Jeff Gillette
Closing this weekend is La Luz de Jesus gallery’s juried show, “Laluzapalooza”, which sets out to find and highlight new names from the LA art scene each year. Since the ’80s, this exhibition has seen several iterations and thousands of submissions spanning kitsch to pop culture and La Luz’s claim to fame, Pop Surrealism. This year’s installment is as eclectic as ever with a focus on labor-intensive work of all mediums. These include artists like Jeff Gillette (Hi-Fructose Collected 3), showing three new paintings of environments destroyed by natural disaster, including a dismal vision of future-Disneyland. Self-described “magic-realist” Genie Melisande offers figurative paintings of nudes accompanied by birds, representing themes of vanity and deliquesce. Other stand outs include an impeccably detailed, science-fiction inspired piece by Robert S. Connett (featured here), a new ink painting by Stephanie Inagaki, where she takes the opportunity to play with color, and a textured oil portrait by Christine Wu. Take a look at our photos from the exhibition below for more of these emerging talents. “Laluzapalooza” will be on view through this Sunday, March 29th.
Jeff Gillette
Dion Macellari
Stephanie Inagaki
Gabe Larson
Simon Kangiser
Ron Norman
Robert Steven Connett
Peca
Joshua Flint
Joka
Genie Melisande
Genie Melisande
Donna Abbate
Danni Shinya Luo
Christine Wu
Caitlin McCormack
Adrian Cherry
Photographer Allan Amato's "Temple of Art" is a series of portraits of fine artists over two years in the making. His black and white images provided the canvas onto which the subject was encouraged to interpret his or her likeness. You could say these are artists who look like their art; Jasmine Worth shares the regal quality of her Madonnas, Danni Shinya Luo has the grace of her watercolors, and so on. Opening December 5th at 
Hi-Fructose co-founder 
Robert S. Connett's highly detailed and Natural Science-inspired illustrations have acquired a few labels, from strange, fantastical, alienesque, to unsettling. Even his website is "