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Los Angeles, CA - Arts
organization
Create:Fixate presents their ongoing bi-monthly art event
The Optical Lounge & Audio Lab on Saturday, August 2, 2003.
Over the past year and a half all seven previous Create:Fixate
events have taken place at a private loft in Downtown Los
Angeles. This will be their first event at 8601 Wilshire
Blvd., 9th floor, in Beverly Hills (at Stanley, just two
blocks West of La Cienega on the North side). It’s on the 9th
floor with panoramic views of the city; garage parking is
available.
Each installment of this
popular group art show features new work by some of LA’s
best immerging artists along with some of the city’s
finest DJs. The August show will feature twenty-one visual
artists including Harvey Scott Kaner, Brandy Flower, Jason
Elias and many others. Five DJs and a live performance by
The Dragon Symphony, an alchemetic Opera featuring members
of Dakah round out the evening (see complete line up
below). There will be a free preview of the gallery from
4:00pm - 7:00pm with atmospheric beats by Jubal. The event
runs from 7:00pm - 2:00am. There’s a set donation of
$7.00, $5.00 before 10:00pm. For more info please visit
www.createfixate.com.
Create:Fixate is an
organization dedicated to showcasing the work of emerging
artists in a unique environment. Every two month’s
Create:Fixate founder Michelle Berc curates, produces and
hosts these stunning group art shows which feature a diverse
array of visual artists - painters, photographers, sculptors,
multi-media makers - and each show boasts an equally wonderful
array of beat masters - usually LA’s finest DJs spinning
everything from house to techno, drum 'n' bass, downtempo and
experimental music, plus a few live performances.
Previous events have hosted
between 700 to 900 guests and exhibiting artists are always
very pleased with their sales. “Many people come to see the
art and end up discovering a new favorite DJ, and then there
are those who come for the music and end up buying a piece of
art.” States Berc. By combining the worlds of art and music
Create:Fixate has created one of the most successful showcases
of today’s art scene in Los Angeles.
Below you will find short bios
on the talent being showcased at the Saturday, August 2nd
Create:Fixate event: "The Optical Lounge & Audio Lab."
The Optical Lounge -
- Harvey Scott Kaner
- Creating sculptures that
represent our era and culture, Harvey Scott Kaner exploits
and critiques the overabundance that characterizes our
modern civilization. He addresses issues of sexuality and
sadness, passion and contemplation while following in the
footsteps of the great West Coast assemblagists, but gives
new, artistic value to an object, by assigning it a
different function. Kaner has been highlighted in solo and
group exhibits throughout Southern California. He earned a
Master's degree from USC in 1992, and studied sculpture on
his extensive travels. His work is the result of years of
experimentation with stone, bronze, plaster, clay, and found
objects, and is inspired by his environment, nature, and by
the creations of great artists who preceded him. <www.harveyscottkaner.com>
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- Joshua Krause
- Joshua Krause's nervous
illustrations stem from a fascination of popular culture
mixed with the ephemera of his neighborhood streets. From
spray paint to photocopies, torn paper to charcoal, his
childlike characters find their way onto a versatile array
of collage surfaces: tattered book covers, wood and canvas.
His illustrations are serving editorial clients in
magazines, newspapers and book publishing, as well as
gracing galleries, CD covers, clothing and skateboards.
Krause began his illustration career in New York, and has
recently moved to San Diego <http://www.krauseart.com>.
Jason Elias
Raised in San Francisco,
Caracas and Tucson, Jason moved to Los Angeles 10 years ago
and returned to his first love, photography. He has traveled
and photographed in India, China, Cambodia, Burma and Thailand
and has shot for a number of commercial clients. Jason has
also written articles on photography and travel that have been
featured in American Photo, Popular Photography and Nikon
World. Jason's recent personal work has focused on the people
and places of the third world and is currently working on a
new series of portraits combined with personal statements. He
has upcoming plans to return to Cambodia to do a book on the
legacy of the Khmer Rouge Killing Fields. Jason is also a core
member of the Create:Fixate team. <www.jasonelias.com>
Brandy Flower
Here's a man with inky hands.
Whether he's silk screening, spraying stencils, or splashing
shapes Brandy Flower keeps eyes excited. Brandy drips into
daydreams as Stale Donut, flips fresh fliers as Happenstance,
and spends weekdays creating covers for multi-platinum albums.
Mr. Flower's most recent undertaking is masterminding a
worldwide art tour. UP OUR SLEEVE: the dublab cover project
revives vinyl love. For a closer view of Brandy's happenings
click <www.brandyflower.com>.
Trace Palmer
Irish designer and artist Trace
Palmer learned to blow glass in Oregon and uses her skill to
make glass jewelry, pendants, rings and special designs. She
has been perfecting her techniques for the last 3 years
achieving a sense of depth and space which creates an illusion
of perspective in her abstract designs.
She is July's “Diva of the
Month” at uniteddivas.com and she has been the featured artist
in the Venice Paper. In addition, Sharon Stone is wearing
several of her pieces in her next movie Cold Creek Manor and
she also has a private collection of Trace's jewelry. Pamela
Anderson and Madonna’s daughter also own pieces.
Michelle Berc
Michelle's unlimited creative
endeavors include art, photography, film and music. Recently,
her artwork and photography have been her central focus. The
motivation behind Michelle's photography stems from her
passion for music and DJ culture. This musical passion also
inspires her 2-dimensional artwork. Using design markers,
Michelle creates a unique perspective, contrasting the
granular structure of pointillism with the complexities of
fractal design and tribal folk art. Her pieces are both
organic and geometric in nature. Although reminiscent of the
pop art of the 60s, Michelle's artwork contains fluidity
uncommon among the 2-dimensional trend of that era. She is
also the founder of Create:Fixate.
David Trulli
David Trulli has always been
fascinated by technology. Technology marches through his
scratchboard landscapes, ambivalent to the human stories
unfolding around it. In his work he focuses on these stories,
taking place in the shadows cast by the machinery of the
modern age. Working in black and white, Trulli leaves it to
the viewer to fill in the colors, as well as the emotions,
motivations and stories of the characters within. Each piece
is like a single frame from a movie, giving no real clue as to
what has taken and what will take place.
Patricia Perman
"Being a daughter of an artist
I began to paint when rollin’ around in the crib. I like
changing my materials & styles… I like to choose a new one for
every stage of my mood/life/phase. Now, painting on canvas and
wood, my latest work shows portraits, which is a result of
listening over and over to favorite songs. Hearing them fifty
times in a row lyrics start associating with faces/expressions
into my own defined portraits."
Gary Palmer
Born in Belfast in 1968, Gary
Palmer grew up in a small coastal town called Holywood near
Belfast in Northern Ireland. After finishing his Masters in
Architecture at the University of Edinburgh he traveled the
world seeking out a living from pastel street drawings which
have since been washed away by the elements. During a period
of some disillusionment with the general patterns in the
evolution of Western civilization he moved to a remote
theosophical mountain retreat near the border to Mexico. His
current works refer to these travels in East Africa from
Malawi to Zanzibar following the historic Slave route in
search of cultures which live in a manner sustainable for both
ecology and society.
Dafne Nesti
Dafne Nesti was born in Italy
and moved to the United States when she was very young. She
has attended many art schools with a focus on comic book
illustration and cartoon animation. Her work mostly represents
woman figures, as well as decorative motives and floral
subjects which inspires to "Belle Epoque", resembling Asian
and stained glass styles. Dafne's work is characterized with
strong colors and geometrical forms.
R.S. Yeager
R.S. is a photographic artist.
His work is informed by nature - the many forms and patterns,
the intersection of chaos and order, the organic and the
technological. He lives and works in Venice, California.
Conrad Starr
Conrad Starr is the son of a
photographer and has owned a camera since the age of three.
Based in Los Angeles, he showed 2002 works in his February '03
solo debut, "Your Sun is My Star" at Eastside Studios in Los
Feliz/Silverlake, focusing on street abstractions in earthy to
unearthly colors. Pieces from "Your Sun..." will show
alongside 2003 works in this August's "Create:Fixate."
Craig Ekedahl
"Life is lived according to a
rigid set of rules. Whether stated or implied these principles
unconsciously affect our every action. The question becomes,
‘at what point does this operational religion become defeating
and is that repression point personal or organizational?’"
Craig’s multi-tiered work uses minimalist sensibilities in
creating dynamics between base, sculpture and shadow to
represent and explore these psychological barriers and their
repercussions. The work on display at the August Create:Fixate
show will specifically reflect the artist's exploration of
this country’s current unquestioning acceptance of the power
of institution.
Sideburn Tavis Hord aka Sideburn is a
Multi-Media Designer whose interests have always been to
stretch the boundaries of art, music, and technology. After
searching for old Speak and Spell toys on the internet, he was
thrown into the world of Circuit Binding - an alternative
hobby of modifying old electronic toys. Tavis experiments with
shorting out the electronics in these toys and adding toggle
switches, light sensors, touch sensors, and pitch controls to
create original sounds that can be used for experimental
music.
Matt DeMerritt
Matt’s favorite quote is, "See
the seer."
Todd Marrone
Todd Marrone is a 29-year-old
artist and teacher living in the Philadelphia area and has
been creating images his entire life. Within the last 5 years,
he has been fortunate enough to have sold over 400 original
drawings and paintings ranging in price from $4.99 to $7,000.
Todd's work has been featured in a variety of group and solo
gallery shows, spotlighted on a national television program,
the subject of a film festival documentary and detailed in
number of recent magazine and newspaper articles. Todd has
also been commissioned to create artwork for Rolling Rock Beer
and a variety of apparel companies.
Martin Gee Martin is an award-winning
graphic designer and illustrator based in LA. He works in
traditional, experimental and digital media with a slight
tendency for dark imagery. He is not a minimalist. He works
with textures and layers to create a visual density. When
asked to describe his current work, he replied "I have no
fuckin' idea what I'm doing or where this is going. We shall
see." <http://hellvetica.net>
Spectr Known for his civic and
artistic activities within the Drum and Bass DJ scene, Spectr
uses black light paints to bring his oversized cyber-punk
images to life. Influences from comics and Graffiti (as well
as a steady diet of intense underground beats) fuel the
intensity that is somehow balanced with a subtle sense of
elegance drawn from an interest in fashion.
Jalal Poehlman
Jalal Poehlman was born and
educated in Wisconsin. He has been living and working in Los
Angeles for the last four years. His choice mediums are
painting, printmaking, and photography.
Lesley Reppeteaux
Lesley Reppeteaux is a Canadian
born painter who currently resides in Los Angeles (though
rarely sees the ocean due to the fact she's cramped up in her
studio painting all day.) Her paintings are left of the
mainstream and dangerously intriguing. They read like painted
fables, revealing glimpses of another, more magical, world
filled with strange and wonderful characters. Allow yourself
to be enchanted with her fantastical creatures and elaborate
stories they imply in the ever-changing fairytale she has
created.
Joe Vaux Joe Vaux graduated from
Syracuse University with a BFA in illustration. He then went
on to work with the animator Ralph Bakshi as a background
painter. For the past 7 years he has worked in the animation
field including HBO animation and Sony animation as a
storyboard and character artist. He recently completed
illustrations for Harry Potter Hogwarts School: a magical 3-d
deluxe pop-up, as well as Harry Potter and the Chamber of
Secrets pop-up. Joe's personal work reflects his love for the
creepy and odd. He has been showing his work at various venues
around LA for the past three years.
Audio Lab -
The Dragon Symphony
The Dragon Symphony is an
alchemetic hip-hop opera about two characters, Genesis 1 and
Dragonfly who fall into a dream state and stop the world for
forty days to search for the lost keys of alchemy to turn the
world back to its original state of creation. They find the
keys in the form of entities such as the King of Wind, the
Queen of Light, Ma Earth and Flo.
The band consists of former
members of Macy Gray, members of Dakah and other band.
Basically superstar all-stars! “We will be performing musical
excerpts from the opera, with Middle Eastern, hip-hop, and new
school alchemetic sounds. The ultimate goal of the Opera is to
surround an audience with every medium of art in a seamless
continuum.”
John Tejada
Since 1994, John Tejada has
more than 50 recorded releases to his name. Tejada has
recorded for over a dozen of the world's most respected techno
labels including, 7th City, Playhouse, and Sino, as well as
his own 6-year-old Palette Recordings imprint. He has
showcased his unique DJ skills all over the world including
Australia, Brazil, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, and his own
birthplace Vienna, Austria.
Liza Richardson
Liza Richardson hosts "The
Drop" from 6:00pm to 9:00pm every Saturday night on 89.9 KCRW
and DJs around the underground West Coast house scene. She
recently music supervised the Mexican hit, Y Tu Mama Tambien
and supervises commercials exclusively through stimmüng, a
music and sound-design house based in Santa Monica. She has
found musical solutions for brands such as Microsoft, Apple,
NASCAR, Acura, Honda, Nissan and Motorola.
Mok & Rusta
Originally from the UK, Mok &
Rusta currently reside in Los Angeles where they run
sublife.com, an internet site dedicated to drum and bass. Five
years ago they started broadcasting "Databass", a live
internet production showcasing some of the best drum and bass
DJs/Producers. During the past three years they have hosted "DataBass
Sessions", LA's premiere monthly Drum and Bass club and
"Substance", a weekly club at Tantra in Silver Lake , which
introduced new sounds from this musical genre. Recently,
they've gone undercover working hard running their recording
studio as well as producing their own original soundz, which
will soon be released later in 2003.
AquaVee Andrea Giardina aka DJ AquaVee
has been DJing since 1992. After inspirations by such LA clubs
at Flammable Liquid and Sunday Love, her passion for house
music grew ever stronger. She started her electronic vinyl
journey in Los Angeles and made her way down to San Diego
where she frequented The Guf & Deep. At Club Post Nuclear in
Laguna Beach she landed her first gig. After college in San
Francisco and travels around the world, she finally settled
back into Los Angeles where she has been DJing ever since.
Since Oct. 1999 she has been a buyer at Beat Non Stop Records
on Melrose in Hollywood. Nowadays you can hear her spinning
what some might call "Deep Tech", a combination of house and
techno. Her vinyl collection is such that she might be called
upon to DJ a downtempo, house, jungle, breakbeat, trance or
even world music set.
SARU Steve Branson (aka SARU, which
means "monkey" in Japanese) is an LA-based DJ and producer who
has appeared on over 15 electronic music compilations. SARU's
first full-length album, Downtempo Dojo (Shadow Records, NYC)
was released in June 2001, and another album is expected in
the winter of 2003. Steve has also released several 12"
singles under the name APOLLO (Silent Records, SF) and SPOOKY
MONKEY (Bastard Jazz, Brooklyn). SARU is currently the
resident downtempo DJ at RESPECT, LA's premiere drum-and-bass
club, and operates real:time (www.realtime365.com),
a streaming internet radio station.
Jubal Jubal has been digging
downtempoed wax for five years. His music selection revolves
around creating loungy and sultry downbeat vibes. Spinning is
a vital means of expression for Jubal--it's a way he channels
his energy and emotions outward. Jubal currently holds
residency at the Bungalow Club in Melrose, Melanee Thai in
West LA and the Bluebird Art Lounge where he spins for their
art openings. You can also catch him providing atmospheric
beats at various restaurants and lounges around LA.
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