The Prestige is a new work by Chicago-based artist Jeff Zimmerman featuring a small room-sized cage with a with a grouping of contained cellophane balloons. Zimmerman, who is known largely for his large-scale paintings and public wall murals, has been experimenting with more conceptual, object-based installation and sculpture including SHARE, a single barrel of light sweet crude oil in a highly polished container, and an untitled work featuring footwear from a Peruvian working child on a long red carpet. Zimmerman debuted many of these works for the first time at NEXT an invitational exhibition of emerging art in Chicago this past May. Zimmerman has completed a recent artist in residence with the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and solo exhibition with Swope Art Musem in Terra Haute, Indiana. DailyServing featured the artist for his mural projects in November of 2007.

Posted by Seth Curcio at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Discussion (0) | E-mail This

Los Angeles based artist Holly Williams paints images based on photographs of the city of Los Angeles, mixing her interest in the concepts of painting with the inherent mythology of film and television. Her blurred and ambiguous settings (taken from a city known for its ability to manipulate the truth) are captured and given their own significance. Williams' nebulous compositions create narratives for the sidewalks, corridors, balconies, and tunnels of Los Angeles. Her paintings include typical L.A. imagery such as the iconic palm trees lining the streets, light posts, and the glowing orbs of street and car lights. Occasionally, anonymous figures inhabit her settings, their actions remaining as mysterious as the space itself.

Williams transfers the photographic images into paint by using a multi-layered dry brushing technique that mimics the signature qualities of film photography. The blur effect is created through a slow buildup of paint, as oppose to the diminishing effect of dragging a brush through wet paint, for it is important to the artist that "the areas of color be built up rather than homogenized." With the increasing malleability of digital photography, the photograph loses its authenticity and is no longer purely a source of documentation. By painting the images, Williams takes from her own experiences and creates new and unique handmade objects. Each painting then has a tangible connection to the maker, lending a certain authenticity.

Williams received her B.F.A. from the Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles and her work is held in various collections, including the Creative Artists Agency in Beverly HIlls.

Posted by Rebekah Drysdale at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Discussion (4) | E-mail This

Los Angeles based artist Tabitha Morris is presenting her first solo show of hallucinatory watercolors titled, Predacious Panopticon, at the Happy Lion Gallery in Los Angeles' Chinatown. The opening reception will be held July 12th and the exhibition will remain at the gallery until August 9th.

Predacious Panopticon, an appropriate title for Morris' seductive and repulsive landscapes, includes several large scale works, enveloping the viewer in a dense foliage of nature and sex. Her cast of characters includes siren-like erotic female nudes being devoured and re-birthed by carnivorous plants in a fantastical organic setting. The pleasing pastel palette visually soothes and entrances the viewer until the subject matter is discovered. The density of the the composition is balanced by its fluidity as the viewer's eye gently follows flowing hair to outstretched stems to smoke-like forms.

Tabitha Morris received her B.F.A. from the University of Kansas and an M.F.A. in Painting and Printmaking from the University of Pennsylvania. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles.

Posted by Rebekah Drysdale at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Discussion (0) |