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The New Contemporary Art Magazine
With "Scatter My Ashes on Foreign Lands," Amir H. Fallah's largest solo museum exhibition is currently on display at MOCA Tucson. Exploring identity and the immigrant experience, his vibrant portraits of veiled subjects, botanical paintings examining classical Dutch work, and a new series of autobiographical pieces are included in the exhibition. Fallah was last featured on our site here.
Hideyuki Katsumata’s wild paintings and drawings blend centuries of Japanese motifs, pop elements, and more otherworldly elements. The Tokyo native produces an array of work outside of his paintings, from soft toys and enamel pins to massive murals and show designs. The artist was last featured on our site here.
In Louie Cordero’s surreal and riveting paintings, the artist’s command of texture and mood sets his work apart. Cordero, hailing from the Philippines, is currently featured in a group show at Gallery Poulsen titled “Inoperative Halo,” along with painter Eric White and sculptor Jud Bergeron. (The show runs through Dec. 21 at the Copenhagen venue.)
The paintings of Jean Paul Langlois blend memories of 1970s sci-fi and Westerns of his youth, while also exploring the artist’s connection to his own native and non-native roots. Within his Old West scenes, you may also see a character from “Planet of the Apes” or references to Saturday morning cartoons. His "Origin Stories" series, in particular, re-imagines "mundane family stories and re-interpreting them through a cinematic lens."
Keya Tama is a South African artist who says he aims to "reunite old and new through contrasting yet unified iconography." Tama's talent for crafting interlocking creatures, either in the backgrounds of his paintings or in the form of murals, also recalls the work of M.C. Escher. Recently, the Los Angeles-based artist has also been collaborating with others in his pieces, such as the work with Caratoes at the jump.
In the upcoming show "Dramaholics," Mexican painter José Rodolfo Loaiza Ontiveros takes the taboos of reality and injects them into the idealized world of Disney. The show, running Dec. 6-29 at La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles, offers new acrylic and oil works from the artist. Ontiveros was last featured on HiFructose.com here.
The twin brothers who work under the moniker "Perez Bros" were first exposed to the car culture of Los Angeles in their youth, and to this day, it informs their collaborative painting practice. Their current show at Thinkspace Projects, titled "Cruise Night(Office)," collects some of their recent auto-filled scenes. It runs through the end of the month at the space.
Each of Andrea Joyce Heimer's acrylic paintings begins as a written story. Even if the viewer isn't able to know every detail of her narratives, the painter's work gives us the chance to piece her myths ourselves. The artist offers some personal reasons why this process is so integral to her practice:
In Oliver Vernon's new abstract works at an upcoming KIRK Gallery show, the artist abandons collage entirely and pushes his work forward only using acrylics. "Brushing Away the Veil," starting on Nov. 2, represents a new body of work and direction for the Brooklynite. There’s another new component to the works, as well, as Vernon says “is the excavation of buried paint layers through sanding. Since many of these pieces have had numerous stages of accumulation, they were like gold mines of hidden color.”
Gregory Ferrand’s cinematic paintings, often laced with anachronisms, speak to a broader sense of isolation belonging to an otherwise social species. The artist's academic background in film is evident throughout his works, with a full-frame attention to mood and detail. Among the artist’s other influences: Mexican muralists, comic books, and quite evident below, a mid-19th-century aesthetic.
The acrylic paintings of Olan Ventura reference the still-life paintings of the Old Masters, yet take a contemporary turn in conveying what only appear to be printing errors that run hues off the canvas. While conveying “glitches” with paint can be found in the practices of contemporaries, Venture is able to navigate both ends of time in his faithful recreations.
Over the past few years, many of Ivy Haledeman's intimate paintings have focused on an anthropomorphic female hot dog character. The character bends and lounges across the canvas, often extending most of its form out of our view. While surely offering more erotic themes to extract, Haldedeman’s paintings also seem to be offering reflections on the capitalistic system that produces “hot dogs” themselves.
Jamian Juliano-Villani, known for stirring acrylic paintings packed with dark humor and sprawling references, offers new works in a show at Massimo De Carlo London titled "Let's Kill Nicole." She offers both new paintings and sculptures in the display, which runs through Sept. 21. Juliano-Villani's work is known for pulling in a variety of familiar imagery from fashion, illustration, and other industries, with conversations emerging over what constitutes referencing versus appropriation. “Everything is a reference,” she’s insisted.
Blending two- and three-dimensional forms, Mark Whalen creates cerebral and absurd arrangements of the human body. Whether stacking vibrant heads or using sculpted hands to sculpt the very shapes of canvases, there’s a metatextual component in tackling the act of creating art itself.
Jason Limon, whose striking paintings play with the macabre and typography, offers new acrylic works on panel next month in a show at Copro Gallery in Santa Monica. Kicking off on Aug. 10 and running through Aug. 31, "Signs of Life" is at once playful and riveting, in the artist’s knack for conveying perspective and depth.
Jesse Jacobi's expansive, seemingly ancient worlds reflect on the cycles of life and nature in a new show at Arch Enemy Arts. "From The Eternal Green Mouth" collects new acrylic paintings from the Michigan artist, who was last featured on HiFructose.com here. His new show opens on July 12 at the Philadelphia venue. The gallery says these works “operate in broad, open-ended symbolism as opposed to a straight narrative, to be looked at from different angles, dependent on the viewer—psychologically, emotionally, mythologically, even ecologically.”
Iran-born painter Arghavan Khosravi creates surreal scenes that blend historical Persian motifs and pop cultural iconography. The artist’s own statement says that she is “deeply connected to her own personal experience of the culture and politics of her homeland of Iran that probe both personal and political experiences.” Much of her recent work has been crafted as acrylic on found textiles.
Colin Prahl’s intricate landscapes move between circuitry-like forms and psychedelia, each acrylic painting a wild display of illusion and vibrancy. From afar, the structures and contours contained within his works resemble urban environments.
There’s a shapeshifting quality to the paintings Ricardo Estrada, whose subjects are physically inhabited by cultural iconography. The Los Angeles native specifically focuses on Chicano culture, whether in his murals or acrylic paintings. Each carries intricate brushwork that allows Estrada to transition between differing textures and planes of reality.
Joan Cornellà continues to both amuse and repel in his newest paintings. His latest acrylic works are featured in "I'm Good Thanks" at Public Gallery in London. The show kicks off on April 4 and runs through May 4. Cornellà was the cover artist for Hi-Fructose Vol. 47.
Kate Klingbeil layers acrylic into sculptural, absorbing paintings that explore personal themes. She uses the female form to craft landscapes and towering structures, as figures explore and dance among the terrain. These massive stretches of activity convey both psychological and physical expeditions.
Combining lush landscapes with pop and sci-fi elements, Atsushi Fukui’s paintings carry both a mystery and elegance in their execution. The artist has said that there isn't actually one narrative driving these scenes, yet he crafts the works in a way to imply so. A recent body of work carries both tones of space epics and mythology.
Naomi Okubo’s acrylic paintings on cotton wrestle with identity, offering both introspective scenes and rich experiments in patterns and texture. The artist's work is influenced by the ideals given to us by mass media and gender norms. Her work pulls from advertisements, self-portraits, and other sources.
Jérémy Demester’s paintings carry both vivid movement and spontaneity. In his current show at Galerie Max Hetzler, titled "FTW," the artist offers new paintings and sculptures that are part of a poetic narrative surrounding all of the works in the show. And the sculpture is at the center of it all.
Andy Dixon's vibrant and decadent paintings examine the relationship between art and money. Whether it's the personal rooms of patrons or coveted works from the Christie's catalog, Dixon’s lush pieces look at the worth assigned to objects and expressions. (The artist shows new examples of this in an upcoming show at Joshua Liner Gallery.)
Serge Gay Jr.’s new monochromatic acrylic paintings reckon with American history and the voices long suppressed. In a new show at Art Attack SF, running Feb. 6-March 3, his new body of work is shown. "There’s a common belief of living in a world that is black and white; however there many shades of gray … and sometimes a bit of color,” the artist says.
Trey Abdella’s paintings are all acrylic, despite being tapestries of visual and pop influences for the artist. The artist's abilities in realism, graphical art, and glitch-style flourishes create works that resemble collages. Abdella was last featured on HiFructose.com here.
Tanner MacLeod’s acrylic paintings create unexpected characters out of geometric forms, taking influence from primitive computer art. (The artist’s “A Noble Mustachian,” in particular, appears taken from Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing” video.) Elsewhere, the polygonal arrangements create abstract works.
In an upcoming solo show at Jason Vass Gallery, Mark Dean Veca offers works crafted during the past nine years. "The Troubled Teens (Work of a Decade),” running Jan. 26 through March 9, features acrylic works like "Back Off," crafting Yosemite Sam in Veca fashion. All of the paintings bring Veca’s stylized pattern-making and textures to reconstruct pop cultural and political symbols. Veca was last mentioned on HiFructose.com here.
The acrylic paintings and drawings of Cristòfol Pons are visions of converging realities: past and future, art history and something otherworldly. His characters and visual motifs, though consistent throughout his work, point in varying directions. As he’s said, “The present is just a moment that vanishes at every step, the past is a blurry haze and future a horizon longing to fade.” He will at times point to the recognizable, perhaps a piece by Jeff Koons or a historical icon, yet only as a point of entry into something else entirely.