LIFE OF THE PARK
Subliminal Projects Gallery embraces its new home and the artists therein
By Stacy Davies
Photos by Rosheila Robles
If you like immersing yourself into an atmosphere akin to packed sardines – Subliminal Projects Gallery in Echo Park definitely has to be on your radar. The gallery, which Shepard and Amanda Fairey recently opened in this new space, only does six shows a year, and if any of the others were like their first annual Park Life exhibit on Saturday – meaning crammed wall-to-wall with arties sousing themselves on a wild concoction of scotch mixed with ginger beer – better grease up your hips.
While past shows at the space have centered on one or two artists (and six weeks ago the gallery held a mini zine fair and lecture panel), Park Life hopes to become a time-honored tradition. The impetus for the gallery project was location. While the Faireys have been in the area since 2003 with their Studio Number One design space, the gallery extension of their enterprises opened earlier this year in the heart of Echo Park. And while they could have had an easy win by stocking up the venue with Obey prints and called it a day, instead, Amanda Fairey says she and fellow Studio Number One designers had something else in mind.
“While I was in [the gallery] working with the architects, I realized that we're right in the middle of this hub of the arts,” she explains, “and we realized that all of our artist friends lived in the area and it just seemed like once we got our programming going that we wanted to do a yearly show that was kind of a friends and family show - but really focus it around community. This show is called Park Life because we're in Echo Park, and we wanted to pull in the community artists that we work with.”
The array of around 50 pieces (including one each from Shepard and Amanda) crosses all mediums and boundaries, from photography, to collage, graphite, paint of all varieties, and more. Many of the artists in the show are people that the Fairey’s worked with on Swindle Magazine, which Shepard co-founded in 2004 – illustrators and photographers who’ve embodied the street art theme and beyond.
Variety is the key – and while some artists chose to show pieces that danced along the edge of community, other’s showcased works that somehow moved them beyond any obvious connection, and yet easily fit under this broad theme, begging the ponderance – what isn’t community? There seems to be no way of escaping it.
Stephen Bliss’ hot red and fuchsia giclee on canvas “Steroid” went that direction, showing two comic book-like wrestlers facing off – one of them waxing philosophical about love in his word bubble. The subtitle seems to evoke his buddy’s frustration with his heartsick compadre: “Armageddon on my nerves.”
Zach Gibson’s minutely detailed watercolor and ink panel series “Neighborhoods,” looks at community from a bird’s eye view – pastel, geographically fractured landscapes of islands and mountains dotted by cities and towns, and one completely circular fractation adrift in a universe filled with modern hieroglyphics, showed the smallness and delicacy of our communities from a distance. Dustin Hostetler went retro/activist with his companion pieces “Group” and “Sign,” one of rust and honey colored silhouetted picketers and the second panel, an up-close of their placard – “Save Us” with a peace sign. Alia Penner and Mekenzie Kay also showed their 70s side off with two acrylic and oil canvases: “Untitled” has a vibrant, earth-toned rainbow springing up at the feet of some bearded rockers and “Rise and Shine,” is the backside of a blue pin-up girl stretching awake to a yellow-ringed sunrise.
Cleon Peterson showed more of his community in chaos work, four panels of hot pink toned oppressors and victims once again battling it out in the streets, and Kill Pixie’s untitled acrylic ink and watercolor almost takes community down to the molecular level with a geometric turbulence of multiple plateaus.
Amanda Fairey’s piece, a graphic adaptation of an aerial view of Echo Park Lake, was exactly on the money, which made her laugh. “I seem to be the only one who took the theme of the show literally!” Her caveat? “But I'm not a career artist!” We didn’t see any problem with that, in fact, we liked it, and it was fitting that the image hung above the DJ - Shepard Fairey, who spent the night feeding his favorite hobby of spinning beats that included some classic ELO....
Subliminal Projects Gallery embraces its new home and the artists therein
By Stacy Davies
Photos by Rosheila Robles
If you like immersing yourself into an atmosphere akin to packed sardines – Subliminal Projects Gallery in Echo Park definitely has to be on your radar. The gallery, which Shepard and Amanda Fairey recently opened in this new space, only does six shows a year, and if any of the others were like their first annual Park Life exhibit on Saturday – meaning crammed wall-to-wall with arties sousing themselves on a wild concoction of scotch mixed with ginger beer – better grease up your hips.
While past shows at the space have centered on one or two artists (and six weeks ago the gallery held a mini zine fair and lecture panel), Park Life hopes to become a time-honored tradition. The impetus for the gallery project was location. While the Faireys have been in the area since 2003 with their Studio Number One design space, the gallery extension of their enterprises opened earlier this year in the heart of Echo Park. And while they could have had an easy win by stocking up the venue with Obey prints and called it a day, instead, Amanda Fairey says she and fellow Studio Number One designers had something else in mind.
“While I was in [the gallery] working with the architects, I realized that we're right in the middle of this hub of the arts,” she explains, “and we realized that all of our artist friends lived in the area and it just seemed like once we got our programming going that we wanted to do a yearly show that was kind of a friends and family show - but really focus it around community. This show is called Park Life because we're in Echo Park, and we wanted to pull in the community artists that we work with.”
The array of around 50 pieces (including one each from Shepard and Amanda) crosses all mediums and boundaries, from photography, to collage, graphite, paint of all varieties, and more. Many of the artists in the show are people that the Fairey’s worked with on Swindle Magazine, which Shepard co-founded in 2004 – illustrators and photographers who’ve embodied the street art theme and beyond.
Variety is the key – and while some artists chose to show pieces that danced along the edge of community, other’s showcased works that somehow moved them beyond any obvious connection, and yet easily fit under this broad theme, begging the ponderance – what isn’t community? There seems to be no way of escaping it.
Stephen Bliss’ hot red and fuchsia giclee on canvas “Steroid” went that direction, showing two comic book-like wrestlers facing off – one of them waxing philosophical about love in his word bubble. The subtitle seems to evoke his buddy’s frustration with his heartsick compadre: “Armageddon on my nerves.”
Zach Gibson’s minutely detailed watercolor and ink panel series “Neighborhoods,” looks at community from a bird’s eye view – pastel, geographically fractured landscapes of islands and mountains dotted by cities and towns, and one completely circular fractation adrift in a universe filled with modern hieroglyphics, showed the smallness and delicacy of our communities from a distance. Dustin Hostetler went retro/activist with his companion pieces “Group” and “Sign,” one of rust and honey colored silhouetted picketers and the second panel, an up-close of their placard – “Save Us” with a peace sign. Alia Penner and Mekenzie Kay also showed their 70s side off with two acrylic and oil canvases: “Untitled” has a vibrant, earth-toned rainbow springing up at the feet of some bearded rockers and “Rise and Shine,” is the backside of a blue pin-up girl stretching awake to a yellow-ringed sunrise.
Cleon Peterson showed more of his community in chaos work, four panels of hot pink toned oppressors and victims once again battling it out in the streets, and Kill Pixie’s untitled acrylic ink and watercolor almost takes community down to the molecular level with a geometric turbulence of multiple plateaus.
Amanda Fairey’s piece, a graphic adaptation of an aerial view of Echo Park Lake, was exactly on the money, which made her laugh. “I seem to be the only one who took the theme of the show literally!” Her caveat? “But I'm not a career artist!” We didn’t see any problem with that, in fact, we liked it, and it was fitting that the image hung above the DJ - Shepard Fairey, who spent the night feeding his favorite hobby of spinning beats that included some classic ELO....
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