Tonight is The Shooting Gallery’s opening reception of new works by C3, Akira and KMNDZ. We are excited to show such a diverse mix of perspectives, drawings and paintings.

With an amazing capability for detail, C3 creates tightly executed images that are smooth and free flowing. His art reflects a fascination with death, terror, and the unknown. Though his photorealistic drawings with graphite are usually of his friends and colleagues, they might be modeled as a rotting corpse or masked figure wearing a straightjacket. Other drawings are replicas of old photographs from the 1800’s, manipulated to serve an elusive purpose. . With a subtle yet striking feeling about them, the aesthetically beautiful pieces reveal the darkest moments from within.

Akira manipulates familiar dollar bill imagery to shed light on popular American conceptions, using luminous portraits of philosopher Karl Marx or rapper Easy-E in place of Benjamin Franklin. His paintings often battle themes of religion, sexual objectification or social change. Portraits along with commercial icons such as the Matel, Coca Cola and the Visa symbol, are approached in a loose, expressive manner. His style, texture and color palette depend on the purpose of the piece, whether to portray perfection or careless flaws. In the end, each painting is a reference point relative to an individual issue and may be the results of, influenced by, and/or has a relationship with money.

KMNDZ paints robots that roam the remains of a lost city. Their metal exteriors are weathered and rusted by time. His paintings are filled with symbolic imagery and religious icons, referencing Dios De Los Muertos and the bible. These robots are keepers of memories, built upon the premise of reflection. Some embody human elements such as an exposed heart, or man-like skeletal system. Others hold human emotions of hate, greed, pride and death or contain love, grace, and truth.

Please join us for the opening reception tonight, October 10th, 2009 from 7-11 pm. This exhibit will be showing October 10th through November 7th, 2009 and is open to the public.