ARTnews Review By Sharon Mizota | October 2010
Curated by artist Kerry James Marshall, this group exhibition dispensed with a unifying theme in favor of thought provoking connections. Featuring 32 works by six artists of varying ages and backgrounds, the show proceeded in two main directions:
An exploration of the sensual side of abstraction and a sampling of contemporary approaches to figuration.
LA Times review by David Pagel
September 23, 2010
"Animexican," Einar and Jamex de la Torre’s third solo show at Koplin del Rio Gallery, is a raucous parade of unlikely icons, sabotaged masterpieces, reconstituted artifacts and cock-eyed renditions of just about anything you can think of.
City Beat Long Beach Feature Story By Theo Douglas
“I wanted to live near the beach, but I didn’t really know where I wanted to live,” artist Sandow Birk says over sandwiches and a glass of Chardonnay at George’s Greek Café. “So I ended up in Long Beach.”
Of course, that’s more than faint praise.
Los Angeles Times - The hybrid art of Einar and Jamex de la Torre
November 07, 2010|By Scarlet Cheng
The brothers' work is a Baroque mix of the high and the low, the sacred and the profane, Mexico and America. They're the focus of a retrospective at the Craft and Folk Art Museum.
High and low culture, the sacred and the profane, the esoteric and the pop collide in the works of Einar and Jamex de la Torre, brothers who have collaborated closely as artists for 20 years.
By Patricia Ciaffa Peyser, Huffington Post
January 11, 2011
Barbie's slight but potent form carries five decades of heavy cultural associations on its diminutive shoulders. In her riveting new body of work Drown the Dolls, Daena Title mines that iconic ground for fresh and provocative meaning. Barbie's creator Ruth Handler once commented that she "designed Barbie with a blank face, so that the child could project her own dreams" onto the doll -- and Title's Barbies are captivating vehicles for the projection of her trenchant personal vision.
We are pleased to announce Sandow Birk's "The Word of God: American Qur'an" opening at The Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh February 26 - May 1, 2011.
View available works:
http://www.koplindelrio.com/content/sandow-birk
The Warhol Museum info:
http://www.warhol.org/webcalendar/event.aspx?id=2625
By Leah Ollman, March 31, 2011 | Los Angeles Times
To anyone familiar with Mineko Grimmer’s work, her two new installations at Koplin Del Rio will come as no surprise. The L.A.-based artist hasn’t had a solo show locally since 1999, but the general form and premise of her work have remained consistent since the 1980s. In Grimmer’s case, more of the same is a good thing. A very good thing.
EDUCATION:
1981 MFA, University of Wisconsin,
Madison, WI
1976 BA, University of Wisconsin,
Madison, WI
SOLO EXHIBITIONS:
2011 "New Drawings", Koplin Del Rio Gallery, Culver City CA
2009 Print Works Gallery, Chicago IL
2008 “New Drawings”, Koplin Del Rio Gallery Culver City, CA
“Robert Schultz”, Drawings 1990-2007, Chazen Museum of Art, Madison WI
2006 “New Drawings”, Printworks, Chicago, IL
2005 “New Drawings”, Koplin Del Rio Gallery, Los Angeles CA
2004 Printworks Gallery, Chicago, IL
2003 Grace Chosy Gallery, Madison, WI
March 2011 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Robert Schultz: New Drawings
April 16 – May 28, 2011
Opening Reception: Saturday, April 16, 6:00 - 8:00 p.m.
Artist Remarks: 5:30 – 6:00 p.m.
Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Friday: 10:00am - 5:30pm, Saturday: 11:00am - 5:30pm
Public Contact: 310-836-9055
Koplin Del Rio Gallery is pleased to announce its seventh exhibition of new work by Wisconsin based artist, Robert Schultz. Solely a draftsman, the figure continues to be the main compositional focus for Schultz in this new group of drawings.
His father a gymnast and grandfather a circus acrobat, Robert Schultz’ interest in the physical form is surely tied to his ancestral lineage. An avid proponent of exercise and athleticism, Schultz keeps regular gym hours working around his daily studio schedule. His fascination with the body as an instrument is evident in his approach to the figure, often nude and clearly focused on muscle, tendon, arch and flex. To Schultz, the body in and of itself is a work of art; his drawings serve to expose that intrinsic beauty. Employing the same models over many years, Schultz has the opportunity to gain a deep understanding of their physicality. In an austere setting with minimal props, each drawing is homage to the human form, both in its imperfection and transcendence.
Known for his deliberate and exacting precision, Schultz pays painstaking attention to every composition detail, both overall and in the minutia of each fold of skin, hair, shadow, highlight and pattern. In Schultz’ most recent body of work, the artist pushes himself even further to explore the very fabric of the details themselves reaching a near abstract view of his subject - the figure falls away leaving a maze of texture, light and line to explore. The result is artwork that astonishes both for its technical skill and for the evocative narrative it presents, stripped down to its barest elements of emotion and line. Working from live models with whom the artist has established a deep connection, the compelling humanity of each subject is wholly on display and lies in contrast to Schultz’ quiet execution.
Robert Schultz received his B.A and M.F.A. from the University of Wisconsin. Schultz is included in several public collections including the Art Institute of Chicago and The Arkansas Art Center.
For further information or photos, please contact the gallery at (310) 836-9055
By Peggy Sue Dunigan May 31,2011 | expressmilwaukeedotcom
Melissa Cooke's eight drawings on display at the Museum of Wisconsin Art (MWA) may send a shiver down the viewer's spine, but the exquisite graphite renderings also invite a closer look. Cooke juxtaposes technical elegance with terrifying images in the "Vacuum" series on display in MWA's One From Wisconsin gallery (through July 10).
By -- Leah Ollman, Los Angeles Times | August 19, 2011 | 6:45 am
The figures in Robert Pruitt’s engrossing drawings at Koplin Del Rio are individuals that he knows, transformed through costumes and props into characters within a larger narrative of cultural, historical, ethnic self-realization. Pruitt folds a panoply of disparate ingredients into the mix — comic book graphics, hip-hop style, science fiction futurism, ‘60s-era black power activism, a romanticized vision of precolonial Africa — and delivers a jarring kind of symbolic realism, equal parts heat, humor and humanism.
November 30, 2011 10:32 PM
By Donald Munro | fresnobeehive.com
I knew I wanted to write a piece about Shay Bredimus, who has a buzzworthy show continuing through Dec. 8 at the Fresno City College Art Space Gallery. (My story in Thursday's Life section features Bredimus as my lead ArtHop pick for the month.) But when it came to weaving the tale of an artist, there are so many tantalizing threads to his story that it was hard for me to know where to begin.
By Leah Ollman , Los Angeles Times | November 10, 2011 | 4:00 pm
Feb. 10, 2012 | Des Moines Register | Written by MICHAEL MORAIN
Los Angeles artist Sandow Birk has spent a good chunk of the last six years hand-writing an English translation of the Quran and illustrating it with scenes of modern American life.
May 2012 by SHANA NYS DAMBROT , Los Angeles
“New Suras” is the second installment of three in painter Sandow
Birk’s ambitious project, American Qur’an. Although a continuation of
the same body of work, in this middle part his comfort level with the
material and confidence in its rendering have noticeably increased.
Birk’s precisely rendered, filigree-bordered panels are more than
merely a modernized illustration of this major text, of which little is
really understood in the West, but neither is he attempting a serious
By Holly Myers | May 31, 2012 | LA Times
Edmund Burke, the 18th century philosopher best known in an art context for his writings on the sublime, is not a name that generally comes to mind when thinking about Home Depot. Cleveland-based painter Michelle Muldrow draws a plausible connection, however, in her second solo show at Koplin Del Rio, transposing the tenets of western landscape painting — a tradition heavily influenced by Burke’s concept of the sublime as that aspect of nature that inspires terror and awe — to the banal terrain of the big-box store.
Los Angeles Times, Friday, July 20, 2012
“Try reading between lines”, by Leah Ollman
Side-by-side solo shows by Josh Dorman and David Bailin at Koplin Del Rio make terrific neighbors. The artists have nothing in common in terms of methods, materials or imagery, but both are storytellers at heart, using accessible and familiar
visual vocabularies toward evocative, metaphoric ends.
I-5 Connects
Prographica at Koplin Del Rio: A Seattle Exchange
January 12 – February 9, 2013
Koplin Del Rio is pleased to introduce a gallery exchange program with Prographica in Seattle, WA. A fifteen year professional relationship between directors, Eleana Del Rio and Norman Lundin has resulted in a collaborative exhibition venture between their two galleries.
Panel Discussion: Artifex: Art Effects Beyond Identity
Wednesday May 29, 7:00 – 8:00 pm
Panel Moderator: Cheech Marin, Entertainer & Chicano Art Advocate
Panelists: Susana Smith Bautista, PhD., Art Historian & Latino/Chicano Arts Expert
Artists: Einar & Jamex de la Torre, Harry Gamboa Jr., Shizu Saldamando and John Valadez
Please RSVP as seating is limited
Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Friday: 10:00 am – 5:30 pm; Saturday: 11:00 am – 5:30 pm
Public Contact: 310-836-9055
ARTIFEX- New Work by Einar and Jamex de la Torre, Harry Gamboa Jr., Shizu Saldamando and John Valadez
In the Tower: Kerry James Marshall
June 28 – December 07, 2013
East Building Tower
Exhibtion: Kerry James Marshall @ The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
The Huffington Post | By Priscilla Frank
Is it possible to be a shape-shifter while remaining strongly grounded at the same time? Robert Pruitt's crayon series, simply entitled "Women," shows such an existence is not just possible -- it is everywhere.
By KAREN ROSENBERG , New York Times
Published: August 8, 2013
The subjects of “Robert Pruitt: Women,” his playful solo show at the Studio Museum in Harlem, look as if they’ve walked out of a street-style blog from a distant galaxy. One wears a track jacket, a feathered skirt and a Rubix cube perched on her head like a pillbox hat; another sports a tunic emblazoned with stars and planets and a spiraling headdress in the shape of Tatlin’s Constructivist “Monument to the Third International.”
F. Scott Hess
Words by Mike McGee, Gallery Director, CA State University, Fullerton
Bliss Magazine, pp. 72 – 77
ARTslant , “Filling in a Blank in the Image Bank” by Edo Dijksterhuis
“Painting and Other Stuff ... Kerry James Marshall”
MuHKA Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp
Leuvenstraat 32, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium
October 4, 2013 - February 2, 2014
“F. Scott Hess”- Interview by Greg Escalante
Juxtapose Magazine, February 2014
“F. Scott Hess claims to have a bad memory, but don’t believe it. Who could keep track of such a miasmatic mélange of fantasy, exotic travel and Civil War ancestry? Keep Reading because Greg Escalante got a peek into the mind of this self-described twisted Romantic Realist.”
To read more, visit:
http://www.juxtapoz.com/current/february-2014-issue-preview-mel-kadel-f-...
“F. Scott Hess: The Perfect Hess-Storm” by John Seed
Huffington Post, February 10, 2014
“What a year Los Angeles artist F. Scott Hess is having: his works are simultaneously on view in a two-part retrospective, and a one-man gallery show. His deadpan historically-themed mockmentary and curio cabinet The Paternal Suit: Heirlooms from the F. Scott Hess Family Foundation is gradually making its way from the deep South to the West Coast.
Kerry James Marshall: “Painting and Other Stuff”
@ The Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen
February 27 – May 4, 2014
South Galleries
Kunsthal Charlottenborg proudly presents the first solo exhibition in Denmark by the renowned and iconic painter Kerry James Marshall. The exhibition centers on historiography, identity politics and the history and construction of art. The exhibition is the result of the cooperation with three other acknowledged European art institutions: M HKA (Antwerp), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid) and Antoni Tàpies (Barcelona)
Realistic paintings by Laguna professor on view in O.C. and L.A.
Review: Retrospective of F. Scott Hess’ cinematic oil paintings aims to make viewers think.
BY RICHARD CHANG / VISUAL ART CRITIC
Published: Feb. 19, 2014 Updated: Feb. 20, 2014 12:19 p.m.
When we talk about Southern California artist F. Scott Hess, we are talking about someone who’s regarded as one of the best realist, figurative painters of his generation.
By Leah Ollman
Los Angesles Times, March 21, 2014
Those absurd working conditions we associate with the Kafkaesque -- bureaucratic cul-desacs, depersonalizing cubicles, psychic suffocation -- have been brilliantly visualized in recent years in the drawings of David Bailin.
Scenes by the Little Rock, Ark.-based artist star a lone everyman uniformed in suit and tie, confronting his unsettling fate. Grimness and humor chase each other's tails.
Review: “Deep sense of mystery pervades Peter Zokosky's paintings”
By David Pagel
Los Angeles Times, July 15, 2014
Peter Zokosky’s portraits of puppets, babies and fish get visitors involved with creatures we would ordinarily overlook or go out of our way to avoid. At Koplin Del Rio Gallery, the L.A. artist’s 18 paintings, each neatly set in a handmade frame, invite us to extend our sympathies beyond the bounds of familiarity, not to mention comfort and complacency.
