SAVE THE DATE & PREVIEW: The stARTup Art Fair in Venice Beach – January 26th through 28th
The stARTup Art Fair opening this Friday Jan. 26th at the Kinney Hotel in Venice Beach will showcase over 50 emerging artists selected by an outstanding panel of gallery and museum curators, art critics, gallery owners and art publishers. The resulting mix covers all disciplines and styles, from installation art to assemblage, encaustic abstract painting to fine figurative work, low-brow and collage to intriguing photography. In other words, no matter your art-collecting predilection, you will likely find something that will match your style, home, and budget.
Each of the artists have transformed a hotel room into their own gallery for this special art fair. Meeting the artists, hearing about their process and inspirations, and ultimately purchasing directly from them will be a treat for all art enthusiasts.
There are also panel discussions, special performances, and TWO outdoor art activation areas presented by Cartwheel Art by local Downtown Los Angeles multi-disciplinary artist and photographer Jerico Woggon.
Jerico’s first activation, will be a compelling black & white photography slide presentation that will provide an opportunity for attendees to immerse themselves in the sometimes gritty, sometimes glamorous city that is Los Angeles, just as we do on our tours. His images capture a moment in time that will captivate both natives and visitors alike.
His second activation area will be a site-specific blacklight installation. Jerico’s hallmark work has earned him exhibits at such renowned events as Coachella, Burning Man, the Virgin Music Festival and Autumn Lights. We are looking forward to immersing ourselves in the fantasy with this activation. Read more about Jerico here.
Beka Brayer, Room 311, is a mixed -media assemblage artist creating thoughtful yet whimsical one-of-a-kind pieces, both wall-mounted and free-standing. Hoping to tell a story with each piece, she lets her subconscious mind direct her workflow, allowing the objects she is working with to determine their own direction and tell their own story.
“As I create, my emphasis is initially on the object and its architecture…the concept is secondary. Imperfection has always stroked my artistic sensibilities. I approach each piece of work knowing that just below the surface, the image of my artistic narrative waits. Every one of a kind piece embodies a specific destination, resulting in a representation that captures a significant moment in time.”
Ryan Burns, Room 234, has been intrigued with nature since he was young boy exploring creek beds and peeling back layers of shale in search of trilobites. That interest and research, along with a curiosity for “the detritus of modern human existence” prompted him to create intriguing large-scale collage, assemblage and installation works. Incorporating maps, architectural blueprints, and billboard fragments with rubbings from the surfaces of old-growth tree stumps, he creates fascinating works of depth in his mixed media applications.
Juliana Coles, Room 305, is a mixed –media collage artist who also happens to be an epileptic. Combining bold graphic images with her own spirited text, she creates drawings and paintings that express her own uninhibited emotions and feelings about society and the challenges of life.
“As an epileptic, I graft my reality by the fragments I piece together in my work. The result is a cognitive vibrancy that is signature to my self-expression. My projects are never preconceived but spontaneously emerge from the unknown through a unique multi-layering process of breaking down and rebuilding.”
Robin Denevan, Room 201, is a San Francisco encaustic artist whose lush and beautifully textured work begins with sketches of landscapes from his travels. Once back in his studio, he paints the grandeur of nature in oil, then melts resin and beeswax together and applies it with a brush. His technique of adding and removing layers of oil paint and wax give his paintings both a depth and luminosity that is extraordinary, creating a very contemporary version of a traditional landscape.
Annie Galvin Room 302, has been working with her husband Eric Rewitzer for the past 11 years, opening their business “3 Fish Studios” in San Francisco in 2006, where they create and sell their original work and limited edition prints. Their work is inspired by – and devoted to – the dreams and images of California, featuring the oceans, forests, animals, and characters that live here.
Jane Grimm, Room 309, is a San Francisco –based artist whose low-fire clay glazed sculpture is predominantly inspired by the organic forms found in nature, particularly the garden and the sea. Her sculptures include both freestanding and wall pieces, minimal in both color and form, as the play of light and shadow on the work are important elements of the final design.
Brian Huber, Room 217, creates his unusual work from large sheets of acrylic paint, cut, folded and manipulated like paper to create forms based on the abstraction of landscapes, architectural elements, and the impact of man on the natural world. Early and regular exposure to music explains the lyrical movement in most of his work.
“ (I was) Raised in New Orleans, influenced not only by an unconstrained culture and the rhythmic motions of blues and jazz, but also an environment where hurricanes could change or destroy everything in minutes.”
Gary Irving, Room 229, is a multi-media artist incorporating painting, photography, storytelling, and sculpture into his newest series, “The Seven Deadly Sins.” Working from his Santa Cruz studio, Irving creates highly-stylized photo composites with a definite narrative, creating somber portraits set in elaborately hand-constructed frames full of symbolic details that continue the story of the subject of the composition.
Gillian Keller, Room 212, paints spiritual imagery in a fantasy of psychedelia. Her works reflect beauty and darkness, humor and suffering, where rainbows abound, the sun smirks, and Christ on the crucifix is female. Expect an immersive experience in her gallery, with music, poetry, and an altarpiece installation.
“My artworks are metaphors for the bizarre, discordant battles that wage in the subconscious – being so maniacally angry that you begin to laugh, or being so overwhelmed with the juiciness of life that you start to cry”
Britney Penouilh, Room 219, has focused on a very scary topic in her latest series of paintings – The San Andreas Fault. As a former student of both fine art and geology at the University of New Orleans, her interest in geology and the natural environment are her greatest inspirations for her mixed media panels and sculptures. Using a collage technique, pages of books are layered underneath her highly textural paintings, adding to the storyline of the mysteries beneath us.
“With this body of work, I aim to unveil the depth of earth’s systems while simultaneously conveying elusiveness in our perception of the natural world. Using a collage aesthetic, fragments of books are assembled like layers of strata beneath the distressed surface of the painting. Selected pages divulge thoughts surrounding science, culture, religion and philosophy. The painting as a whole acts as a system relating to both time and space, material and decay, action and inaction – exerted on the surface that comes from the core of its’ processes.”
stARTup Art Fair, Jan. 26-28, 2018
The Kinney Venice Beach Hotel
737 Washington Blvd, Marina Del Rey, CA 90292
TICKET INFO :
General Admission / $15 in advance, $20 at the door
Students and Seniors / $10 in advance, $15 at the door
Three Day Pass / $30 in advance, $40 at the door
VIP / $100 ( ‘First Look” Preview Friday 12-2 )
Public Hours:
Friday, January 26, 2–10pm
Saturday, January 27, 12–9pm
Sunday, January 28, 12–7pm
Opening Night Celebration: Friday, January 26, 7–10pm (only general admission ticket needed for entry)