizarro battle of the bands.  I preferred RoseMary’s Billy Goat who had a song with the chorus, “damn that girl’s got hobbit feet” (how can you not love that?) and a fiery guitar.  Here’s a video of RoseMary’s Billy Goat:

YouTube Preview Image

Radioactive Chicken Heads

freakshow wrestling

As part of their battle of the bands, Radioactive Chicken Heads unleashed their Bad Bunny and RoseMary's Billy Goat let out the drunken Werewolf to duke it out in the ring. Both were hugely unwieldy. I got hit in the arm by a beer can being chucked at the ring as silver bullets for the werewolf, which I think were supposed to give him more strength. Bad Bunny was given carrots. I think the Werewolf won.

freakshow wrestling

Santa crushing Jesus in a match refereed by Satan of course. Jesus promised to tell his daddy when Satan awarded Santa with the win.

freakshow wrestling

And then Zach Galifanakis, the One Man Wolfpack, and Carlos showed up.

Dahlia Jane

The loveliest freaks of all, Dr. Paul Koudounaris and Dahlia Jane

The show was about two hours and at $10 a person, a huge value in terms of entertainment bang for your buck.  Thank you so much to Dr. Paul Koudounaris for inviting me! The next Freakshow Wrestling is coming up in Sun Valley, CA on Saturday, February 25, 2012. See their Facebook page for more information.

Share

New Shows by Krystopher Sapp and Alexandra Manukyan at La Luz de Jesus Part 2

Tuesday, January 10th, 2012
Krystopher Sapp

A close-up of The Privateer by Krystopher Sapp. Assemblage From Savage, MI Grand & Springfield Rifle stock

Last Friday night I attended the openings of A Good Man Goes to War by Krystopher Sapp and Secrets and Confession by Alexandra Manukyan at La Luz de Jesus Gallery.  I was blown away by both of these shows.  Though their mediums and sensibilities could not be more different, Krystopher builds assemblage sculptures with a minimalist approach to color, and Alexandra splashes rich oil colors on canvas, each artist created a stunning meditation on violence’s effect on the human spirit.  Well-matched by their textural story-telling, Krystopher Sapp and Alexandra Manukyan masterfully express large ideas through the tiniest details.

If I am reading Krystopher Sapp’s work correctly, When a Good Man Goes to War, he returns a barren wasteland of nightmarish imagery.  The colorless landscapes are reminiscent of bone, dirt and dust which beg not to be disturbed.  Look inside Garden of Stone and you’ll see a man whose head is replaced by a tank.  The process of becoming a killing machine dehumanizes the subject.  Savagery of the militaristic spirit is expressed through overgrown natural details such as antlers, weeds and tentacles. A bottle of what looks like bloody teeth hides on a shelf in The Headhunter.  Hands reach out desperately and plaintively from the frame of Ragnorak.  Each piece feels heavy with contagious sorrow. The anti-war sentiment is not original, but Krystopher Sapp expresses it beautifully and touchingly.

krystopher sapp

A close-up of the inside of Garden of Stone by Krystopher Sapp. This close-up gives you an idea of the tiny scale and wealth of elements working together in each piece to create a mood of desolation and destruction. Look at the regular sized brass bullet in the landscape with tiny soldiers.

Three of Krystopher's new pieces for this show are very small, including Guillermo (pictured) which is 3"x4"x3.5". When you peer into the tiny frame you see a soldier fallen to his knees being devoured by a cockroach (or perhaps he has turned into a disgusting cockroach). It reminds me of the story of cockroaches surviving a nuclear apocalypse. I can't look at this piece for too long because cockroaches, ick!

Dahlia Jane standing in front of Krystopher Sapp's piece The Headhunter. I made the dress and I'm really happy with how it turned out.

Discovering Identity by Alexandra Manukyan

Alexandra Manukyan’s show, Secrets and Confession, explores the way interpersonal violence and pain makes people retreat into themselves through a protective instinct.  Though we are all unified by our experience of pain, it becomes a profound divider when we put up walls and mask our true selves.  The show is all about conflict, within ourselves, between another or a few other people, and the larger conflicts of civilization as a whole.  She shows these conflicts through the body language of her striking models and their defiant expressions.

Like Krystopher, she also explores the way machinery affects our psyches and removes us further from our humanity.  In Discovering Identity, pictured above, the subject seems uncomfortable, almost squirming beneath the weight of the circuitry on his head.  Is it a tool, a trap or a burden?  He’s caught in a moment of indecision and vulnerable discomfort.  He can choose to put the masculine, armored helmet over his head and protect himself by shutting out the rest of the world, or he can break free of convention.

Guardian's Gaze

Guardian’s Gaze (above) shows the Fawn, flanked by hunters, and Aries resting in the foreground.  The Fawn, delicate and gentle, is easy prey.  She already has chains wrapped around her neck.  Aries, a sign of strength, power and fertility, cannot be subdued.  With the same model representing both Aries and the Fawn, the painting becomes a metaphor for the duality of the feminine nature.  The hunters who surround the Fawn but ignore Aries show the male tendency to be attracted to women who are easily dominated and feed the male ego.  While feminine strength and independence is often threatening.

Breathe Again

Breathe Again (above) depicts two souls trapped in an eternal game of cat and mouse.  They are tormented by a powerful attraction that they are unequipped to deal with.  The woman reaches for the man and he pulls her towards him by the fabric wrapped around her arm and with his fixed stare, but their torsos lean away from each other.  Unable to achieve true intimacy, they hide behind their masks.  They violently wrestle with this codependent obsession, the simultaneous urge to be together and the urge to break apart.

Throughout the evening I found myself fighting the urge to touch everything.  Both Krystopher and Alexandra’s pieces look so tactile and textured that it was difficult not to stroke the voluminous gauzy toile fabrics in Alexandra’s paintings (they looked so promisingly soft!) or trace my finger over the little soldiers in Krystopher’s dioramas.

The show was well-attended.  Artists at the opening included Jennifer Jelenski, Christopher Ulrich, Jeremy Cross and Tatomir.  I was thrilled to talk to both Krystopher and Alexandra.  Krystopher shared some awesome news.  A few of his pieces including the epic Ragnarok, Voyage of the Damned, and The Impaler are being featured in a new Morbid Angel music video for their song Existo Vulgore.  The video is inspired by silent era horror movies.  I can’t wait to see it!

Dahlia Jane and Krystopher Sapp

Painter Alexandra Manukyan looking as radiant as her beautiful paintings. I especially admired her stunning jewelry.

Lee Joseph, Chad Schoonover, Jennifer Jelenski

La Luz publicist Lee Joseph, animator Chad Schoonover, and artist Jennifer Jelenski

Alexandra Manukyan

Painter Tatomir looking at Aries by Alexandra Manukyan

La Luz de Jesus

Artist Christopher Ulrich and actor Michael Malota

Both shows can be seen at La Luz de Jesus through January 29. Preview Krystopher Sapp’s show here and Alexandra Manukyan’s show here.   For more information, visit La Luz de Jesus’ website.  You can also visit Krystopher Sapp’s website and Alexandra Manukyan’s website for more on each artist.

Share

New Shows by Krystopher Sapp and Alexandra Manukyan at La Luz de Jesus

Thursday, January 5th, 2012

Each compartment in The Headhunter shows a view of the war experience. I will have to ask Krystopher, but I suspect this piece is about WWII, which he has referenced in the past. This large-scale diorama is available for $2000

According to militaristic Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, “there are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.” Two shows with works exploring the interplay between the sword and the spirit, or the effect of violence on the soul, are opening tomorrow night at La Luz de Jesus in Los Angeles.

When a Good Man Goes to War, by one of my favorite artists, Krystopher Sapp, includes six pieces from last spring’s ground-breaking show, Our Guns Never Tire, and six new pieces.  Each of Krystopher’s assemblages are like reliquaries to a religion of war.  Combining iconography, symbolic colors and tones and actual weapons in his dioramas, Krystopher explores the feelings evoked by bloodshed and the mark left long after ceasefire.  By re-assembling and re-contextualizing actual weaponry, like in his piece The Palomino, Krystopher challenges the viewer to confront the beauty, sleekness and economy of design that goes into brutal killing machines.

Palomino was built on a .44 ball and cap hand gun from the American Civil War. It's available for $1200.

The gold touches in Garden of Stone are beautiful, $450

I am desperately wanting this to display alongside my piratical collection. I love the tentacles and the skull with one crystal eye and flourish on top, the barrels on the sides as well as the floating maces and dried seahorse. This piece exudes melancholy and a stillness and quiet deep underwater.

Krystopher’s work HAS to be seen in person.  It’s impossible to take in the details in previews.  I was squinting with my face almost against the monitor trying to figure out what was in some of the scenes.  Nevertheless, you can preview the rest of the pieces from Krystopher Sapp’s show here.

I love everything about this painting. The gauzy skirt, the masks and the pose of the dominant subject against the open armoire revealing a stormy sky. It's a fairytale nightmare. Trapped is available for $4,900.

Another show opening at La Luz de Jesus tomorrow, Secrets and Confession, is Alexandra Manukyan’s debut solo show. Alexandra caught my attention at Beyond Eden last October.  As much as I admired her work then, I’m even more impressed after looking at the previews.  Alexandra has an astonishing eighteen paintings in this show.  Working with oil on canvas, she combines photorealistic portraiture with surrealist Baroque environs.  Existence in these canvases is a struggle, a private war against the psyche.  The works are dark, but there’s a light in the way that many of her protagonists radiate defiance and strength.  The pictures are lush, rich with details about the characters within.

All You Need is Love, This portrait is too cool and rock n'roll chic. I love the raven Poe, the skull cupcake and the witchy cat tattoos. $3,500.

I'm blown away by the body language in this image. The mask on the female in the foreground is intense and I'm intrigued by the softer, more feminine subject passively posed in the background. Rejection is $7,200

Toxic #2 is a post-apocalyptic meditation. It's got skulls, a stormy sky and birds of prey amongst the action so needless to say I'm in love. It's $7500

You can preview the rest of Alexandra Manukyan’s show here.  Both shows open Friday, January 6 at 8pm and can be seen at La Luz de Jesus through January 29.  For more information, visit La Luz de Jesus’ website.

Share

Noir Group Show at Hyaena Gallery

Monday, November 21st, 2011

Yaaaah! Bill Shafer took this photo of Dahlia Jane talking to Tatomir (Christopher Ulrich is on the right signing show posters). We did not edit this photo at all and I am not wearing any contacts. The camera captured my demonic essence all on its own. Freaky!

Years ago, a passport mixup led artist Christopher Ulrich to spend four days in a jail in Taipei.  Deprived of natural light and air, Christopher spent a lot of his time drawing and was able to barter the drawings to the guards for contact with the embassy.  His art helped free him from the darkness in more ways than one.    Art’s ability to release its creators from darkness is one of its greatest powers.  All of the artists exhibiting in Hyaena Gallery’s current group show, Noir, which opened Saturday November 19, clearly grapple with shades of darkness.  Each piece, whether it was explicitly about dreams like Jeremy Cross’ A Hobo’s Death Dream, or not, shares a nightmarish quality.  The art becomes an outlet for haunting imagery.

And goth bless Hyaena for providing an arena for these visual exorcisms.  I feel so at home amongst the dreamy skeletons and monsters conjured up by the black theme and their creators.  While I didn’t meet any new artists, I did get to catch up with many of the usual suspects including artists Tatomir, Spinestealer, Clint Carney, Christopher Ulrich and Ron Whipple.

It's You and Me Pal by Bruce Eichelberger features intricate pyrography (burn marks) on a gourd. Pictures do not do this mind-blowing piece justice. Inside the gourd, which has a surface covered with dark scenes and thorny branches, you can glimpse the carved figures of a martyred Christ figure and a demon figure. This piece belongs in a museum.

 Noir

Clockwise From Top: Private Hell by Christine Blue Ashton, It's You and Me Pal by Bruce Eichelberger, and Untitled 1 by Christopher Ulrich. Christopher offered up four graphite and charcoal drawings from his archives for this show. Untitled 1, with it's crawling, eyeless figure, was my favorite and the one that best embodied the Noir theme. Though he's shaped like a well formed man, his face has the helpless quality of a frustrated baby. He doesn't even have eye sockets and must eternally suffer in a state of darkness. I feel a mixture of revulsion and pity for this figure.

Spinestealer looking darkly divine

Unravelling by Spinestealer I love the effect of the darkened fingertips which seem to be dragging through the text and the weird circumstance of the shortened middle finger.

Clint Carney

Tatomir and Clint Carney

Supremacy, a concept for the supreme being of the universe, is a collaboration between artists Tatomir and Dean Fleming. Tatomir first drew the image, and Dean painted his interpretation. If this is our maker, I'm not sure I want to meet him. His sideways mouth is especially frightening.

Hyaena Gallery

Top row from left: General Principles by Donnie Green, Supremacy by Dean Fleming, Dead Head by JoKa. Bottom row from left: Spider by Larkin, Supremacy by Tatomir, 3 Knocks by Delphia.

Christopher Ulrich

Artists Christopher Ulrich and Big Tasty

Immaculate Conception by David Richardson is a one of a kind cast resin sculpture featuring a tower of bird skulls and ribcages that gives me goosebumps.

Hyaena Gallery

Clockwise from Top: Untitled 2 by Christopher Ulrich, Daydream from a Deathbed by Clint Carney, Number of the Beast by James Bonner, The Process of Subjugation II by Lou Rusconi and Hobo Death Dream by Jeremy Cross.

Christopher Ulrich

Dahlia Jane and Christopher Ulrich

To see more of Noir, visit Hyaena Gallery through November 30 or look on their website.

Share

La Luz de Jesus 25th Anniversary Show, Part 2

Wednesday, November 16th, 2011
Dahlia Jane

Dahlia Jane with one of her favorite people, artist Krystopher Sapp

With a rich history of showcasing the best in fringe and lowbrow art, Los Angeles art gallery La Luz de Jesus has been celebrating their 25th anniversary for the last two months.  Each month’s show has featured more than a hundred new pieces by well-known luminaries in the Southern California art scene.  Thursday November 3, I was fortunate enough to be included in the La Luz de Jesus 25 part 2 preview opening for artists and press. While artists including Mark Ryden, Wayne Martin Belger, The Pizz, and Krystopher Sapp passed around the companion book, La Luz de Jesus 25: The Little Gallery That Could, for signatures, I collected photographs and felt starstruck.

Bat Form 5

The lovely Jennifer Jelenski in front of her gorgeously vibrant painting, Bat Form 5

From left: Collaboration by Max Grundy, Double Barrel by Damian Fulton, And That is That Only by Bari Kumar, Crown of Flowers by Jeff Soto and Why Me? by Freddy Corbin.

Haunted Florida

I really like the sad ghosts that almost look like wings, the burlap mask and the messy lipstick in Haunted Florida by Jessicka Addams

Bad Luck by Christopher Ulrich

Al Farrow

Mosque by Al Farrow took my breath away. Composed of tank-killer missiles, bullets, brass, steel, and trigger, it's imposing and chilling.

La Luz de Jesus 25

Gallery owner Billy Shire

Artist Mark Ryden

Wayne Martin Belger

Artists Van Saro (left) and Wayne Martin Belger (middle)

José Rodolfo Loaiza Ontiveros stands in front of his irreverent take on Snow White, After Loving.

Trinity by Rob Reger

Matt Kennedy

Artist Daniel Elson waits for Gallery Director Matt Kennedy to sign his book

From Left: Beloved by Marion Peck, Earth & Water by Heather Watts (top middle), Charley by Gin Stevens and Collector of the Dead by Jasmine Worth

Artist The Pizz

Benevolent by Steven Daily

Krystopher Sapp

Artists Steven Daily and Krystopher Sapp

Happy Birthday La Luz de Jesus and congratulations to all the artists involved in both shows! You can see Part 2 in the gallery through November 27. Visit the La Luz de Jesus website for more information or to see previews.

Share

Halloween 2011 and Monday Night Trick or Tease

Monday, November 14th, 2011

Hope, Megan and Dahlia ready for Burlesque

By Halloween night, Megan, Hope and I had been wicked geishas at Miss Kitty’s Electrosex party, posed as Victorian Mourners at Heritage Village, visited the Tim Burton special exhibit at the LACMA Muse Ball, screamed until our throats were raw at Universal Halloween Horror Nights and even snuck in some Los Angeles sight-seeing and random shenanigans.  But we weren’t done celebrating my favorite holiday of the year yet.  For our final night out we chose to go to 3Clubs in Hollywood to the Monday Night Trick or Tease Halloween Burlesque Party.

While a lot of time and care went into our costumes for Friday and Saturday night, by Monday night, we had sort of run out of steam and threw hot looks together on a shopping expedition Monday afternoon to Santee Alley in downtown LA where we splurged on corsets.

Monday Night Tease is a weekly burlesque review.  For Halloween, performers including Lili Vonschtuff, April Showers, Anastasia Von Teaserhausen, Vixen Magdalene, Dizzy Von Damn!, Tasseled Squirrel, Miss Angie Cakes, Glama Sutra and Wolfgang Wolfwhistle drew inspiration from classic horror and pop culture references such as Elvira, Jurassic Park and True Blood.  The numbers were really creative and entertaining.

Photography of the performers is prohibited, and while I may have been granted an exception if I’d bothered to ask, I’d been carefully photographing almost every moment of the weekend up until that point.  And for Halloween night, I just wanted to enjoy the moment.

Dahlia and Megan

The host of the evening, Dr. Zombie

The Tulsa Skull Swingers played a fun set and I liked their skull masks and sexy sparkling skeleton go go dancers on stage.  See the video clip below.

YouTube Preview Image

A delightful squid costume entered in the costume contest

Hope

Trick or Tease was the perfect end to our Halloweekend 2011 extravaganza!  I want to thank Megan and Hope for coming out from the East Coast to party.  The weekend wouldn’t have been nearly as epic without them.

Share