In a show titled “Posthumorous / Post Mort ’em,” La Luz de Jesus looks back at the work of Click Mort, who passed away last year. Mort, known for his “recapitated figures,” crafted humorous, hybrid ceramic sculptures from existing pieces. He was featured in Hi-Fructose Vol. 34 and was last featured on our site here.
Hi-Fructose co-founder Annie Owens assembles a new body of work in “A Place Worth Knowing,” a new show at La Luz De Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles. The title of this collection of watercolor works comes from Algernon Blackwood, a favorite author of the artist: “No place worth knowing yields itself at sight, and those the least inviting on first view may leave the most haunting pictures upon the walls of memory.” In her statement, Owens offers some insight on the figures found across her pieces. The show kicks off Aug. 4 and runs through Aug. 28.
Daria Theodora
The 31st annual group show at La Luz De Jesus Gallery, titled Laluzapalooza 2017, brings 130 pieces from 64 artists into the space. There’s no theme to the enormous salon-style show, just a broad Post-Pop experience. The gallery says it sorted through thousands of submissions from “commercial illustrators, graphic designers, tattooists, scenics, students, street taggers, animators, and working gallery artists” to get to the final line-up.
American artist Renée French draws endearing portraits of bizarre creatures that look like dark versions of fairytale characters. First featured in an insert for Hi-Fructose Vol. 35, French considers herself a “graphite addict”, who keeps a child-like innocence about her adult graphic novelist and comics rooted works. Her fantastical imagery is in part inspired by Netherlandish painter Hieronymus Bosch, especially the macabre and nightmarish depictions within his fanciful world. She will debut her latest series at La Luz de Jesus gallery in Los Angeles on October 2nd.
Scott Hove’s (Hi-Fructose Collected 3) art is much more than just three dimensional cake- it also tells story. His former studio in San Francisco, better known as “Cakeland”, featured a funhouse made of sweet, yet nightmarish cake sculptures. Now living and working in Los Angeles, Hove brings a piece of Cakeland to his current exhibition, “Pussy Jihad” at La Luz de Jesus Gallery. This exhibit plays with opposing ideals in society, while taking a look at the ethos of masculinity and femininity.
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. Take a look at our photos from the show after the jump!