With the opening of Microscopic Hinges just a few hours away, we sat down with Hagop to talk a little about the show with the Artists Republic 4 Tomorrow gallery in Laguna Beach, friends, life… and what’s to come.
To see more art.. click here
As part of “This Wilde Abyss” we conducted a four question interview with all 19 ladies who contributed work. Today we feature Jennifer Hood.
Artist Bio : Jennifer Hood is a mildly tortured creative based out of Newport Beach, CA. She is the co-founder of creative firm Hoodzpah Art + Graphics with her twin sister Amy Hood. Together they have cultivated a unique design aesthetic focused on illustration, editorial, and logo design. When not doodling lines, slinging paint, or manipulating anchor points, Jennifer is working on art projects, tinkering on a piano, reading smelling an issue of Esquire on the beach, attempting to hustle pool to no avail, or singing a pitchy rendition of Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” at the local karaoke bar. According to The Velvet Underground, Jenny’s life was saved by rock ‘n’ roll. That’s debatable.
1. Please tell us about where you are from and your art background…
I was born in Huntington, then spent my youth growing up in Syracuse, New York and Bowling Green, Kentucky. Manifest Destiny pulled me back to my California breeding when I was 16 and I’ve been coastal town hopping here ever since. (more…)
As part of “This Wilde Abyss” we conducted a four question interview with all 19 ladies who contributed work. Today we feature Jennie Cotterill.
Artist Bio : Jennie Cotterill is a painter/sculptor/illustrator/musician from the Midwest, living in Southern California. She received her MFA in illustration from California State University Long Beach and is currently working as the community outreach artist coordinator for Hurley, curating and installing art shows and painting murals throughout Orange County. www.jenniecotterill.com
1. Please tell us about where you are from and your art background
I am originally from Michigan, and have lived in Southern California for 11 years. I received my BFA and MFA in Illustration from Cal State Long Beach, I have freelanced in illustration and animation. I currently work for the art department at Hurley where I am a production artist, curator, and coordinator of events and collaborations between artists, schools, and the brand. It is wonderful.
As part of “This Wilde Abyss” we conducted a four question interview with all 19 ladies who contributed work. Today we feature Jennifer James.
BIO: Jennifer Marie James born 1985, is a mixed media artist based out of Philadelphia, PA. She grew up in the woods of New Jersey and New York, making her imaginary room of canopies and vanities out of wild flowers and the mossy tree stumps of Black Maples. She later moved to Virginia (her original birthplace) and eventually ended up back on the northeast where she now resides with her 3 cats and 3 dogs and her red bearded boyfriend Lee
ARTIST STATEMENT: ” I use various mediums, but primarily love to use digital, acrylic and oil alone and intermingled together to achieve a life-like depth and a porcelain like softness in my subjects. I use powerful colors and subtle symbolism to shed light on the burden of buried emotions and hidden intentions that one can find difficult to face; a dissatisfaction in ones self but with a deep hidden explosive, personal power, emotional turmoil at the brink of self discovery, a life epiphany. The highs and lows of the creative female energy. Inner and outer beauty. Sweet lies. In these paradoxes, the beauty and the mess is carefully played with and examined hoping to unravel and enchant.” (more…)
As part of “This Wilde Abyss” we conducted a four question interview with all 19 ladies who contributed work. Today we feature the artist known as “M”
Artist Bio
Mandy Graeves aka M has been displaying her uniquely cryptic visions in galleries and conventions across Southern California for several years. Her imagery often incorporates a mixture of sculpture and fabrication resulting in pieces that look like moments frozen in time.
Please tell us about where you are from and your art background
I was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio. I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t obsessed with art. As a child I always had a pencil in hand or clay under my fingernails. I have worked professionally as everything from a graphic designer to a 3D fabricator, but my true love has always been sculpture.
What things are driving/exciting/inspiring you these days? Do you feel these make change in your work?
We are always excited to get new work from Karlee Mackie!
Please enjoy her three new pieces made especially for the show – Birds – and the meanings behind each. For purchase inquiries please email torrey@ar4t.com
Be Yourself (above)
This piece is about being your self, no matter how quirky, weird or wild you feel you want to express yourself, be it ! The birds represent freedom!
What ever combination of letters, that spell words, that become a definative label for your self, for others to gage a small image of what really lies beneath you. …. just be it!
In the end, even though your expressing yourself in your own language,symbology and colour, no matter what! even if we all spoke the same language, the symbols or words you choose,will still be interpreted in a way that is personal to the viewer and all their experienced emotional attachment to them. Its their story, and its your story ! So if by being a certain way, that makes you sing and fly and be free, Be it ! Accept yourself as you are or how ever you wish to create yourself to be ! As no matter how hard you try to fit in any specific ideals to please fellow friends, you will be the one feeling like you have no wings. So spread them far and wide and just Be you !
Lauren Over is an artist and illustrator who grew up in York, PA. Lauren studied Drawing, Painting and Printmaking at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, and is currently working on her MFA in Painting at CSULA while doing freelance illustration and painting from her studio outside of downtown Los Angeles. She finds inspiration in the weeds and wildflowers breaking through parking lots, highways cutting through deserts, overgrown junkyards and decaying buildings and vehicles- the constant reclaiming of man by earth; our strange self-consciousness and search to understand the part of us that lives on- through our complex languages of symbols and words.
1. The last time we talked, you told me you were inspired by the idea of three mythological birds and using new materials like dried plants and old maps… is using found materials a regular aspect in your works or something new? What are you currently putting in your work that is exciting / progressive to you?
4Q’s with LCAD artist Lauren Molina. Lauren is participating in the LCAD/1st Thursdays Art Walk student mentoring program with AR4T Gallery. Her work will be added to the existing WTSE show and unveiled on Thursday December 6th during Art Walk from 6-9pm. We are very excited for you all to get to know her!
View more of Lauren’s work here.
About Lauren: Born in Torrance, California and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, I have always been interested in asking questions. Why aren’t horses pink? Who was the first woman to wear false teeth? What is a sty and why does it hurt so badly? These questions lead me to constantly seek out knowledge. I’ve always had an easier time reading books and looking at pictures than I’ve had in school. Because of this I am a great collector of information but little is retained. So I make things, like paintings and drawings and small sculptures, to better teach myself what it means to make green from blue and yellow or why some animals’ knees are on backwards. Returning to live in Southern California has been a great influence on my concept of nature and color. I’ve used the beauty of the outdoors and the changing hues of the ocean and sky to create dreamlike settings in my painted work. The weird subcultures of Los Angeles comic-book-readers have opened my eyes to new ways to create drawn sequential art. And having become an avid reader in my early adulthood, I am prepared to write long-winded titles for my work and short stories to support them.
Do you feel more connected to urban or natural settings?
Natural settings make me think and make me feel.
Yevgeniya Mikhailik: Yevgeniya Mikhailik was born and raised in Russia and has been drawing ever since she could hold a pencil. Her family relocated to the United States when she was 13, and nine years later she received her BFA in Illustration from California State University, Long Beach. Her work has been on the pages of local and international publications and continues to be shown in galleries in Southern California. She is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and the Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles. Yevgeniya tends to work on a small scale and constantly explores new media. Her materials of choice are ink, watercolor, scratchboard, graphite, or any combination of the above. www.yevgeniyadraws.com
Do you feel more connected to urban or natural settings?
I would say natural, even though I grew up in the city. It was a sizable city, but it was in the middle of Siberia, surrounded by a beautiful forest, with a river walking distance from our house. That kind of immediate access to wild, un-manicured nature, no mater where you were in the city, was a big part of our lives. It was hard not to have a great appreciation for it.
How do you think your artwork reflects this relationship?
Most of the imagery of nature that I use in my work come from memories of the environment that i grew up in. It definitely had a big influence on the themes that appear throughout my work as well as my color palette.
What effect did nature have in encouraging your creativity as a child?
Most of the school art projects that we did were inspired by nature in one way or another. I was in an after school art program taking classes in painting, drawing, and sculpture, and we were always encouraged to observe our environment and paint from life, which then informed non-observational work as well. I have also always had an affinity for animals and was always coming up with ways to include them in my work, which is something that stayed true over the years.
What book from your childhood do you remember especially inspiring your vision of the world?
There was a beautifully illustrated book of rhymes and stories by Kornej Čukovski that belonged to my dad when he was little. There was a story about the ocean catching fire, about a crocodile who ate the sun, and my favorite, about an old lady who didn’t take care of her house very well, so all her possessions left her. She had to chase them down and apologize and promise to clean and wash and cherish them, so they came back and all lived happily ever after (aw). But that story really stroke a chord with me as a child, as I already had this innate need to care for things, whether living or inanimate. Every time I saw the picture of the old lady trying to convince her kitchenwares, all dirty, hanging out in the ditch in the forest where they fled, to come back home with her because she misses them, I felt the need to go take care of everything I owned too, so that my stuff wouldn’t disappear. A couple of decades later, and that still resonates with me on some level. Having “pathos for the whole world”, as someone put it, is constantly finding its way into my work, whether it’s an animal grieving for its destroyed environment or collecting things of sentimental value.
Liz Brizzi: A native of France, born of Italian parents, Liz grew up in Los Angeles. Inspired by urban themes, she loves to portray the beauty she captures in the raw, desolate and industrial aspects of cities and their outskirts. Her unique mixed media technique begins with the manipulation of her original photography collaged onto acrylic painted wood panels, finally blended within layers of colorful acrylic washes. She began this series of works with landscape paintings of the streets and alleys of Downtown L.A. A city that is currently changing and developing rapidly, her artwork captured its authenticity and some of the disappearing traces of its History. Her more current work is less lifelike, as she utilizes various architectural details found in her photos to create more complex graphics, structures and imaginary landscapes, while using shapes reminiscent of street art found in the very same cities she photographs.
Do you feel more connected to urban or natural settings?
That’s funny you should ask… I’m currently going through a major internal debate. Almost like a “personality split”! I was ALWAYS a city girl. I love and admire our incredible man-built cities… I love the action. There is always something to do, somewhere to go, something to see, a new restaurant to eat at, a new gallery opening, and mostly… opportunities left and right. Anything can happen in the city. It’s where it’s happening. As I’m growing… let’s say… more mature, I am for the first time in my life, strangely attracted to nature and the country side. I find myself daydreaming about living on a farm, raising chickens and growing my own food. Also, I really want pygmee goats. I’ve grown tired of the big city. And I live in Los Angeles… so when I say “big city”, I really mean BIG. Don’t get me wrong, I still hate camping. But Moving out of Downtown LA for greener pastures is starting to sound reaaal good.
How do you think your artwork reflects this relationship?
Even if I were to move out of the city, I would still love and admire our man-built metropolis. My paintings always portray urban landscapes and reflect the very raw and industrial aspects of the city. But you’ll notice that my trademark is a flock of birds taking flight. I love that juxtaposition and I especially love seeing it in real life as I drive around downtown. I find it really poetic. It’s the only natural element I include in most of my pieces. For now… I’m actually working on including more organic elements to my landscapes. But it’s still a work in progress.
What effect did nature have in encouraging your creativity as a child?
Not much… Like I said, I was always a city girl. I grew up in Paris, Rome and Los Angeles. So the city has always been my playground.
What book from your childhood do you remember especially inspiring your vision of the world?
I read a lot as a child. Which is actually a passion that I’ve recently picked up again. It’s hard for me to pinpoint a specific book… My number 1 book was “The Count of Monte Cristo”, by Alexandre Dumas. I read all three parts so fast. I was maybe 12 years old. I remember I could not put it down. And then I had a favorite movie which was “Gone with the Wind”. I’ve probably seen it 15 times. It’s interesting that they are both about very strong revengeful characters who don’t let anything get in their way. I think I’m a bit like that too… but not revengeful. I promise.