Tag Archives | La Luz de Jesus

9/15: Jesika von Rabbit Dessert Rock Release Party at Soap Plant/Wacko


Jesika von Rabbit
Dessert Rock Release Party

Saturday, September 15, 7-10 PM

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

Photo by Jessica Janos

 

The Queen of the High Desert, Jesika von Rabbit cordially invites you to the unveiling of her new album Dessert Rock.

Enter the whimsical world of Rabbit… Costumes are encouraged as we create a space adorned with desserts, drinks, and dancing girls. Jesika von Rabbit videos will be playing on a loop, interspersed with projections by visual mastermind Mr. Tamale along with the sweet sounds of Dessert Rock playing all night.

Dessert Rock, Jesika von Rabbit‘s second solo album, is an avalanche of appetizing amalgams that incorporate hints of calypso, sci-fi, psychedelic, electro, and funk, and will be available for purchase on both LP (white vinyl) and CD. Digital will be available through iTunes, etc.

Freak Out with us on this delightful night, as the Desert meets the City!

Street Date: September 14 2018
Artist: Jesika von Rabbit
Title: Dessert Rock
Label: Dionysus Records
SRLP – LP $18.95
SRLP – CD $10.95
UPC LP: 0-534877-31741-6
UPC CD: 0-534877-31742-3
Distributed by ILD Distro
www.ildistro.com

ALSO AVAILABLE
Journey Mitchell LP on Dionysus Records
“Do You Really Want to Hurt Me” 7″ on Sympathy for the Record Industry

Upcoming Jesika von Rabbit live dates:
9/1: Campout Festival – Pappy & Harriet’s – Pioneertown
9/9: Matinee Show – Alex’s Bar – Long Beach
10/5: Joshua Tree Music Festival – Joshua Tree
10/27: Halloween Show – Pappy & Harriet’s – Pioneertown

www.jesikavonrabbit.com
www.facebook.com/jesikavonrabbitmusic
www.jesikavonrabbit.bandcamp.com
www.dionysusrecords.com

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5/4-27: Carrie Ann Baade and Patrick McGrath Muniz at La Luz de Jesus

Carrie Ann Baade “Apocalyptic Orgasm”
Patrick McGrath Muniz “Credo”

Exhibition: May 4-May 27
Reception: Fri. May 4, 8-11 PM

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

La Luz de Jesus Gallery presents two shows in May featuring artists Carrie Ann Baade and Patrick McGrath Muniz. Both artists share in contemporary surrealism with deep messages, and both are heavily inspired by old world Renaissance art.

Baade


Muniz

Full Baade press release, artist statement, and show preview/catalog available at this link
Full Muniz press release, artist statement, and show preview/catalog available at this link

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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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2/24: tokidoki x iHasCupquake Launch Event & Signing


tokidoki x iHasCupquake Launch Event & Signing
Saturday, February 24, 11am–3pm

La Luz de Jesus Gallery
Soap Plant / Wacko
4633 Hollywood Blvd,
Los Angeles, CA 90027
(323) 663-0122
www.laluzdejesus.com

tokidoki has teamed up with iHasCupquake for an adorable collaboration!
To celebrate, we’re hosting a pop-up shop, signing and a bunch of fun activities!

Event details:
Get a chance to shop the full collaboration
We will have a signing with Simone Legno from tokidoki and Tiffany + Mario from IHasCupquake

Photobooth
Sweets
tokidoki costume character
Games
Giveaway poster for the first 300 people

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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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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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Friday 1/5: D.W. Marino – Burning Optimism at La Luz de Jesus


D.W. Marino – Burning Optimism
Showing with Valerie Pobjoy and Scott Rohlfs
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

 

D.W. Marino – Burning Optimism

D.W. Marino majored in graphic arts in college but dropped out after 2 years. His first job was drawing ejection seats for a defense contractor. He toiled at different scientific firms doing technical illustration, typography, color proofing and layout as well as some catalog design work in NYC and label design in San Francisco. Yearning for something different, he started working at a neon sign shop and this leap from working in 2D to 3D led to a series of bomb Christmas ornaments.

While making these ornaments his wife, Allie, was diagnosed with cancer. As a distraction, the two came up with themes for bombs and mounted them in boxes. “We’d sit and talk about a tiki bomb, a Hello Kitty bomb, or Everyone hates clowns…why not bomb them!” The list went on and on, becoming something to focus on that took their minds away from the stress and strain of difficult circumstances.

The “Bombardment” series became the artist’s trademark.

Marino’s dad was a Nuclear Physicist in the weapons industry and was a member of the Sierra Club, so the irony of presenting an anti-war message in sardonic drag presents an evergreen pool of inspiration that is as much rooted in his childhood in the San Francisco Bay Area and the psychedelic art of that period as in his own experience in the munitions industry.

Close observers will notice the tropes of record album covers, the colorful pop art of Peter Max, and the underground comix work of artists Rick Griffen, R. Crumb, Stanley Mouse, Alton Kelley, and Gilbert Shelton–all given a new, multi-dimensional surface and context.

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Fri 1/5/18: Valerie Pobjoy – ONANISM at La Luz de Jesus


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

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


Valerie Pobjoy – ONANISM

This exhibition showcases the broad talent of one of Los Angeles’ most exciting up-and-coming artists and gives us a unique perspective of how she sees the world around her. Rather than adhere to a strict theme, she has given herself the opportunity to paint freely and wander through her many interests.

While working, I felt self-conscious about incoherence in the subjects of my paintings. Forcing a theme stifled my practice and I had a hard time finding motivation. I thought there should be a clear, linear theme that should be easily read by the viewer. I had to let go of the idea of an obvious direction. I realized that this was a lesson I have to apply to my life, my path is not neatly outlined and easily understood.

Through her decision to paint without reserve, we see a collection of work that is both immensely honest and fluid. Our thoughts and dreams are hardly linear or follow any one theme. Like this exhibition, they roam and move freely between reality and fantasy. This body of work acts like a stream of consciousness and is effortlessly brought together through the lens of the artist and her unique painting style.

Inspired by Degas and Manet, she brings a historical sensibility to our modern world. In pieces for this exhibition such as Empty Stage and Corrupted, what might seem mundane at first glance becomes elevated and even memorialized with each expressive brushstroke. Her brilliant Contemporary Realistic lens is the thread that brings together each portrait, landscape, and still life. Both urban and natural settings are treated with the same respect and reverence and offer up the existential question about beauty in the eye of the beholder.

Additionally, inspired by the great Frida Kahlo, her portraits carry a similar complexity in the way we see her subjects. However, rather than staged settings, we see people caught in moments of thoughts and daydreams that extend beyond their presence in this world. For pieces like Stroke of Midnight and Wildflower, we ask questions and feel drawn to the emotion like moths to a flame. Her work is compelling in the way it elevates these moments we might otherwise overlook and offers them up for exactly what they are. This raw approach is perhaps all the more fascinating in our glitz-and-glamor world where things are often manipulated to hide the truth rather than celebrate it for all that it is.

However, her paintings of animals and mythological creatures show us different kind of honesty by highlighting the simplicity of instinct and intuition in nature. In Hybrid and Fellowship, we see the awe-inspiring nature of wolves and feel the presence of these magnificent creatures undisturbed in their environment. However, in Dawn and Settled, we feel a different connection by observing the simple and pure relationship between a dog and its family. These paintings highlight what most people love about nature and its creatures. There is authenticity that can’t be replicated and genuine beauty that will forever be revered.

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11/3: Deirdre Sullivan-Beeman – Girls, Girls, Girls


Deirdre Sullivan-Beeman – Girls, Girls, Girls
showing with Jessica Dalva
November 3 – 26, 2017
Reception: Fri. Nov. 3rd, 8-11 PM

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

Giant Girl
Oil and egg tempera on linen panel, 43×24″ in 51×32″ frame

The era of girls is now. Girls aren’t afraid to be obvious. Girls aren’t afraid to be naughty. Girls aren’t afraid to be girls. Today’s girl is an emerging phenomenon. What is her secret ingredient? It’s not only about being treated equally, it’s about being strong, present – a “wonder woman.” The powerful femininity arising now is a direct translation of the yin energy that I idolize. My work comes from someplace subliminal… a magical realm. It’s the unknown where I like to go. The characters that have been inhabiting my dreams are all here. As if I’ve been holding my breath and this is the first, fullest exhalation…Girls, Girls, Girls. Deirdre Sullivan-Beeman is a self-taught figurative and contemporary surrealist painter who combines 14th century painting techniques and magic realism to create pieces that appear to glow from within. Celebrating the hard-earned wisdom of childhood, she depicts subjects that are often young, hauntingly innocent, and teetering on the edge of naïveté.

Deirdre Sullivan-Beeman is a self-taught figurative painter who uses modified oil and egg tempera techniques of the 14th Century Old Masters to create magical realism works that appear to glow from within.

Celebrating the hard-earned wisdom of childhood, Sullivan-Beeman depicts subjects who are often young, hauntingly innocent and teetering on the edge of naïveté. She uses her personal dream journal to provoke her artwork, exploring Jung’s collective unconscious with an overt curiosity for the bizarre and the esoteric, especially alchemy and the tarot. Her work has been shown at Aqua Art Miami, FL; C Emerson Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, FL; Corey Helford Gallery and La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles, CA; Stephen Romano Gallery and Gristle Gallery in Brooklyn, NY; Phylogeny Contemporary, Seattle, WA; Greg Moon Art in Taos, NM.; Merlino Galleria d’Arte Contemporanea, Florence, Italy and Art! Vancouver, BC, Canada

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