LA LUZ DE JESUS GALLERY
4633 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90027
323-666-7667 Fax: 323-663-0243
CREAM OF THE CROP
Summer Annual Group Show
Featuring six hand picked up-and-coming artists
Jessica Cooper, Jennifer Jelenski, Caro Lozada, Mike Sosnowski, Star 27, Magda Trzaski
August 1 – August 31, 2008
Artist Reception: Friday, August 1, 8 pm – 11 pm.
www.laluzdejesus.com
Online press release with images: http://leejosephpublicity.com/show/sixpersongroupshowlaluz
Jessica A. W. Cooper
Inspired by curio collections and silly hats, Jessica A. W. Cooper creates whimsically humorous illustrations using a variety of media. Cooper was born in England and grew up in Nairobi, Kenya, Southern California, and various locations throughout Europe and Scandinavia. She became interested in drawing at an early age, forcing her previous passions for weaving lanyard key chains and making mud sculptures to the wayside. The youngest of the artists in this six-person show, Cooper is still attending art school at Otis and will be graduating in 2009. www.jawcooper.blogspot.com
Jennifer J. Jelenski
Jennifer J. Jelenski (aka: J3) grew up in a sleepy little mill town in Indiana and was born in time to be a Star Wars kid and fan of Jack Kirby. Her creative energies, love of comic book art, and nomadic tendencies guided her to nearby Chicago where she attended the American Academy of Art and Tree Studios. A strong drive towards her own creative path encouraged her to leave the structure of schooling behind and pursue soft sculpture, acrylic painting and a short yet very successful career as a make-up artist. From there she moved to the mountains and valleys of North Carolina where she put her full time into creating fine art and spent six years painting Wrathful Tibetan Icons which lead to several successful shows. Her current work is an eclectic assortment of comic book style cartoon critters and Tibetan symbolism that comes from the more ‘interesting’ corners of her mind and personal experiences. Jennifer currently lives in Los Feliz, California with her oddball husband, energetic personal assistant cattle dog, and her special-ed bunny and model Bleau. www.myspace.com/sacredskull
Carl Lozada
Carl Lozada brings to the group show “The Fantastical World of Blimpboy and the Bellhop Clowns” where there are many great adventures. Be prepared to take a trip through endless pipes where many of the Bellhop Clowns live, work and fly! Watch your step for the space mice that like to attack helpless Naked Doorsign Amazon Women. See the mating ritual for Gumbie Zombies…all through the eyes of Blimpboy! Lozada, a Los Angeles resident, has worked for Doubleday Books, Promax Magazine, the Graham, Silberg and Sugarman ad agency, and is currently the art director for photography magazines After Capture and Rangefinder. www.carllozada.com
Mike Sosnowski
Mike Sosnowski paints with oil on canvas and acetate to create moments from an alternate universe where monsters really do exist. “I am the doorway for these creatures to enter our dimension via my art,” states Sosnowski. Born in 1956, he graduated from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh in 1977. The following year he was hired as an animator for Ralph Bakshi’s “Lord of the Rings”. For the past 22 years he has been a storyboard artist, working for everyone from Filmation to Disney. Sosnowski’s resume includes “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe,” “The Little Mermaid,” “Ferngulley: The Last Rain Forest,” “The Land Before Time,” “Tom and Jerry” and Steven Spielberg’s hit show “Toonsyvania” Sosnowski is currently developing an animated horror anthology for Warner Bros. He also plans to continue bringing monsters into the world via his paintings! www.sozstudios.com
Star27
Star27 grew up in a loving home and began creating at a young age. Fearful of the world around him he strayed into addiction. It was an illusion of great freedom, but proved to be a prison that he was locked in for many years. He spent time in Manhattan, San Francisco, and all points in between. Always looking for the next thrill, he soon lost his health, peace of mind, and spirituality. After loosing many opportunities as a result, he set aside his paintbrush thinking he would never create again. Sinking deeper and always having a belief that he would not make it past the age of twenty-seven; he stood at the edge of hopelessness. After coming face to face with death on the night he had decided was his last, yet making it through in spite of his best efforts…he rediscovered his dream. He was able to again find the happiness in his art that was lost many years before he set down the paintbrush. Star 27 turned 28 in February. Today he resides on Florida’s West Coast where he creates art about the darkness he has seen, and the light he has found. Using a medium of oil on canvas, Star27’s work focuses on dolls which represent lost youth and purity, as well as plasticity and the fake, to convey dark subjects that he believes are sometimes glamorized. Star27’s works touch on addiction, violence, mass media, consumerism, and society’s mold of who is seen as beautiful. The artist also worked with a model, Jessica Nova, for this show. He has used her in his work to represent the antithesis of the dolls. “Those who stray into self-destruction seek basic needs: love, acceptance, happiness, and find it in dangerous places, as well as those who have found it in their own souls. I introduce the plasticity of those who allow the world to enslave them, and I show the beauty in those who allow themselves to be set free. I try to use my medium to undermine preconceptions, exposing a society that praises wealth, possessions, and its own predetermined standards of beauty, at any cost” states the artist. The art is very in-your-face, very emotional, very Star27. www.artstar27.com
Magda Trzaski
Magda Trzaski’s casts of animal-inspired characters are enclosed under glass in forestalled activity, as strange and newfound specimens might have been in the Victorian era. Balloons float in mid-air as tiny sculptures of gangly limbed and cracked-skinned creatures balance in limbo of attempted escape and despair. There is a looming sense of life floating away, contained momentarily within the shadow boxes. The intricate figures highlight the dark undertones in Trzaski’s work which is heavily influenced by Dutch Vanitas painters, whose aim was to remind us of the inevitability of death, and the transience and vanity of earthly achievements and pleasures. “There is a theme/subtext of death, despair and escape with a dose of cynicism and self-deprecation Even though I don’t take these themes lightly, I think there’s definite a sense of humor in the work” states the artist. Trzaski learned to sew at her grandfather’s tailor shop, on wonderful, vintage, pedal-driven sewing machines, which is probably where her love for antiques and old things-things with history-started. She attended Wexford Collegiate, an art high school in Scarborough, where she studied photography, printmaking, life drawing and sculpture, and where her art interest grew. She studied photography and film in University, where she enjoyed the ability to experiment, attempting animated shorts ala Norman McLaren and Stan Brakhage-painting and/or scratching the film surface or gluing various materials to it. In terms of photography, she always favored still life.” The whole memento mori thing started when I discovered the early work of photographers Olivia Parker and Frederick Sommer, among others. My thesis project was a photographic quilt: it dealt with the ideas behind putting together a hope chest. During my spare time I made dolls and various creatures, without seeing the potential of incorporating them into my ‘serious’ work.” Trzaski currently lives in Mississauga, ON with her miniature dachshund where, besides making her characters, she dabbles in the magic of fine art jewelry making. www.magdatrzaski.com
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La Luz de Jesus is located at the Soap Plant/Wacko building, in Los Feliz at 4633 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90027. Gallery hours are Monday – Wednesday: 11am – 7pm, Thursday – Saturday: 11am – 9pm and Sunday 12-6pm. For high resolution jpegs, interview requests and more information contact: Lee Joseph Publicity, 359 E. Magnolia, Suite F., Burbank, CA 91502, leejemail@gmail.com, p (818) 848-2698 f (818) 848-2699.
