Sk8Dk Pandemonium
PASILLOS II – October 23 – December 17, 2010
Lisa Soltis
A group of locally raised and internationally known skaters and artists come together to present an unprecedented, one of a kind skate deck art show in the Pasillos. These artists’ distinct and graphic skate decks will be for sale to help raise money for 18th Street Arts Center and its programs.
Interested parties should email Ronald Lopez and indicate which skate deck you are interested in, thank you for your support.
Artists Include:
David Russell, Jaime “Germs” Zacarias, James Mathers, Jason Wheatley, John Robertson, Juan Carlos, Lisa Soltis, Lynn Hanson, Markos Tadic + Marcos Castro, Marquis “Retna” Lewis, Martin Durazo, Melly Trochez, MXF8, Pat Ngoho, Steve Olson
Artists Bio’s:
David Russell
David Russell paints elements of the natural world on large-scale walls and canvases. He is motivated by the visual aesthetic found in mountain and ocean environments across the globe. David graduated from University of Tulsa with a B.F.A. in Painting/Art history. He spent one year in Florence, Italy, studying Painting, Art History and Italian Language. Additionally, he pursued a professional teaching license in Art Education, providing him with eight years of public school teaching experience inK-12. Russell’s large format painting background has inspired the creation of his own mural painting company called Idealwallarts. Projects have ranged from hand painted wall signs, custom canvases, to large format pictorials. David is extremely excited about the Otis Public Practice program and the idea of shifting his own artistic practice in order to promote more community dialogue for social change.
Jaime “Germs” Zacarias
Jaime “germs” Zacarias artwork is truly spontaneous and unplanned. He trusts his instincts and when he creates something, the image appears. Because most of his work is unplanned, it is difficult to say when it is finished, so he goes by feelings and instinct to guide him to a finished product. Since elements of his work include spontaneity and randomness, his finished product may be simple or insanely complicated. It is as if he does not think about what he is doing until he does it. His thought process and hand-to-paper process flows simultaneously. He uses narrative imagery, graffiti art and found surfaces. He works in an audience-friendly style that allows the viewer to experience the piece.
http://www.germs4u.com/index.html
Jason Wheatley
Jason Wheatley, is an artist who explores the relationship of animals, space, inanimate objects, and mankind. Wheatley’s animals fill his canvases, along with assorted inanimate objects, in an attempt to create representational still lives that are visually sumptuous but often cryptic. His oil paintings, homage to 50’s style magic realism, are a playful bout of childlike meandering and peak our curiosity in animal exoticism.
In Wheatley’s oil paintings he often deals with the subject matter as a director of theater would, being intentional in the “placement” of objects as how they relate to one another. He is also interested in people’s collections, what they collect and how certain objects gain a20sense of reverence over others. It is this kind of sensibility that conjures up deep memories and sentimentality that lives within all of us.
James Mathers
An international, pan-cosmic, and multi-dimensional creature of mystery, James has made art in all forms of media, all over the world. In the past 25 years, he’s lived, worked, exhibited, and sold his art in places as diverse as Los Angeles, New York City, Paris, Zurich, Turin, Milan, London, Dublin, Amsterdam, and Bali, Indonesia. Many of his paintings are currently in the private collections of art collectors such as Nicolas Cage, Billy Zane, Eric Idle, Marina Guinness, Sophie Fiennes, James Carroll, Adam Horovitz (aka King Adrock of the Beastie Boys) and more.
http://www.jamesmathersart.com/
John Robertson
John Robertson is a self-taught artist who has metamorphosed from a colorful impressionist to social/political and conceptual portraits which have a razor sharp messages embedded in the seemingly benign, colorful medium. In his work for Community of Family Farmers Alliance, Real Cheap Sports, Earth Services, and CROP he addressed issues of hunger in the land of plenty and substandard health conditions endured by farmers. In his work for the Palisades Presbyterian Church, and Salt The Op-Ed Page of the Catholic Church he has confronted abortion, the death penalty, charity, vanity and greed.
John Robertson earned a BA degree in English Literature from California State University, Northridge. He was a senior executive with a large retail cooperation for over 23 years. In 1991 John left the world of business in order to pursue his interest in art on a full time basis. His work has been used in various movie and television shows and commercials and he has exhibited in numerous one-man art shows.
Juan Carlos
The native Mexican street artist was exposed to murals at the tender age of 7 years old while growing up in his hometown Boyle Heights. Carlos began his career as artist by working alongside world-renowned sculpture Robert Graham. He has played a vital role in the manifestation of several significant projects such as: MOCA Torso Project, Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial in Washington D.C. and Duke Ellington In New York, NY. In 2004 he was invited to showcase his work as a guest artist in the Venice Art Walk. Currently, Carlos lives and works in Venice.
Lisa Soltis
Artist Lisa Ann Soltis garners inspiration from her quest to understand what a “home” is, beyond its obvious function as a dwelling place. She creates environments and worlds in which animals and skeletons live and interact with one another, and where cosmic imagery collides with floral motifs and patterns. Soltis combines darkness with life and light, and explores how these two worlds battle one another and exist together, at the same time and place.
Her artistic work has extended beyond the art world into the fashion industry. Soltis’ jewelry line, LAS, and her textile work, have been sold to major brands such as: Roxy, Hurley, Madewell, Hang Ten, PacSun, Abercrombie and Fitch, etc.
Soltis currently lives and works in Los Angeles.
http://www.lisasoltis.com/LAS/LAS_2.d_art.html
Marko Tadic (Croatia) + Marcos Castro (Mexico)
Marcos Castro from Mexico and Marko Tadic from Croatia both were visiting International artists in residence in our program simultaneously in 2008. Both artists had a similar approach to their artform and decided on collaborating on a one of kind skatedeck for 18th Street. Castro’s work is both atrocious and monumental and holds the capacity for cynicism through the use of his cartoons.
Tadic’s recent works explore urban myths relying on the aestheticism of punk rock, fanzines, comic books, manga, B-movies, and merges them with historical art references, fairy-tales and literary quotations.
Marquis “Retna” Lewis
Retna was born in Los Angeles, California in 1979. Since first creating a name for himself in the early 1990s, Retna has become an “eternal broadcaster” of sorts, shining a light to the kinetic urban soul of Los Angeles. The name RETNA itself evokes the timeless power, movement and visual vibrancy behind the artist’s acclaimed work. His work merges photography with graffiti style and paint, time with color, couture with street culture, the spiritual with the sensual, and fluidity with grit. Whether his paintings hang in a gallery or wall on the streets of Los Angeles, they serve as a retina through which we view the urban journal of contemporary art.
Martin Durazo
Martin Durazo is a multi-media artist and curator whose work is concerned with the intersection between elements of high-design and the grittiness of social subcultures. He is best known for creating large scale installations combining video, sound, light, works on paper, ready made objects and performance. A sense of harmony emerges as the slick technical savvy of video and sound gadgetry is balanced by the raw energy of industrial materials such as clamps and martial arts weapons like thrown ninja stars. The dense web of shifting structural poetry created by his works invites and mesmerizes. He received his M.F.A. from UCLA and B.A. from Pitzer College. Recent exhibitions have included solo shows at the Mark Moore Gallery, Galería MDF in Mexico City, Harris Art Gallery at the University of LaVerne, Bank Gallery in LA, and at Jail Gallery in LA. From 1995 to 2003 Durazo co-owned and directed Miller-Durazo Contemporary Artists Projects and in 2007 created Empathy Design Company as a temporary curatorial/artist project. He has also been a producer for KPFK radio, where he is regularly featured in discussion about art and social issues.
Melly Trochez
Melly Trochez’s practice is a direct interpretation of what she sees with an interest in psychoanalysis and self- reflexivity. Through critically exploring and challenging her own personal struggles, she is now able to offer her teachings as self-reflections. She explores the unconscious mind and how our behaviors contradict our thoughts. She often paints herself in vulnerable positions and welcomes discussion of how issues regarding sex and gender affect the way we interact with our own body and how we belittle ourselves for not meeting mainstream standards. She continues to investigate the psychophysical aspects of the arts and its ability to liberate the mind and gain inspiration from others through the process. Currently she is working simultaneously on a body of work that deals with dual identity issues and on a master’s degree in art psychotherapy.
MXF8
Pat Ngoho
Pat Ngoho is an American Artist and Skateboarder from Los Angeles California. Pat Ngoho was born and raised in West Los Angeles. While his mother would work as cocktail waitress at the Playboy Club in Hollywood, he and his brother would ride their skateboards all day and into the night. Through skating he met various members of the infamous Dogtown Crew and became a significant part of the ensuing generations. He eventually became pro and traveled extensively, while simultaneously receiving a BA Degree in art from Loyola Marymount, Los Angeles. Traveling became an obsession and places he was unable to visit via skateboarding he would go on his own, traveling to Turkey, Iran, China, Brazil, Haiti and India to name a few. As an artist he was frustrated with much of his early work and destroyed many pieces, Pat recounts, “It took me a long time to feel comfortable in my own skin, I still don’t. I destroy less today but I still struggle with my paintings”. His work ranges from large scale abstracts to conceptual identity pieces. He co-founded the Love and Guts Art show, an art show that emphasizes the expression of skateboarding by focusing on key members who were a part of skateboarding’s creative odyssey. He occasionally skates on the World Cup of Skateboarding Tour.
Steve Olson
http://www.outlookskates.com/CollectionOLSON.htm
[...] Go to the skate deck web page here [...]