Lauren Halsey was born in Los Angeles, California in 1987. She holds an MFA from Yale University (2014) and a BFA from California Institute of the Arts (2012). Lauren recently completed a residency at The Studio Museum in Harlem (2014-2015) and is the recipient of the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Award (2014). She builds fantasy sculptures and environments that remix ephemera she gathers with hyperreal nature, technicolors, outerspace and Funk. The works exist as spatial metaphors for optimism, self-determination and love.

Kysa Johnson (born 1974, Evanston, IL) received her BFA (hons) from the Glasgow School of Art in Scotland. Her work incorporates the language and images of science to explore themes of temporal and spacial scale. Often these patterns are used as a base alphabet to compose images that relate to them thematically. Johnson has had solo exhibitions at The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art (Ridgefield, CT), The National Academy of Sciences (Washington, DC), Grace Farms (New Canaan, CT), Halsey McKay Gallery (East Hampton, NY), Morgan Lehman Gallery (New York, NY), Roebling Hall Gallery (New York, NY), and The Nicolaysen Mu- seum (Casper, WY). Her work has been shown in a number of institutions including exhibitions at The 2nd Biennial of the Canary Islands, the Tang Museum (Saratoga Springs, NY), The Katonah Museum of Art (Katonah, NY), the Hudson River Museum (Yonkers, NY), DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum (Lincoln, MA), and Standpoint Gallery (London, UK). Johnson has created site-specific installations for KK Projects in New Orleans, LA (2008), Dublin Contemporary in Ireland (2011), and for the New York Armory Show, (2013). She is a 2003 NYFA fellow, 2009 Pollack Krasner Grant recipient. She lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.

Nery Gabriel Lemus was born in Los Angeles, in 1977. The subjects in his work range from issues of stereotype and immigration to problems in society that can lead to the failure of families, such as poverty, abuse and neglect. Lemus received his BFA at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California (2007) and his MFA at the California In- stitute of the Arts in Valencia, California (2009). Lemus also attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine (2008). His work has been featured in solo exhibitions at, Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Steve Turner Contemporary, Los Angeles, CA; The Bindery Projects, Minneapolis, MN; Project Row Houses, Houston, TX. Group exhi- bitions include, Fútbol: The Beautiful Game, Los Angeles County Museumof Art, Los Angeles, CA; Made in L.A. 2012, organized by the Hammer Museum in collaboration with LAXART, Los Angeles, CA; dia a dia/ day by day, The 9.99 Gallery, Guatemala City, Guatemala; OZ: New Offerings From Angel City, Museo Regional Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico; 2010 Border Art Biennial, El Paso Museum, El Paso, Texas; Common Ground, California African-American Museum, Los Angeles, CA and exhibitions at the Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA; Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana, CA; Indianapolis Art Center, Indianapolis, IN; Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA; Centro Cultural Paseo del Norte, Chihuahua, Mexico and the Centro Cultural Tijuana, Tijuana, Mexico, among others. He is a recipient of a California Community Foundation Fellowship, a COLA Fellowship Grant from the Department of Cultural Affairs, Los Angeles, and the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Fellowship Award. He is represented by Charlie James Gallery in Los Angeles.

Star Montana is a photo-based artist who lives and works in Los Ange- les, Ca. Star was born and raised in Boyle Heights, California. Boyle Heights is a predominately Mexican-American neighborhood in the East Los Angeles area which has been the backdrop to much of her work. Star’s imagery deals with her family fragmented narrative, social environment, and identity.

Kaz Oshiro was born in Okinawa, Japan in 1967 and lives in Los Angeles. He received a Bachelor and Master of Fine Arts from the Califor- nia State University, Los Angeles. One-person exhibitions of his work have been presented at Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Charles White Elementary School Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2013); Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan (2007); Las Vegas Art Museum, Las Vegas, NV (2007); and Pomona College Museum of Art, Claremont, CA (2005). His work has been included in thematic exhibitions such as Space Between, The FLAG Art Foundation, New York, NY (2015); Visual Deception II: Into the Future (traveling), Bunkamura: The Museum, Tokyo Japan (2014); Be- tween Critique and Absorption: Contemporary Art and Consumer Culture, Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI (2013); Simulacrum, Columbus College of Art and Design, Columbus, OH (2012); Bruce Connor and the Primal Scene of Punk Rock, Museum of Contempo- rary Art, Denver, CO (2012); Lifelike (traveling), Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN (2012); American Exuberance, Rubell Family Collection, Miami, FL (2011); New Image Sculpture, McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX (2011); Artist’s Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA (2010); Less is less, more is more, that’s all, CAPC Musée d’art con- temporain, Bordeaux, France (2008); One Way or Another: Asian American Art Now, Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA (2007); Red Eye: Rubell Col- lection, Rubell Family Collection, Miami, FL (2006); Thing: New Sculp- ture from Los Angeles, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA (2005); Nothing Compared to This, Contemporary Art Center Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH (2004); and California Biennial, Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA (2004).

Kenton Parker’s studio practice is content driven, full of the cha- risma and charm of the artist’s personality, and able to tackle any media. Drawing from the psychological underbelly of humanity, Parker’s work develops from crude and witty musings incessantly scribbled on thousands of papers and gathered into an archive. These ideas are then translated into sculpture, painting, installation, videos, and murals. The overall result is a multitude of interpretations that tap into the dark humor of lifetime achievements and disappointments. Through care- ful observation of his surroundings and meticulous sourcing, Parker cultivates a perverse ethos, where viewers can get a glimpse into his crude, yet contemplative persona, whose intellect is matched by sexual deviation, marked by his personal experiences navigating the glorious and troubling Los Angeles landscape.

Hilary Pecis makes sincere representational paintings depicting the space around her. She draws influence from the landscape, the light and the pace of the Los Angeles lifestyle. Her work has been exhib- ited widely both domestically and internationally at such galleries as Halsey McKay and Morgan Lehman Galleries in New York, Hunted Projects in Holland, Galleria Glance in Turin, Guerrero Gallery and Catharine Clark in San Francisco, and Roberts and Tilton in Los Angeles. She has an MFA from California College of the Arts in SF and lives and works in Los Angeles.

Umar Rashid (Frohawk Two Feathers) first began this project in 2005. Rashid set out to create approximately 300 + years of alternate history spanning from 1642-1890. His narrative is based upon the supposition that after the English Civil War ended in 1642, France and England were merged into a global super empire known as Frengland. In addition to focusing on the day-to- day operations of empire, he also focuses heav- ily on the issues of race, gender, class, and power within it. And as a global narrative, Rashid is able to work in a wide range of styles, mediums, and formats, as he researches and explores the cultures of the world. This particular narrative is not only informed by the past but also reaches forward and draws inspiration from the present, notably urban, pop culture, hip hop, and gang culture. Upon relocating to Los Angeles in autumn of 2000, Rashid moved into East Los Angeles where he was able to syncretize my African-American upbringing in Chicago with that of the Chicano culture in his current location. Rashid currently creating a micro-narrative dealing with his reinterpretation of Latin America’s colonial past from Los Angeles to Lima, and beyond.

Jose “Prime” Reza (b. October 5, 1971) is a Mexican-American Dark Progressivist artist born and raised in the Pico-Union District of Down Los Angeles. Prime is credited with bbeing a founding father of Los Angeles stylized graffiti lettering, a hybrid of Cholo lettering and East Coast style graffiti that is often bold, aggressive, and monochromatic. Prime is considered one of the most influential artists in the history of Los Angeles public wall writing, combining “traditional east coast painting techniques with geometric gangster  style blocks.” Complex Magazine included Prime on their list “25 greatest L.A. Graffiti Writers” noting that, “…his pieces from the early 80’s still shit on most stuff today.” The Vibe History of Hip Hop acknowledges Prime’s vital contributions to L.A.’s distinctive graffiti style in a chapter titled “Early Los Angeles Hip Hop” written by Ben Higa.