LIFE OF THE PARK
Subliminal Projects Gallery embraces its new home and the artists therein

By Stacy Davies
Photos by Rosheila Robles

If you like immersing yourself into an atmosphere akin to packed sardines – Subliminal Projects Gallery in Echo Park definitely has to be on your radar. The gallery, which Shepard and Amanda Fairey recently opened in this new space, only does six shows a year, and if any of the others were like their first annual Park Life exhibit on Saturday – meaning crammed wall-to-wall with arties sousing themselves on a wild concoction of scotch mixed with ginger beer – better grease up your hips.

While past shows at the space have centered on one or two artists (and six weeks ago the gallery held a mini zine fair and lecture panel), Park Life hopes to become a time-honored tradition. The impetus for the gallery project was location. While the Faireys have been in the area since 2003 with their Studio Number One design space, the gallery extension of their enterprises opened earlier this year in the heart of Echo Park. And while they could have had an easy win by stocking up the venue with Obey prints and called it a day, instead, Amanda Fairey says she and fellow Studio Number One designers had something else in mind.

“While I was in [the gallery] working with the architects, I realized that we're right in the middle of this hub of the arts,” she explains, “and we realized that all of our artist friends lived in the area and it just seemed like once we got our programming going that we wanted to do a yearly show that was kind of a friends and family show - but really focus it around community. This show is called Park Life because we're in Echo Park, and we wanted to pull in the community artists that we work with.”

The array of around 50 pieces (including one each from Shepard and Amanda) crosses all mediums and boundaries, from photography, to collage, graphite, paint of all varieties, and more. Many of the artists in the show are people that the Fairey’s worked with on Swindle Magazine, which Shepard co-founded in 2004 – illustrators and photographers who’ve embodied the street art theme and beyond.

Variety is the key – and while some artists chose to show pieces that danced along the edge of community, other’s showcased works that somehow moved them beyond any obvious connection, and yet easily fit under this broad theme, begging the ponderance – what isn’t community? There seems to be no way of escaping it.

Stephen Bliss’ hot red and fuchsia giclee on canvas “Steroid” went that direction, showing two comic book-like wrestlers facing off – one of them waxing philosophical about love in his word bubble. The subtitle seems to evoke his buddy’s frustration with his heartsick compadre: “Armageddon on my nerves.”

Zach Gibson’s minutely detailed watercolor and ink panel series “Neighborhoods,” looks at community from a bird’s eye view – pastel, geographically fractured landscapes of islands and mountains dotted by cities and towns, and one completely circular fractation adrift in a universe filled with modern hieroglyphics, showed the smallness and delicacy of our communities from a distance. Dustin Hostetler went retro/activist with his companion pieces “Group” and “Sign,” one of rust and honey colored silhouetted picketers and the second panel, an up-close of their placard – “Save Us” with a peace sign. Alia Penner and Mekenzie Kay also showed their 70s side off with two acrylic and oil canvases: “Untitled” has a vibrant, earth-toned rainbow springing up at the feet of some bearded rockers and “Rise and Shine,” is the backside of a blue pin-up girl stretching awake to a yellow-ringed sunrise.

Cleon Peterson showed more of his community in chaos work, four panels of hot pink toned oppressors and victims once again battling it out in the streets, and Kill Pixie’s untitled acrylic ink and watercolor almost takes community down to the molecular level with a geometric turbulence of multiple plateaus.

Amanda Fairey’s piece, a graphic adaptation of an aerial view of Echo Park Lake, was exactly on the money, which made her laugh. “I seem to be the only one who took the theme of the show literally!” Her caveat? “But I'm not a career artist!” We didn’t see any problem with that, in fact, we liked it, and it was fitting that the image hung above the DJ - Shepard Fairey, who spent the night feeding his favorite hobby of spinning beats that included some classic ELO.

Skullphone was also on display and on hand, hot off his recent show at the Riverside Art Museum that he calls a sort of “Skullphone history museum” project. The piece in this show, however, is a preview of a whole new medium for the artist – a handpainted pointillism scheme that may remind of a master yet embodies the artist’s skullphone agenda, this time aimed at the billboard culture.

“This new work is definitely an extension of the Skullphone contradiction. I feel that our signage is turning away from the classic CMYK colors to this vibrant RGB/LED and what a nightmare to live across from one of those signs. There's one up by Spaceland in Silverlake and nothing is more glaring all day long and all night long.”

It’s also a technical contradiction, he points out – RGB is additive light and his piece, created with auto body car paint, is CMYK and therefore subtractive light, meaning that technically all the colors add to black, instead of white. The dots are strategically placed, just like his Skullphone stickers and he says the medium (auto body paint) is a nod to the LA car culture. You also have to see it in person to get it.

“Fortunately, this stuff is impossible to photograph, and I like that because it means you have to experience it first hand.” Good for him – not so much for us; you’ll just have to drop by Subliminal and check the piece out for yourself.

Other works included photographer Theo Jamison’s 44x36 b/w of a yawning money (which Amanda Fairey joked also embodies the show’s theme literally because the LA Zoo is right down the street) that puts those Planet of the Apes fears to rest – how could something so sweet, kill? – and is part of a larger series on India that the artist just sold to an LA production company.

Mel Kadel and Travis Millard, who Skullphone refers to as “the heart and soul of Echo Park,” showed some of their pen and ink works – with Kadel’s “Splat City” of little bodies with paint splatters for heads illustrating his intricacy and detail.

Other standouts included Z James’ trio “Car,” “Face,” and “Bus,” soft spray paint collages of Xeroxed images on canvas, Megan Whitmarsh’s dual panels of hand embroidered neon mountain climbers and sculpture patrons “Pink & Red Sculpture” and “Let’s Go!”, Ernesto Yerena’s acrylic stencil poster art caballero, “Cono O Sin Dinero,” and Seona Hong’s “Branches,” a misty, watercolored image of a little girl in a blue dress playing a gramophone to some (hopefully) docile bears in the woods.

Shepard Fairey himself took a backseat in the show (aside from scintillating eardrums) and only hung his “Public Enemy” print, discretely placed out of the spotlight.

Studio Number One Associate Creative Director and one of about nine curators of Park Life, Florencio Zavala had three of his collage and ink graffiti art pieces on display, and felt the theme was a good jumping off place for the gallery’s drive to connect with its new community.

“There are so many interesting things in Echo Park, you just have to take one subject matter at a time,” he said. “There's so much rich history here, it's all about continuing investigation and creating a dialogue – this is just one response to that. In future Park Life shows, we’ll be looking at representing community from a different point of view. It’s really important for us to reach out.”

 
Jeremy Kaplan (left) - City Zen (artwork shown left)
Michael M. Koehler (right) - First Day of School, Sept 11th, NYC (artwork shown right)

Florencio Zavala - General Assembly Of; Ocean Idol; LA Raiders Faithful

Theo Jemison - Bali Monkey B&W

Cleon Peterson - Untitled 1; Untitled 2; Untitled 3; Untitled 4

Shepard Fairey spinnin'

Amanda Fairey - Echo Lake

Victor Hu's 1910, 2111, and 2134 Sunset Blvd.

Shepard Fairey's Public Enemy piece (collaboration with legendary photographer Glen E. Friedman, who will have an upcoming show in December at Subliminal)

Park Life runs October 4 through October 31, 2008. More info at subliminalprojects.com

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