Las Vegas, NV - Artist Cristina Natsuko Paulos (see attached bio) will present her drawings and paintings in an exhibit entitled "Help is on the Way" from July 5th through 29th at Blackbird Studios in Las Vegasâs 18b Arts District. âHelp Is On The Wayâ is a gorgeous, powerful and ultimately haunting portrayal of emotional illness that the gallery-goer will not easily forget.
An award-winning artist, graduate of The California Institute of the Arts and recipient of several Nevada Arts Council grants and fellowships, Paulos is an internationally recognized illustrator, animator and fine artist whose work has appeared in Juxtapoz, Hi Fructose and IDM, in galleries such as Giant Robot (Los Angeles) and La Luz De Jesus (Los Angeles), and in film festivals around the country and theatrical puppetry performances. She has also produced an original animation short for Childrenâs Television Workshop childrenâs program The New Electric Company. Her work is also featured in the permanent collection of the Cirque du Soleil Contemporary Art Collection.
Paulos work incorporates a variety of materials and techniques, including ink, paint, dye, handmade paper, canvas, wood and mixed media, often focusing on her recurring illustrated characters "The Mirror Twins.â The illustrated characters are mirrored or a reversed doppelganger. The genesis of âThe Mirror Twinsâ was a creation of accident, realized through the process of hand drawn animation during Paulosâ matriculation at CalArts.
In her exhibition, Paulos studies the extreme and difficult landscape of bipolar disorder, exploring an emotionally charged landscape using open, almost cartoonish characters, helping the viewer to relate to the challenges she documents, contemporary pop and existential anguish in equal measure.
In the main room of the exhibition, entitled âHelp Is On The Wayâ, Paulos uses paper and cardboard illustrations to portray the contrasted and harrowing experience of bipolar emotional and mental peaks and valleys -- kneeling, fractured childlike female figures, gleeful mania mirrored and merged with dark depression. Several pieces were created through the process of âautomatic drawingâ, representing a stream of consciousness poured out onto the canvas. An adjoining room features âFrigmentsâ -- a portmanteau of âfigmentsâ and âfragmentsâ. In these works, Paulosâ girls are beset on all sides by the swirling phantasmagoria of bipolar delusion.
âHelp is on the Wayâ runs July 5th through July 29th at Blackbird Studios.
This project is funded, in part by a grant from the Nevada Art Council, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.
For more information contact:
Gina Quaranto
Blackbird Studios (located in Commerce Street Studios)
1551 S. Commerce Street, Las Vegas NV 89102
gmachineq@aol.com
702.782.0319
www.blackbirdstudioslv.com
Cristina Natsuko Paulos
213.536.7208
cristina.paulos@gmail.com
www.cristinapaulos.com
