Kati Heck is unveiling a new exhibition of works in her first solo show entitled 'Multikulti Sause' at Tim Van Laere Gallery. The show consists of seven monumentally-sized paintings, 2 photographic works and a series of drawings. Her paintings are staged with figure from her immediate environment, arranged to heighten drama and irony. They depict things that often happen in her studio--gatherings of an entire gang of strange visitors, old men, indie kids, her friends. The nude femaile form is confrontational, verging on softcore porn. Heck was born in Dusseldorf, Germany and works in Antwerp today.     

Mikael Jansson overturns the grimy, greasy underbelly of the urban night in this photoseries called "Let's Get Lost." The scene is familiar at first--a gang of gangly, sweat-slicked city kids falling against each other under the blue light of the industrial night feels almost like a shot out of a music video, yet as you move through the photos the sophistication of these fashion shots becomes increasingly evident. Using color and cloth to dictate the focus of the photos, Jansson utilizes this down-and-dirty setting to intensify the impact of high fashion in the shoot. These pictures capture the sensual fray of the urban youth while presenting its fashion in gorgeous light. As the title suggests, it's easy to get lost in these pictures.  

These visceral, circular illustrations come from Fernando Vicente's "Venus" exhibit. These artworks are both painterly and extremely graphic, revealing the underlying anatomy of each figure in a refreshing revision of the concept of 'skin peeling away.' Vicente contrasts warm and cool tones to demarcate interior and exterior, creating depth and atmosphere through careful layering of these hues. The circular composition gives these images a voyeuristic feel, as if peering through a looking-glass, heightening the sense of looking behind and underneath what we can normally perceive of the human body.  

Japanese woodblock prints command a space in art history all their own, defining an aesthetic and cultural ethos that is often repeated and played off of in contemporary art today. While Japanese prints attained an undeniable status in the realm of craft and technique, a huge portion of these prints were dedicated to erotic scenes...

This past weekend Mark Mulroney opened his newest solo show "A Fertile Menace" at San Francisco's own Ever Gold Gallery and Juxtapoz was there to catch it. Mulroney expands his wonderful, twisted universe across an impressive range of new paintings, collages and sculptures in which childlike naiveté and vibrant comic elements become both counterpoints to and the vocabulary for scenes of sex, violence and decay...

Some gorgeous shots of the ever-effervescent Miranda Kerr from willy Vanderperre. These sensual, up-close photographs capture a lazy, self-indulgent walk along a hillside. Kerr's slightly deconstructed poses give off a casual sexiness, and the super-loose boyfriend jeans and ragged sweatshirts contrast nicely with some higher-fashion pieces. We find these shots particularly sweet and familiar in their utmost sensuality.  

Gosia Herba earned her degree in jewelry-making at the School of Arts in Wroclaw, Poland. Herba's illustrations combine a graphic design sensibility with a strange, almost satirical exploration of absurd situations to create these mysterious riddle-like images. Herba's work appears on pots and lamps, creating both decorative textures and a narrative subtext that is difficult to tease out even after prolonged examinatin. Gosia Herba's body of work is strange and wonderful, and we're happy to have some weird sensual imagery to break the stride here in the erotica section!  

Joshua Bronaugh's erotic paintings engage with a sense of immediacy, gesture and medium that are both expression and experience of the sensual. The media used are surprising--oil piant, motor oil, alkyd and gold float on plastic support. His loose brushwork divides the body into shards of color, creating an image of the body as if seen through broken glass, a gorgeous method that forces us to re-imagine the human form. Like mirages, Bronaugh's paintings tempt us and flit away, never completely whole. Bronaugh says that the most exciting part of painting for him is "the idea that I don't know how a painting will end. I like to think of a canvas as a Petri dish... painting has a life and force of its own."

Kristians Brekte is a weird master of all forms, and we're enjoying exhibiting his work in different mediums in our erotica department. Known best for his ultra-graphic paintings of skull-faced girls, Brekte also makes sculptures that rival his paintings in weirdness. Brekte encapsulates cratures in formaldehyde inside of little jars and creates wall-hanging effigies of barbies and dolls. Pasting together pig's feet, duck heads, skulls and snakes with action figures, teddy bears and barbies, Brekte's sculptures are reminiscent of Sid from Toy Story, the maniacal teenager putting together broken bits of children's shrapnel. 

Edward Ysais is a superbly talented young photographer based in San Gabriel, California. His luscious images evoke an eastern exoticism reminiscent of the early twentieth century, using sumptuous color palettes and subdued lighting effects to create softly erotic photographs.  His varied influences include photographers like Edward Weston and Jan Saudek, painters such as Picasso, Egon Shiele, and Gustav Klimt, and writer Henry Miller.