Lauren YS recently returned to her comic roots with her use of black inks in the recent show “CORPUS FLUX.” The show at Juddy Roller in Melbourne featured several new drawings, exploring social and technological themes, along with a new mural adorning the building. YS was last featured on our site in this studio visit.
Tag Archives: Lauren YS
A new gallery joins the Bay area art scene tomorrow. Athen B. Gallery will celebrate their grand opening with “House Warming,” an exhibition featuring new works by some familiar names to our blog, including Bret Flanigan, David Bray, Eric Bailey, Lauren YS, Moneyless, Troy Lovegates, Word to Mother, Zio Ziegler, and more. With this first showing, Athen B. introduces their eye for artists with roots in graffiti and urban art, Pop motifs and expressive palettes.
Lauren YS’ studio is located in a sprawling Oakland co-op that once housed an architecture office. The gigantic drafting tables its original tenants left behind proved to be useful while she worked on her new body of work for her solo show, “Devil’s Jelly,” opening at Cotton Candy Machine in Brooklyn on April 18. Her surreal drawings and paintings feature shape-shifting female characters that seem to embody the artist’s various dreams — as well as fears and anxieties. YS interjects punches of striking neon colors that match her work’s bold attitude. Today, we take a look behind the scenes of “Devil’s Jelly” before her work travels to New York.
It’s no coincidence that octopi are a major motif in emerging artist Lauren YS’s work. The artist certainly has some chops when it comes to working with ink, the eight-legged creature’s weapon of choice and her preferred medium. After collaborating with Austrian artist Nychos during his recent stay in San Francisco, she was invited to Vienna for an artist residency at Nychos’s gallery, Rabbit Eye Movement. Her solo show “Kraken” opens there on August 13. The German word for octopus, “Kraken” comes from the Norwegian root “krake,” which translates to “unhealthy creature.” Following this etymology, YS’s line-heavy illustrations depict nightmarish yet humorous versions of human-octopus hybrids. According to the artist, they’ve become a metaphor for the dark turns an anxious, manic mind can take.