Soze Gallery in Downtown Los Angeles came to our attention over a year ago and has been steadily turning out bold shows by established and emerging artists, usually of the street art scene. By bold, we mean artists here sometimes go left field in favor of experimentation and collaboration. Among those who have shown on Soze’s walls, both inside and out, are Miss Van, Ciro, Moneyless, Dave Kinsey, Cyrcle, Retna, Victor Castillo, and Dan Quintana to name a few. The gallery is now moving shop to West Hollywood, starting this Saturday with “Further Adventures in Abstraction” by graffiti artist Remi Rough.
Remi Rough & 2501 in London, April 2014.
Rough’s show follows 2501’s geometrical canvases (previewed here), who he recently collaborated with in London. For over a quarter of a century, Rough’s art has appeared in major cities all over the world, merging together Abstract Graffiti with architecture in cohesive angular displays. These large scale recognizable murals, some five stories high, become miniaturized in this exhibition of drawings on rag paper. Rough describes his painted work as “visual haikus”, deceptively simple arrangements of lines and colors with an affinity for lettering. Rough writes at his blog, “I’ve been going back to my letter based roots of late,” referring to the faintly decipherable capital letters that he has dissected into basic forms. Other hidden motifs include a skull that has been extracted and reapplied into flat, complex interplays of color. By pushing his creative comfort zone, what we end up with is a ‘further abstraction’ of imagery that was progressive to begin with.
“Further Adventures in Abstraction” by Remi Rough opens July 19th at Soze Gallery’s new location: 935 N. Fairfax Ave. West Hollywood, CA 90046.
Highlights from Soze Gallery’s former space:
