"New Beginnings" at Space Gallery in San Francisco, This Friday!

Zira from Planet of the Apes by Isabel Samaras

"New Beginnings" at Space Gallery

Opening: March 11, 7 pm to 12 am

Thru April 2nd, 2011

1141 Polk Street, San Francisco, CA

Hi-Fructose Art Invitational Opens This Friday, in Seattle!

Kazuki Takamatsu "Prepare For The Unknown Future Enemy" mixed media, acrylic on canvas

Roq La Rue and Hi-Fructose Magazine present

"The Hi Fructose Group Invitational"

Opens Friday March 11th 6-9pm 

runs through April 2nd

Participating artists include: Al Columbia, Aron Wiesenfeld, Chris Berens, Dalek/James Marshall, Bob Dob, Eric Fortune, Femke Hiemstra, Harma Heikens, Jason D'Aquino, Jeremy Geddes, Kazuki Takamatsu, Martin Wittfooth, Michael Page, Rob Sato, Robert Hardgrave, Scott Hove, Tim Biskup, Travis Lampe, Nicola Verlato, Sylvia Ji 

Hi-Fructose Magazine is pleased to announce it's 2011 group exhibition at Roq La Rue Gallery. This show is curated as an appreciation for the multi faceted nature of art in our evolving culture and features all new work from a diverse selection of world class artists highlighted in Hi-Fructose past, present and future.

Art For International Women's Day

Jane Graverol - L’Esprit Saint (The Holy Spirit), 1965. Jane Graverol was a Belgian surrealist artist. She co-founded the magazines Temps mêlés and Les Lèvres Nues.

For Women's Day this year, I just started researching the web - for art related to women and women's history. Since we only get 2 days a year (Mother's Day being the second), we have to get as much out of it as we can! What are the elements that all women the world over,  have in common? The obvious biological ones - breasts, reproductive organs, menstruation and (of course) a bigger brain. Here follows an eclectic mix of interesting art related to women, grab a cup of java and take a deserved break.

Street mural by Insa in downtown Los Angeles.

Charlotte Newson created this great collage of Emmeline Pankhurst (leader of the British suffragette movement). It is made of a ton of not-so-famous women. You simply must check it out here.

Some vagina based art - castings of the real thing by British sculptor Jamie McCartney

And a felted brooch "Lips" by Winona 

Painted tiki body cast by Ruzic, for the wonderful Keep A Breast Foundation's art auction. For a gallery of other artist's breast torsos click here.

A colorful burst of a painting -"Women's Day Celebration" by Marietjie Henning

  

An awesome advertising campaign, body painted posters for the Breast cancer Foundation. Check out the others here.  Art Director: Andrea Kuo 

Some "Alien" inspired uterus art by AmyGDala-Mars -

One aspect of women's daily lives is the much under-rated tampon. Where would we be without it? An object that more than half the population stares at on a monthly basis - yet it is still considered "gross". What's up with that? So to get it out of the closet a little, here are some fun artworks created with tampons.

 Tampon shoes by Ladypants, Brooklyn Art Project

Vadis Turner - "Tampon Wedding Cake", 2007

The "Tampon Chandelier" of Joana Vasconcelos

And last but not least - a great surrealist piece by Dora Maar, (Sans Titre, 1934), photomontage – a woman famous as Picasso’s muse, but not as an artist in her own right. From an exhibit last year of surrealist women artists that took place in the UK. For a very good read on the show click here.

Banksy Versus The Gray Ghost, A New Orleans Gallery

In New Orleans, the street artist known as Banksy has created more than a dozen murals around the city, including the one shown above. The murals depict a variety of scenes, including Abraham Lincoln as a homeless man pushing a basket, a marching band wearing gas masks, an old man in a rocking chair with an American flag below the words “No Loitering,” and a boy on a swing made out of a life preserver. According to a statement released by Banksy on Thursday, the murals were created in response to Fred Radtke, an antigraffiti campaigner also known as the Gray Ghost, who uses gray paint to cover up graffiti. The statement also said, “Three years after Katrina I wanted to make a statement about the state of the clean up operation.” - Via The New York Times
It's ironic that the anti-graffiti zealot Radtke is himself guilty of the crime he seems intent upon destroying. He even painted over a mural on someone's home who had commissioned the work! Nice to hear he got nailed for it, (below) - I mean would you rather see a blot of gray paint or a Banksy original on your city walls? I think he needs to get a life.

Radtke in action, Operation: Mean Sweep

"Radtke was sentenced to a 60-day suspended sentence for overpainting a graffiti-style mural on the corner of Press and Burgundy streets. Conditions of the suspension of the sentence include that he can no longer remove grafitti without first getting the property owner's OK. Radtke and members of his graffiti-eradication organization, Operation: Clean Sweep, were in the process of rolling gray paint over the colorful mural, when stopped by patrolling National Guardsmen, who took the Gray Ghost briefly into custody.The muralists had been given the go-ahead from the owners of the property to create the painting. Radtke, who is known as the Gray Ghost for the color of paint he uses to blot out graffiti around the city, had not obtained permission to destroy it." - Via Doug MacCash, The Times-Picayune 
Enjoy these pictures of Banksy's clever art, below, that may or may not still exist in New Orleans.

Virtual Tour of the Sistine Chapel

This is a very cool interactive full tour of the Sistine Chapel - it may get you a little dizzy ... Use your Mouse to slide and roll. Hold your curser down on right side of screen and slowly move pictures around. Amazing sight. TO VIEW EVERY PART OF THE MICHELANGELO'S MASTERPIECE JUST CLICK AND DRAG YOUR ARROW IN THE DIRECTION YOU WISH TO SEE. MOVE THE CURSOR SLOWLY! In the lower left corner, click on the plus to move closer, on the minus to move away. Link: http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/sistina_vr/index.html Apparently done by Villanova at the request of the Vatican ...

Annie Owen's Solo: I'm "Terribly Happy" It's Happening...

Annie Owens is exhibiting in LA this month, at Copro Gallery in Santa Monica. If you are down that way, try to make it, her works are wonderfully expressive little dark peaks at characters with attitude. Annie is half of the Hi-Fructose art team and founder, Atta-Boy being the other half.

This is a solo show of all new works by Annie, aptly titled "Terribly Happy". The show opens March 19th and it is up thru April 9th, 2011.

There are a ton of great newbrow and surreal art shows going on down there in La-La land right now, so make an art trip of them all! Do some homework and for the easy highlights, check out the Eclectix site, event listings  - "Eight Days A Week".

Keep a sharp eye out for the upcoming interview with Annie, right here at Eclectix. Annie's website is here.

Exhibit Alert! Camille Rose Garcia at Michael Kohn Gallery

Coming up in  at the Michael Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles is a show of new works by the ever lovely Camille Rose Garcia. Titled "Snow White and the Black Lagoon", this is a show not to be missed! Opening reception is March 12th, 2011 from 6-9 pm, the exhibition is up until April 9th.

Eclectix Interview With Pamela Wilson, Artiste!

Pamela is one of the most incredible painters out there today, I could stare at her images on a slideshow loop endlessly....

From Pamela: “I recently read a Chuck Close quote:"Inspiration is for amateurs. The pros just show up for work." Inspiration and work are both necessary and equal parts of anything worth making.. I guess that's what I do- show up for work. 

On GOOD days- I get some coffee, head directly to the studio at 8:00AM, turn on some Tom Waits, work my fingers to the bone, run five miles on the beach (I live in God's country- Santa Barbara, CA), eat like a health nut,  pat myself on the back, pat my dogs on the head, and read myself to sleep. 

On MOST days, I drag myself to the studio by 10:30AM (twenty-two feet from my back door), turn on some Tom Waits,  stress myself over deadlines yet unmet and paintings that will never be done, scold myself for not being Jeremy Geddes, eat crap because I'm too hungry or lazy to care, virtually ignore my dogs and the laundry, paint until midnight, and stay up even later watching “O Brother Where Art Thou” until I forget my troubles, and fall asleep.....”

For the whole Eclectix interview, you'd better go here.