FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
LOS ANGELES, CA.
The Paul Kopeikin Gallery is pleased to present its summer exhibition, “Paperworks”, curated by Daria Brit Shapiro. The exhibition will open on July 15th and run through the end of August. A reception will take place on Saturday, July 15th from 6:00 to 8:00pm. The reception is free and open to the public. The gallery is located at 6150 Wilshire Blvd, just west of Fairfax. For information, call 323-937-0765.
Laura Ball, Orly Cogan, Jeremy Erhart, Dylan Egon, J.J. Garfinkel, Jeffrey Gibson, Kristian Kozul Bill Lohre, Marci MacGuffie, Joe Sola, Roy Stanfield, Dannielle Tegeder, and Goran Tomcic.
Comprising thirteen artists, each with distinctly different approaches to the medium, Paperworks is an exploration of one of the most commonly utilized materials. Employing a variety of methods -- from collage and sculpture to the more traditional watercolor or gouache, these artists transform the mundane into the marvelous.
Kristian Kozul’s intricate drawings exist at the interstices of horror and beauty. Drawn freehand with pink ink, and then custom-framed with pink and white lace, they at first appear to be excessively feminine. Upon closer inspection, the Rorschach-like forms can be deciphered as a tangle of flowers, skulls, rats and gas masks. In a similar but more humorous technique, Goran Tomcic’s ultra campy collages depict smiling skeletons dancing amidst flowers and butterflies in a festive celebration of death. Composed of stickers on holographic paper, Tomcic’s works utilize mundane materials to depict otherworldly scenes.
Jeremy Earhart’s large-scale drawing uses a variety of materials, including tape, acrylic and colored pencil on mylar. Based upon photographs of a cave in Missouri, Earhart skews reality with his application of fluorescent colors and decorative trim, resulting in a work that resembles a 70’s black light poster or psychedelic album cover.
J.J. Garfinkel’s paintings on paper depict architectural adornments; decontextualized, these strangely formal shapes commingle with an even stranger nature, executed in metallic and fluorescent paint.
Working with a base of acrylic and oil on paper, Jeffrey Gibson adorns his works using silicone, applied with a cake decorator’s tool. Fascinated by excess, this young artist creates brightly colored swoops, swirls and garlands from the silicone, paying close attention to the plasticity of the material against a background of organic forms. In an opposite approach, Bill Lohre’s minimalistic white-on-white paper sculptures of guns are constructed from condensed paper and lollipop sticks. Menacing weapons appear as hilarious DIY bas-reliefs and are rendered quite innocuous.
Salvaging newspaper porno ads for a backdrop, Dylan Egon’s “Colt 45”, is made from tin, a material commonly used for Russian Icons. Displayed inside a custom-built plexi box, are icons that are more American: a can of beer, guns and ammo and naked women – what the artist playfully refers to as the “American Formula”. Also working with found materials, Orly Cogan adds intricate ink drawings to pages torn from books. Cogan’s drawings resembling a Victorian botanica populated by animals, furniture and girls, while Laura Ball’s watercolors are inhabited by contemporary figures and outlandish creatures, co-existing in magical landscapes.
With a variety of colorful papers and found materials, Marci MacGuffie’s installations appear animalistic, sprouting feathers and claws amidst nests and hives. Similarly, MacGuffie’s drawings are dense and laden with indecipherable but provocative animal imagery.
Dannielle Tegeder’s geometric drawings act as blueprints of post-apocalyptic underground societies. Full of symbols and systematically executed, Tegeder’s works are an intricate and obsessive exploration of survival.