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TIKI OASIS 18 Aug 8-12 San Diego: Free / Open to the Public Events!


Tiki Oasis 18: South Seas Cinema. August 8-12, San Diego, CA
Free and open to the public events!

Tiki Oasis 18 South Seas Cinema
This year’s Tiki Oasis weekend tickets sold out within minutes of release! However, fret not as there are lots of opportunities to attend, via these FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC events! There are also tickets available for Tiki Oasis events on Wednesday and Sunday

Tiki Oasis 18 – South Seas Cinema
Wed. August 8,
Bali Hai
2230 Shelter Island Dr, San Diego, CA 92106

Thurs. August 9-Sunday August 12
Crowne Plaza – Hotel Circle
2270 Hotel Cir N, San Diego, CA 92108

Thursday, Aug 9 Crowne Plaza
Free Events from 10am – 4pm
10am: Hula Hoop Basic w/ Miss Mia
10am: Raffia Flowers & Pom Poms w/Nicole Pacheco
10am – 5pm Tiki Oasis 10th Annual Art Show –
Grand Hanalei Ballroom Foyer, Crowne Plaza
All original artwork is for sale… Open to the public!
11am: Build Your Own Bamboo! w/Eric Hainline
1pm: Hula Dance w/ Di’Lovely
1pm: Tiki Storytelling “Tiki Pilgrimages”
1pm: Live Music: Adrian Demain’s Cheap Leis (Poolside)
3pm: Miss Tiki Oasis 2018 Poolside Strut – Meet all the finalists!
3pm: Swing Dance w/Burnie
4pm: Zenni Optical + Bombora Bombora Fashion Show by the Pool!
4pm: Bar Kindred “Permanent Vacation” Pop-Up! Angostura Swizzle Demo!
All day: DJ’s poolside

Friday, Aug 10 Crowne Plaza
10am9pm – Tiki Oasis Art Show
Grand Hanalei Ballroom Foyer, Crowne Plaza

Saturday, Aug 11, Crowne Plaza
9am – 5p – Tiki Oasis 10th Annual Car Show, Crowne Plaza Parking Lot
DJs all day, live music from Geronimo and the Scalpers 1 PM

10am – 6pm – Tiki Oasis Art Show
Grand Hanalei Ballroom Foyer, Crowne Plaza
Reception for the artists: 1pm, meet the artists and Miss Tiki Oasis 2018!

10am – 5pm – Tiki Oasis Outdoor Marketplace, both Poolside and at the Car Show featuring vendors, DJs, and more!

Sunday, Aug 12, Crowne Plaza
9am – 5p – Tiki Oasis 10th Annual Car Show, Crowne Plaza Parking Lot
DJs all day, live music from Geronimo and the Scalpers 1 PM

10am – 5pm – Tiki Oasis Art Show
Grand Hanalei Ballroom Foyer, Crowne Plaza

10am – 5pm – Tiki Oasis Outdoor Marketplace, both Poolside and at the Car Show featuring vendors, DJs, and more!

WEBSITE AND WALKUP TICKETS ARE AVAILABLE FOR THESE EVENTS:
www.tikioasis.com/tickets

Wednesday, August 8:
TIKI OASIS MEET & MINGLE AT THE BALI HAI RESTAURANT
Tiki Oasis is taking over the entire restaurant for this event!
5 pm-Midnight at Bali Hai
Emcee: King Kukulele
Tiki Oasis Meet & Mingle at the Historic Bali Hai on Shelter Island
Buffet dinner available
DJ’s from 5pm – close
Live Music:
6pm: Alvino and the Dwells (Lanai Stage)
7pm: The Surfbroads (Lanai Stage)
8pm: Vicky Tafoya & The Big Beat (Lanai Stage)
8pm: Pinup Girls Clothing Fashion Show (Lanai Stage)
9pm: Tremelo Beer Gut (Lanai Stage)

Sunday, August 12
TIKI OASIS SUNDAY NIGHT SHOWCASE
Grand Hanalei Ballroom
Emcee: Otto von Stroheim
(listed in order of appearance)

6:00 PM: Doors Open
7:00 PM: Bombón
8:00 PM: The Loons: the Pretty Things
9:00 PM: The Seeds

Spinning throughout the night Tony the Tyger!

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4/7: L.A. Collects L.A. – Latin America in Southern California Collections Book Event


L.A. Collects L.A. – Latin America in Southern California Collections
TALK + BOOK SIGNING

Saturday, April 7, 2018
7 – 9 PM

Wacko / Soap Plant
La Luz de Jesus Gallery
4633 Hollywood Blvd,
Los Angeles, CA 90027

Saturday, April 7, Soap Plant Wacko: Purveyor of Post-Pop Culture hosts the editor (Jesse Lerner) & photographer (Rubén Ortiz Torres) of ‘L.A. Collects L.A. – Latin America in Southern California Collections’ (Vincent Price Art Museum, 2018) for a night of engaging discussion with some of the book’s featured collectors (Billy Shire, Carl Baldwin, Tom Patchett).

About the book:

Photographs by Rubén Ortiz Torres document the wide range of Latin American art in the collections of Carl Baldwin’s Velvetería, April and Ron Dammann, E. Michael ‘Baltazar’ Díaz, Betty Duker, Armando and María Durón, Alonso Elías and Patricia Fontes Rosas de Elias, Lêda Leitão Martins, Nicholas Pardon, Tom Patchett, Sammy Sayago, Dan Segal, Enrique Serrato, Billy Shire, Esperanza Valverde, Elisabeth Waldo, Richard and Rebecca Zapanta, the Stendahl Gallery, and Bill London’s Pedorrero Muffler repair shop. Six essays explore the cultural, political, and social histories of Latin American art and artifacts in Southern California collections, including Matthew H. Robb’s sleuthing on the pre-Columbian as MacGuffin in mid-century Los Angeles, Ana Elena Mallet on Taxco Silver in California, Jesse Lerner on the meeting of ancient and modern in the Arensberg collection, Selene Preciado on Chicano art collections and collectors, Rubén Ortiz Torres on the Pedorrero, and Amy Sánchez-Arteaga and Misael Díaz on the Elías Fontes collection.

The catalog is accompanying the exhibition L.A. collects L.A., Vincent Price Art Museum, Monterey Park (CA) in the frame of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA (September 2017-January 2018) led by The Getty.

Featured Bios:

JESSE LERNER is a documentary filmmaker, curator, and writer based in Los Angeles. His short films Natives (1991, with Scott Sterling), Magnavoz (2006), and T.S.H. (2004), and the feature-length experimental documentaries Frontierland(1995, with Rubén Ortiz-Torres), Ruins (1999), The American Egypt (2001), Atomic Sublime (2010), and The Absent Stone (2013, with Sandra Rozental) have won numerous prizes at film festivals in the United States, Latin America, and Japan, and have has screened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Anthropology Museum in Mexico City, the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid, the Guggenheim Museums in New York and Bilbao, and the Sundance, Rotterdam, and Los Angeles Film Festivals. His books include The Maya of Modernism, F is for Phony: Fake Documentary and Truth’s Undoing (with Alex Juhasz), The Shock of Modernity, Ism IsmIsm (with Luciano Piazza), and The Catherwood Project (with Leandro Katz).

RUBEN ORTIZ TORRES was born in Mexico City in 1964. Educated within the utopian models of republican Spanish anarchism soon confronted the tragedies and cultural clashes of post colonial third world. Being the son of a couple of Latin American folklore musicians he soon identified more with the noises of urban punk music. After giving up the dream of playing baseball in the major leagues, and some architecture training (Harvard Graduate School of Design) he decided to study art. He went first to the oldest and one of the most academic art schools of the Americas (the Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City) and later to one of the newest and more experimental (Calarts in Valencia CA). After enduring Mexico City’s earthquake and pollution he moved to Los Angeles with a Fullbright grant to survive riots, fires, floods, more earthquakes, and proposition 187. During all this he has been able to produce artwork in the form of paintings, photographs, objects, installations, videos, films, customized machines, curatorial projects and even an opera. He is part of the permanent Faculty of the University of California in San Diego. He has participated in several international exhibitions and film festivals. His work is in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Artpace in San Antonio, the California Museum of Photography in Riverside CA, the Centro Cultural de Arte Contemporaneo in Mexico City and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid Spain among others.

After showing his work and teaching art around the world, he now realizes that his dad’s music was in fact better than most rock ‘n’ roll.

 

For press inquiries, please contact Lee Joseph at Reverberations Media.
For book purchase inquiries, please contact Tricia Fetters at tricia at soapplant.com

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4/6: Mark Gleason Sleepless at La Luz de Jesus Gallery


Mark Gleason – Sleepless

showing with Bruce Eichelberger
Exhibition: April 6-April 29
Reception: Fri. April 6, 8-11 PM

La Luz de Jesus Gallery
4633 Hollywood Blvd,
Los Angeles, CA 90027
www.laluzdejesus.com

La Luz de Jesus Gallery is pleased to present Sleepless by artist Mark Gleason. This will mark the artist’s fourth exhibition with the gallery. In this recent body of work the artist is conscientious of the night: of darkness, the moon, stars, dusk, dreams, quiet, restlessness and absurd doings. These are idiosyncratic beings that exist on the edge of humanity and consciousness: semi-sentient figures like somnambulists, animal familiars, shadowy entities, things that go bump in the night, ghosts, and persons engaged in quasi-ritualistic and mysterious activities.

The artist describes the work “This nocturnal realm is fed by many sources that point me roughly in the same direction. I wrestle with insomnia and adrenalizing periods of creativity, with philosophical and psychological themes that continue to occupy me, with the subconscious mind, self-awareness, and solitude. These liminal images are leavened with humor and intensified as theatrical visions.”

Mark Gleason (born 1962 in Connecticut) is a contemporary painter whose work. Mark Gleason received his MS from University of Bridgeport and BFA from Syracuse University. The artist now resides and works in San Mateo, CA

His work has been exhibited in museums and galleries nationally and internationally, including Billy Shire Fine Arts in Los Angeles, Mondo Bizzarro Gallery in Italy, and the Harwood Museum of Art UNM in New Mexico.

Images forthcoming.

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4/6: Bruce Eichelberger – El Ateo at La Luz de Jesus


Bruce Eichelberger – El Ateo

showing with Mark Gleason
Exhibition: April 6-April 29
Reception: Fri. April 6, 8-11 PM

La Luz de Jesus Gallery
4633 Hollywood Blvd,
Los Angeles, CA 90027
www.laluzdejesus.com

 

La Luz de Jesus Gallery is pleased to present El Ateo by artist Bruce Eichelberger. This will mark the artist’s third exhibition with the gallery. Using images of sexuality, grotesque violence, and distorted figures the artist creates enigmatic like visuals that reveal his contempt for our current political climate and attack the current administration for its xenophobic policies. His work challenges authority and lampoons religious institutions with the same devoutness as those who embrace these antiquated and abusive systems. Personal narratives are presented as fact but purposefully embellished hiding the real truth from viewers.

The artist describes his work as follows: “The best way I can explain it is, there are a lot of things that affect me – the scandal in the church, war, abuse in the government these stories are what drives me. I’ll take little truths and embellish them – so there will be a lot of truths but by the time I complete the work – only I would be aware of the truth that would apply to the piece.”

Bruce Eichelberger (born in California) is a self-taught artist that was given up for adoption at birth. Bruce spent many years incarcerated in the California penal system where he turned to painting and drawing as a means of self-reflection. Since his release, the artist has connected with his biological parents this connection has helped lead him to stop his addiction to drugs giving him closure. His parents are now part of his lifelong journey of artistry.

His work has been exhibited in museums and galleries nationally and internationally, including Harwood Museum in Taos, New Mexico, and Le Halle St. Pierre in Paris, France.

Images forthcoming.

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Travis Lampe and Travis Louie’s Vampires vs. Unicorns: Floor War Game


Artists Travis Lampe and Travis Louie have created a “card throwing/tile game” called Vampires vs. Unicorns: Floor War. Released by Yumfactory, the game was constructed by game designer Jim DuBois and Hi-Fructose co-founder Attaboy, based on an original concept by DuBois. Lampe is a revered Chicago-based artist and illustrator who describes his output as “ridiculous art, sad toys, and other dumb stuff.” Louie, living in New York City, creates work grounded in Edwardian and Victorian sensibilities.

Join the fun with this beautiful game and get away from your computer and phone screens for a bit with some genuine human interaction! And, the game’s illustrated 14 tile pieces are ready for framing.

VAMPIRES vs. UNICORNS: Floor War is a hilariously fun THROWING CARD game with unexpected results, featuring fantastic hand painted tile art by TRAVIS LAMPE and TRAVIS LOUIE, both durable and suitable for framing!
 
Draw from your deck of cards to RAISE THE DEAD, cause a UNICORN STAMPEDE, and more! It’s up to you to find the best throwing technique to destroy your opponent’s FLOOR TILES, but, like, BEWARE as not all tiles are the same!
 
Tournaments nights have already been hosted by Chicago’s Rotofugi Gallery/Store with upcoming events at Stranger Factory in Arizona, and events at retail locations.
The game is available directly from the Hi-Fructose website at this link.
 
Yumfactory Games is founded by Daniel “Attaboy” Seifert, an artist and co-founder of Hi-Fructose Magazine. 
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3/2: Laluzapalooza 2018 at La Luz de Jesus, plus Changing of the Guard…


Laluzapalooza 2018
32nd Annual Group Show

March 2 – April 1, 2018
Opening Reception: Friday, March 2nd, 8-11 PM
La Luz de Jesus Gallery
4633 Hollywood Blvd,
Los Angeles, CA 90027

Preview the show:
www.laluzdejesus.com/laluzapalooza-2018

La Luz de Jesus proudly presents their annual juried group exhibition, LALUZAPALOOZA. This gigantic, no-theme show features works from some of the freshest and most relevant artists working today. Once again, the gallery sorted through tens of thousands of submissions from commercial illustrators, graphic designers, tattooists, scenics, students, street taggers, animators and working gallery artists, deciding on 160 plus pieces from 65 or so artists, continuing the tradition of the most exclusive selection of tastefully, jam-packed salon-style exhibited works.

This show is also a milestone as gallery director Matt Kennedy departs from La Luz de Jesus as of the March 2nd opening, to be replaced by Matthew Gardocki. Matthew is an experienced curator and was part of the crew when Soap Plant/Wacko/La Luz de Jesus was on Melrose in the 1990s.

Come see the show, say goodbye to Matt, and hello to Matthew!

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2/2: Dan Barry – Passing Time at La Luz de Jesus Gallery


Dan Barry Passing Time

Showing with Pool y Marianela and Dan Barry
Exhibition: February 2-25
Reception: Fri. Feb. 2, 8-11 PM
La Luz de Jesus Gallery
4633 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90027
www.laluzdejesus.com

The artworks in Dan Barry’s Passing Time exhibition have been created in 2017. On one level they are a reflection of the fragility of human life, loss, transitions, and anxiety. And, on another, the series chronicles the artist’s daily personal response to the general climate of dread and chaos found in current world events. For those who choose to take the time to engage with these mixed media drawings, it is Barry’s hope that some of the works utter a delicate whisper, while others deal a more brutal blow.

As with the previous series of artworks, the creation of each art object, from beginning to end, is a purgative and meditative process for Barry. Creation begins with the collecting and gathering of antique frames, found paper and ephemera – close to home and on the artist’s trips abroad. Finding inspiration in these collected objects, images, and surfaces, Barry begins to combine them, creating layers of images, textural beauty, applying meticulous drawing techniques – thus building up a history of marks. The resulting art objects contain surreal visions and personal narratives. Although left intentionally ambiguous in narrative, it is the artist’s goal to provide the viewer with enough signifiers of meaning, and hopefully an emotional charge, thus allowing you to derive your own personal meanings.

Dan Barry, b .1971, Denmark, Wisconsin (currently living and working in Austin, Texas).

“For as long as I can remember I have been an explorer, a collector, an image maker, an artist and a storyteller with a self-revelatory urge. My artworks have always been a reflection, and ambiguous journal, of what is happening in my life, mind, and surroundings at any given time.

I grew up on a farm in a rural part of the American midwest. At a young age, I began digging in old dumps, exploring abandoned farmhouses, gathering and surrounding myself with found images and objects. After completing my chores, I spent a lot of my free time daydreaming, making art and environments. At the age of 15, I became an antique dealer. The money that I earned buying and selling antiques allowed me to attend a private high school and a small liberal arts college where I studied cultural anthropology and fine art. These formative experiences directly influence my love for worn, distressed and perfectly stained surfaces.

Using collected imagery, found objects, and meticulous drawing techniques, I create layers of images, textural beauty, and meaning set in a world of humor and at times fragile vulnerability. The creation of each art object, from beginning to end, is a purgative and meditative process. The resulting art objects contain surreal visions and personal narratives. Although often ambiguous, it is my intention to provide enough signifiers of meaning, and an emotional charge, allowing the viewer to derive their own personal meanings found within my art objects.”

 

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2/2: Click Mort 1954-2017 Posthumorous / Post Mort ’em


Click Mort 1954-2017
Posthumorous / Post Mort ’em

Showing with Pool y Marianela and Dan Barry
Exhibition: February 2-25
Reception: Fri. Feb. 2, 8-11 PM
La Luz de Jesus Gallery
4633 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90027
www.laluzdejesus.com

Artist Christopher Doran, aka Click Mort, used to leave oddly shaped, altered toys on the shelves of stores in Los Feliz. He began purchasing ceramics off the internet, painstakingly “dismember” them then put them back together in what he called a “recapitiation”, turning the once cute figurines into a surreal, almost deranged mini-sculptures.

Click passed away last October. He was a native of Los Angeles, was a musician who played with The Cramps for a few months and later, The Loafin’ Hyenas but for most of his musical “career”, played solo, at home…

 

Click Mort was more than just an artist on our roster. He was a dear friend,” says Matt Kennedy, the gallery’s director. La Luz de Jesus also published Doran’s book, The World’s Best Loved Art Treasures. Director James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy), a collector of Doran’s work, wrote in the book’s introduction: “The thing that represents my soul best of all is an alligator’s body with a little nurse girl’s head on it. At least one person in the world — namely Click — finds that lovely. I know he does because he spent countless hours crafting it. – Matt Kennedy, Gallery director, La Luz de Jesus as quoted in Catherine Wagley’s article about Click for the LA Weekly

 

The artist born Christopher Doran had been working toward his final exhibition when he succumbed to illness in October, 2017. Posthumorous is a posthumous exhibition of ALL of his remaining sculptures, many of which have never before been seen. Click’s arthritis got the best of him towards the end, making it difficult for him to continue creating his art though he lived longer than expected by cleaning up from drug addiction. It was during his clean phase that he created most of his tiny masterpieces.

 

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2/2/18: Pool Y Marianela: Kidstianism at La Luz de Jesus


Pool Y Marianela: Kidstianism,
with Click Mort & Dan Barry

Exhibition: February 2-25
Reception: Fri. Feb. 2, 8-11 PM

La Luz de Jesus Gallery
4633 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90027
www.laluzdejesus.com

Pool y Marianela – Tygra (Thundercats) action figure with epoxy putty, on wooden cross, 11.8″x9.8″

 

Pool y Marianela – Kidstianism
Argentine artists, Marianela Perelli and Pool Paolini, turned 33 models of Barbie and Ken into religious icons for an exhibition called “Barbie, the Plastic Religion“. The show featured Barbie as the Virgin Mary and Ken as Jesus Christ and included religious figures from Catholicism, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism with versions of Barbie as Joan of Arc, Mary Magdalene and the Virgin of Lourdes. The show provoked widespread controversy in several languages from Argentina to France. As a result, the artists were invited by Mattel and Les Art Decoratifs to display four of their pieces in the museum of decorative arts in the Palais du Louvre, Paris, and were also received in the Vatican by Pope Francis who accepted a gift of their Barbie, “Our Lady of Lujan“.

How many living artists are in the personal collection of The Pope?

For their latest show, Pool y Marianela are returning to the tropes of religion and escapism via Kidstianism, which transforms popular dolls and action figures into religious icons. The centerpiece of this sure-to-be-controversial exhibition will be a life-sized, full-body, edible Christ cake, which will be sold by the slice.

Full preview can be found at this link

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Fri 1/5: Scott Rohlfs – Amurica, The Beautiful at La Luz de Jesus


Scott Rohlfs – Amurica, The Beautiful
Showing with D.W. Marino and Valerie Pobjoy
Exhibition: January 5-28
Reception: Fri. Jan. 5, 8-11 PM

La Luz de Jesus Gallery
4633 Hollywood Blvd,
Los Angeles, CA 90027
www.laluzdejesus.com

 

Scott Rohlfs – Amurica, The Beautiful

Scott Rohlfs has exploded on to the scene of the contemporary surrealist figurative art movement since he began exhibiting his works in 2006. Born and raised in Northern California, Rohlfs was an accomplished and gifted artist from a young age. As a maturing adolescent, he discovered his distinct style and fondness for painting deeply personal subject matter. With the help of his supporting family, he was able to devote his passion for painting to a full-time career. His innate passion for expressing mood and emotion on canvas and wood along with his mastery of technique in the airbrush was soon recognized, in the United States and abroad. Rohlfs has been acclaimed as an exceptional new talent, praised for his authentic portraiture. His stylized and sometimes tattooed subjects catapulted him into the heart of the Pop Surrealist movement. His distorted realism drew attention from established artists, collectors, and galleries on the West Coast and immediately propelled Rohlfs to the forefront of a burgeoning art movement. Rohlfs’s stunning portraits have attracted an audience of collectors who treasure owning a rare, truly unique work of art. While his femme fatale portraits mature in style and intensity, they retain his signature ethereal quality that embodies an undeniably feminine force. His portraits always capture elusive moments in the artist’s individual perception and experience, viewed through his imaginative lens.

Painting has always been a means of self-expression for me. Therefore, I paint because I have to and need to, not necessarily because I want to. Subconsciously or not, the figures I paint are a reflection of myself and whatever mood I am in at the time. Each mood is distinct, ranging from subliminal, cryptic expressions to more cognitive states of being and the eyes of my subjects are often the primary focus of expression. Although these surreal paintings are direct reflections of my own emotions and feelings, this style of painting also allows viewers to enjoy the freedom of determining their own interpretations of the subjects.

 

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