Scotch continues to push for new techniques/ideas that people of all ages & genres can enjoy.
About the Artwork:
ELDERS: Good and evil battle for an orb that represents consciousness, which controls life. Life is the result of the struggle between dynamic opposites. Form & Chaos, Light & Darkness, Substance & Oblivion, and all the different variations of Yin & Yang. When the pendulum swings in favor of one it eventually swings in favor of it's opposite thus the balance of the universe is maintained.
JUMP: –verb (used without object) 1. to spring clear of the ground or other support by a sudden muscular effort; leap: to jump into the air.
Growing up in the Star Wars culture, Scotch tends to use elements from Star Wars in his pieces; preferably the storm trooper. This is another silly mashup created to bring fun, push technicality and to make someone smile.
Broken Crow's art features various animals and anthropomorphic humanoids in crazy colors and extreme sizes. Through painting they seek to reintroduce wild animals back into urban habitats, writing their own mythologies as they go.
Most of Broken Crow’s works focuses on transplanting wild animals into the urban habitats in which humans live in (typically on a large scale), and these pieces are one of their first attempts at achieving their large scale ideas on a smaller scale.
("Unwanted", 24 inches wide, 30 inches tall, Mixed media on masonite, $900)
("Vacation", 24 inches wide, 30 inches tall, Mixed media on masonite, $900)
PLEASE EMAIL US AT INFO@CREWEST.COM IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN PURCHASING A PIECE BY BROKEN CROW. OR YOU CAN CONTACT US AT 213-627-8272.
Here is a little glimpse at the artists of Friends with Knives (Opening August 7th, 2010):
• Banksy in his unofficial biography famously said of Blek Le Rat, “Everytime I think I've painted something original I find out that Blek Le Rat has done it as well, only 20 years earlier'. Blek Le Rat often described as the Godfather of Stencil Art was the first to use stencils for silhouettes on the streets of Paris, he has been investigating the urban space for over 28 years and still continues to inspire urban artists all over the world.
• PaperMonster’s vivid and intricate pieces explore the beauty behind the eyes and facial expressions of women.
• Broken Crow's art features various animals and anthropomorphic humanoids in crazy colors and extreme sizes. Through painting they seek to reintroduce wild animals back into urban habitats, writing their own mythologies as they go.
• Chris Stain’s work and its themes find a kinship with the American social-realist movement of the early 20th century.
• Kolezar experiments with things like color, detail and scale to challenge preconceptions of what can be accomplished with stenciling.
• Nathan Phaneuf focuses on more minimal pieces that accentuate the women he photographs for his pieces produced using the underlying wood as the main skin tone and negative space for his stencils.
• Shai Dahan is recognized for his talent of hand painting skateboards as well as creating his animalguns designs on the streets of Los Angeles and New York using stencils, wheatpastes and other mediums as well.
• Peat Wollaeger (stenSOUL) is internationally known stencil artist famous for his signature EYEZ , raw colorful characters and stencil videos.
• Dave Lowell works with a combination of multi-layer stencils and freehand spraying.
• E.L.K is fast becoming well respected amongst his peers and in much demand nationally for his approach to photo-realistic stenciling.
• By using multi-layered stencils of up to 60 layers HAHA’s work is a reflection of Austrailian popular culture.
• Joe Iurato just launched a new series of portraits featuring a selection of musicians performing the famous song “Summertime” from Porgy and Bess.
• Henry Quiara is an artist/designer of lowbrow, urban contemporary and counter culture art.
• Greg Boudreau specializes in making the ordinary extraordinary.
• Mefee, a true definition of an anomaly. Mefee works as a scarification artists providing surgical implants underneath the skin in which his skill with a scalpol is easily transfered into his stencil work creating precision cut pieces.
• Leckomio’s works deal with street art and graffiti as a subject, as shown by B-boys or the hyper-realistic representation of urban landscapes tagged for sky to bitumen.
• Scotch! continues to push for new techniques/ideas that people of all ages & genres can enjoy.
Friends with Knives Curated by PaperMonster On view from August 7th through August 29th
Featuring a collection of stencil artists who demonstrate a broad range of stencil graffiti styles including photorealistic, political, pop, abstract, and stencil art focusing purely on beauty.
Exhibiting Artists: Blek le Rat, Broken Crow, Chris Stain, Dave Lowell, E.L.K, Greg Boudreau, HAHA, Henry Quiara, Joe Iurato, Koleszar, Leckomio, Mefee, Nathan Phaneuf, PaperMonster, Peat Wollaeger, Scotch, Shai Dahan
Opening Reception August 7th, 2010 6-9pm
Artwalk Event August 12th, 2010 6-9pm
Check out this collage of talent by the Friends with Knives Artists:
From the Streets of Iran "Works on Paper by Urban Artists from Iran"
Opening Reception: September 10th, 2009 from 6pm to 9pm (During the Downtown Artwalk) Show runs thru September 26th, 2009
Crewest presents From the Streets of Iran, Works on paper by urban artists in Iran, curated by Shervin Shahbazi. This exhibit is the first of its kind in the U.S. featuring graffiti-based works on paper by ICY, SOT, FRZ, MAD, and CK1. These artists have exhibited their work in Europe and Australia, and this is their United States debut.
The artists draw inspiration from Iran’s rich heritage of calligraphy, visual arts, revolution and the state in which they live, as well as their exposure to graffiti and urban art in the West. Their work encompasses a broad range of subject matter—from urbanism and political resistance to scenes of everyday people and the innocence of youth. Each of the artists practices their own aesthetic. In some works, detailed hand styles overlap with spray can imagery; in others, stencil work and careful attention to texture affect a stylized photorealism. However the individual styles may differ, the works as a group resonate with hope and a determination to realize the promise of a better future from the streets of Iran.
Here's a slideshow of some images in the show...
Iranian Artist Bios:
MAD My interest in urban art is rooted in the fact that not only it gives you the possibility of expressing anything you might have to say but also its instant access to the general public. My work is mainly about the social and political issues in my country as well as the world, and I chose stencil art for it is the best-suited medium for my purpose. My first exhibit was a group show in Tehran which was so well received that it inspired me and the rest of the participating artists to work harder and use the city walls to publicize the issues of our people even more than before.
FRZ I learned about graffiti by watching video clips and skate boarding movies, not to mention CK1’s influence. I started working with ICY and SOT around the summer of 2003 when we collaborated on our first project, which led to forming the group, ICEPUNKZ. We learned by experimentation and although in the beginning we were just doing it for fun, but as days passed we got more and more serious. Later I realized that because of the situation in Iran, stencils are the best forms of communicating our ideas. My subjects are not limited to any particular issues. I make work about things that challenge my thoughts. I work on walls because people are so preoccupied with everyday life, that they don’t have time to go to galleries so we bring the art to them.
ICY I used to stencil logos of punk bands I liked on the walls of my room. I got exposed to street art through movies and photographs. I liked the idea of putting art on street walls where you can see it every day, so I started painting on walls in my neighborhood. I started small and as I got better I made bigger works. Life, people, and the city are my inspiration and all the struggles that impact our lives influence my work. I like to see the streets act as galleries that people go to on a daily basis.
CK1 In Iran graffiti is considered a political offense. I was once detained for three days by the security forces for painting on the walls. My first serious piece was on the side of a highway. It was like a traffic sign that had the word LAW crossed out in red. I liked working on walls because on the streets you don’t have to obey formal academic rules that I had to deal with when I was at the university. One of the things I really liked was the illustrations that accompanied the manuscripts of two very popular Iranian poets-Hafez and Rumi- so I started working on canvas and experimented with combining the traditional Persian art with contemporary street art. I had become interested in print making in high school and chosen stencils for my work. What draws me to the wall is the suffering I witness every day. Poverty, hunger and misery deprive people from living a life of love and friendship. You see it in peoples’ eyes; sadness leaves no room to think about peace. I see these things and I want to communicate what I feel is life to our people, that’s why I love painting on the walls.
SOT When it comes to graffiti my story is very similar to others who paint the walls in Iran. I started tagging and putting stickers around our skateboarding hangout. Then as I got exposed to works of street artists in other countries through the Internet, I became more interested and basically taught myself to stencil and paint the walls. I do a lot of photography and sometimes I use my photos to work from. As my technique evolved I started working on social issues and problems that we all face in my country. I like painting on the walls because I like how walls can speak for me.
Crewest 110 Winston St. Los Angeles, CA 90013 (213) 627-8272 ph (213) 559-0525 fx Contact: info@crewest.com www.Crewest.com
Street art in Los Angeles has become as ubiquitous as bleach-blond hair and personalized license plates, so it's no surprise it has infiltrated art galleries as well.
"A lot of galleries used to be scared to put in street artists — they thought people coming in would tag up the outside of their galleries and cause chaos," says Freddi "Freddi C" Cerasoli, proprietor of the Lab 101 Gallery in Culver City. "Then people like me began to put these artists in nice-looking galleries and proved that's not true, and in the last three years I've begun to see high-end galleries start to show these same artists."
These days, L.A.-area galleries such as Crewest, Thinkspace Gallery, Gallery 1988, Lab 101, BLK/MRKT Gallery and the Corey Helford Gallery are featuring notable street artists such as Shepard Fairey, Buff Monster, Greg Simkins, Asylm and Kofie.
"My generation grew up with culture jamming and MTV, and this is what we relate to," says Cerasoli, 37. "Rather than wanting a Warhol, they want to hang an icon from their own era."
Street art encompasses spray-painted graffiti, stencil graffiti, sticker art, posters and even performance art in public spaces. Though it's illegal in many cases, purveyors of the form are quick to distinguish it from tagging and other gang-related activities.
"In contrast to gang graffiti, artistic graffiti has nothing to do with territory, threats or violence," says Crewest owner Alex "Man One" Poli. "Artistic graffiti is all about expression."
A respected graffiti artist in his own right, Poli moved his 5-year-old gallery from Alhambra to a bigger location in downtown L.A. last March and says his new gallery has been well received by the artistic community and is part of Gallery Row and the Downtown Art Walk.
"The new location brings people into the gallery who normally wouldn't think twice about a gallery featuring graffiti art," he says. "The art's really powerful and bold, and it really captures people's attention once they see it, and when they learn it's done with a spray-paint can, it really blows their mind."
For the artists, showing in galleries affords them the opportunity to flex their creative muscles.
For example, at a show a year and half ago, Buff Monster, who is best known for his silk-screen posters often featuring a character sprouting breast-like ears, built a fountain in the middle of a pool composed of six breasts rendered in 3-D.
"When you're driving on the street at 60 miles per hour, you have to be able to read what I say in a split second, and it doesn't show all my visual vocabulary," says the 27-year-old Hollywood artist, who opens a solo show at Gallery 1988 on Feb. 1. "The galleries offer a nice opportunity to create something really ambitious that you couldn't do on the streets."
weekend@latimes.com
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Current and upcoming shows
"BMG Artists' Annual" (current group show includes street turned studio artist Jeff Soto), BLK/MRKT Gallery, 6009 Washington Blvd., Culver City. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays. Ends Feb. 17. (310) 837-1989, www.blkmrktgallery.com.
"Buff Monster: One in the Pink," Gallery 1988, 7020 Melrose Ave., L.A. Opening reception, 7 to 10 p.m. Feb. 1; regular hours, 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays. Ends March 1. (323) 937-7088, www.nineteeneightyeight.com.
"007" (group show that includes street artist Asylm), Crewest Gallery, 110 Winston St., L.A. Opening reception, 5-9 p.m. Feb. 3; regular hours, noon-7 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays; noon-8 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays; noon-6 p.m. Sundays. Ends Feb. 24. (213) 627-8272, www.crewest.com.
"The Hunted" (solo show on Blaine Fontana, a street turned studio artist), the Lab 101 Gallery, 8530-B Washington Blvd., Culver City. Opening reception 7-10 p.m. Feb. 3; regular hours, 11 a.m.-6:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays, noon-4:30 p.m. Sundays. Ends Feb. 21. (310) 558-0911; www.thelab101.com.
"Charity by Numbers" (viewing of items for an online charity auction includes works by artists Shepard Fairey, Greg Simkins, Jeff Soto, Buff Monster, Sam Flores), Corey Helford Gallery, 8522 Washington Blvd., Culver City. Opening reception, 10 p.m.-midnight Feb. 10; regular hours, noon-6 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays. Ends Feb. 17. (310) 287-2340, www.coreyhelfordgallery.com.
