5 - La Luz de Jesus Gallery - Laurie Lipton and Jessica Joslin

Laurie Lipton
"Machine Punk"

November 5 - 28, 2010
Artist Reception: Friday, November 5th; 8-11 PM

La Luz de Jesus Gallery I
4633 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles CA 90027
323-666-7667
www.laluzdejesus.com
info@laluzdejesus.com

Show preview here

"Motoring" - Charcoal and graphite on paper, framed 39.5" x 29.25"

"This show was inspired by the Steampunk movement that is sweeping Britain. Instead of steam, however, my devices are mostly run by electricity and madness. I was vacuuming one day and noticed the amount of plugs and cables on the floor... a veritable wasp's nest of wires and sockets connecting a hoard of gadgets and doo-dads intertwining around the house and my life. I was trapped like a fly in an electrical web. What had happened? Were these things making my life easier or more complex? I began with The Steam Punk Pocket Watch, an absurd idea of a time piece too huge & complex for anyone's pocket, and went whirling on from there. These machines are designed to hinder, control and/or give the illusion of technology. I had a tremendous amount of fun creating the images and think that this show will touch anyone who has ever become entwined, up to the eyebrows, in the Technological Age." - Laurie Lipton

Originally inspired by the religious paintings of the Flemish School, Lipton tried to teach herself how to paint in the style of the 16th century Dutch Masters and failed. When traveling around Europe as a student, she began developing her very own peculiar drawing technique building up tone with thousands of fine cross-hatching lines like an egg tempera painting. "It's an insane way to draw", she says, "But the resulting detail and luminosity is worth the amount of effort. My drawings take longer to create than a painting of equal size and detail."

"Illusion of Control Tower" Charcoal and graphite on paper, framed, 59" x 21.75"

"It was all abstract and conceptual art when I attended university. My teachers told me that figurative art went 'out' in the Middle Ages and that I should express myself using form and shapes, but splashes on canvas and rocks on the floor bored me. I knew what I wanted: I wanted to create something no one had ever seen before, something that was brewing in the back of my brain. I used to sit for hours in the library copying Durer, Memling,Van Eyck, Goya and Rembrandt. The photographer, Diane Arbus, was another of my inspirations. Her use of black and white hit me at the core of my Being. Black and white is the color of ancient photographs and old TV shows... it is the color of ghosts, longing, time passing, memory, and madness. Black and white ached. I realized that it was perfect for the imagery in my work" states Lipton

Laurie Lipton was born in New York and began drawing at the age of four. She was the first person to graduate from Carnegie-Mellon University in Pennsylvania with a Fine Arts Degree in Drawing; she also graduated with honors. She has lived in Holland, Belgium, Germany and France and has made her home in London since 1986. Her work has been exhibited extensively throughout Europe and the USA.

"Technically Lipton is a profound draftsman. She captures nuances of light and shade with masterful proficiency."- Artweek

"... but it's not just her pencil that is sharp, her wit has an equally fine point which comes through in the titles of her detailed drawings." - The London Evening Standard

Jessica Joslin
"Hybrids"

November 5 - 28, 2010
Artist Reception: Friday, November 5th; 8-11 PM

La Luz de Jesus Gallery II
4633 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles CA 90027
323-666-7667
www.laluzdejesus.com
info@laluzdejesus.com

"Stardust," Antique brass hardware and findings, brass,

silver, velvet, wood, glove leather, glass eyes, 9"x8"x9"

Jessica Joslin's "Hybrids" is a circus of oddities, a mixed-media menagerie of unexpected creatures. A whimsical cat in a red leather harness harness pulls his polycephalic partner along on a wooden cart, blue and brown eyes gleaming mischievously. An exquisite two headed tropical bird with lush brass plumage preens on its perch. A troupe of monkey-cat hybrids engage in mysterious shenanigans, and truncated half-creatures preside over the festivities.

The creatures that populate Joslin's world are intricate fusions of bone, brass, antique hardware and other bits and bobs. Sparkling glass eyes are inset in kid leather, giving these fanciful hybrids the illusion of life and animation. They seem ready to spring up and play, just as soon as no one is watching. In her work, Joslin celebrates wit, whimsy, ingenuity, insightful curiosity and skill. The finely wrought craftsmanship renders the hand of the maker at once visible (the miniature bolts, springs and joints which comprise anatomical structures are readily discerned) and invisible (there is a keen sense of their unique personalities, and as such, the illusion that they are not constructions, but rather living beings.)

"Clio & Loci," 18"x11"x36"Antique brass hardware and findings, painted wood,

brass, silver, bone, beads, chain, glove leather, glass eyes.

Joslin grew up collecting flies off the windowsill to look at under her microscope. Ever since, she has been enchanted with collecting a magpie's array of remnants from the natural world. The collection gradually grew to include obsolete bits of antique mechanical mechanisms, hardware and other oddball artifacts. In 1992, she began building the first beasts of this menagerie, using objects sent in a care package from her father, the same pieces that she'd collected as a child.

Joslin seeks out and puts to use those bright odds and ends that might catch one's eye in a box full of orphaned fixtures, or glinting up from the sidewalk. While each piece she employs in her eerie animal reliquary is delicately beautiful, it is also the detritus of human engineering and design: old brass buttons and gold braid, glass beads, clockwork cogs and velvet ribbon. Such items are reminiscent of the whimsical technology of a century past, one's grandparents' house, the dark interiors of old fashioned movie theatres - and as such they have an intriguing, wistful quality. In other words, Joslin collects the things that all of us secretly want to, the shiny pieces that we might comb through, handle and admire, but ultimately force ourselves to put down.

"Hybrids" is a menagerie of distinctive creations, its frolicsome fauna beckon you to come see the show!

__________

La Luz de Jesus is located at the Soap Plant / Wacko building
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 for the Visual Arts

PO Box 1975, Burbank, CA 91507
818-848-2698 (o) 818-415-5543 (c) 818-848-2699 (f)
leejemail@gmail.com
www.leejosephpublicity.com