VANESSA PRAGER – DREAMERS

Posted on 2015-02-16

Moving in a bold, new direction with a series of large scale, multi-colored oil paintings, Vanessa Prager’s “imagined” portraits cross the border between the figurative and the abstract with diplomatic immunity. To quote the artist, “I made this series to tell stories and as with any story, you need to zoom-in to get the details and zoom-out to grasp the larger thematic concerns.” With layered brushstrokes Prager creates a sculptured-painting effect; the entire composition seems to melt, drip and fade out at first glance. But look long enough and you see a lone isolated face staring starkly out at you.

The artist sees the subjects of these portraits as being intimately involved in their own creation. They longingly wish to co-exist within the beautifully chaotic world they inhabit. They are not ashamed, but curious: about what will happen? Who will come? Will they be found, or found out?

Vanessa Prager’s works have been exhibited at galleries in New York and Los Angeles. Her participation in group museum exhibitions include Santa Monica Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. The artist has received critical acclaim in national press including, W Magazine, Los Angeles Times, Flaunt, Angeleno Magazine, Huffington Post, LA Weekly and Nylon.

Opposite – Sundae, 2014

Exhibition runs through to March 21st, 2015

Richard Heller Gallery
2525 Michigan Ave. #B-5A
Santa Monica
CA 90404

www.richardhellergallery.com

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LARRY CLARK X EUGÈNE RICONNEAUS – NEW WORK

Posted on 2015-02-16

Larry Clark and Eugène Riconneaus are presenting their first artistic collaboration. Together, they imagined a new vision of Larry’s most iconic and controversial photographs mysteriously tempered with Eugène Riconneaus’ “Young Users 2000” soon-to-be-released art work series, a collection of skateboard wheel tracks clichés Eugène has taken in front of the Parisian art center Palais de Tokyo over a period of more than 6 years.

Called New Work, their artistic encounter explores new esoteric, erotic, and forbidden dimension of adolescence…

Drawing their inspiration from underground culture while living a vision of eternal adolescence, Larry Clark and Eugène Riconneaus have started their collaboration by designing a limited skateboard shoe edition that will be officially released during New Work.

Exhibition runs through to February 18th, 2015

Galerie ADC
76, rue Quincampoix
75003 Paris

larryclark.com

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MARIAH ROBERTSON

Posted on 2015-02-16

These works are made with photography chemistry directly applied to photography paper. I once described this work as an extreme end, or peninsula, of material-based photo work. Also, the installation layout looks like the outline of Florida on the floor plan of the gallery.

This work stems from some issues with authority and having been told NO about a lot of things that were clearly pointless. This is the emotional engine of a dry, analytic, simple conceptual project of inverting the vernacular binary code of YES/NO in a closed system-in this case, darkroom photography.

Some easily summarized examples, both technical and opinion-based:

One is not supposed to use glossy paper because it is unsophisticated, bad taste, etc.

One cannot touch glossy paper with an ungloved hand because the oil from the finger will render it a damaged, invalid object.

One cannot have any dings, creases or dents in the photographic paper (“if you want to be taken seriously”).

Darkroom materials are made to function only with highly controlled, tiny amounts of light. Chemistry is made to function under tightly controlled temperature conditions.

Opposite – 291, 2014

Exhibition runs through to March 21st, 2015

M+B
612 North Almont Drive
Los Angeles
California 90069

www.mbart.com

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