La Luz de Jesus Gallery
First show of 2011!

Charles Binger “A Pulp Life”
Steven Daily “Covenant”
Howard Hallis “The Picture of Everything”
Tammi Otis “A Fertile Madness”

January 7 – 30
Opening Reception: Friday, January 7th, 8-11 pm
La Luz de Jesus Gallery
4633 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles CA 90027
323-666-7667
www.laluzdejesus.com
info@laluzdejesus.com

Cover to “The Day of the Locust” by Nathaniel West (1953) Oil on board – 26″ x 24″ (plus frame)

Charles Binger “A Pulp Life”
Charles Ashford Binger was a British-born painter who found great success in Hollywood and on Madison Avenue. His commercial art included film posters, pulp novels and celebrity portraiture in a career that spanned the 1920s -1970’s. Binger’s hallmark style utilized impeccable composition, rendered in a painterly style over roughened textures. His science-fiction paperback covers include masterpieces “The Illustrated Man” by Ray Bradbury & “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley. As Marilyn Monroe’s favorite illustrator, he created three of her most memorable film posters, including “Niagara” and “River of No Return.” His gift at capturing beautiful and vulnerable women in oils made him a highly sought portraitist among the crowned heads of Europe, and a valuable commodity in the emerging post-war pulp market.

This is the first exhibition of Binger’s work in 45 years, and the very first time that these works have been offered for sale. Condition is consistent with commercial work of this era

Click here for an extended Charles Binger biography

Click here for Charles Binger show preview

Steven Daily “Covenant”

The world of Shriner Parades and Freemason Lodges has been an ongoing interest for Steven Daily ever since his family moved from Southern California to the Midwest – Southern block of the United States during his formative years. For the past decade, Daily has been researching these societies of secrets, conspiracies on the global elite, One-World Government, ritual-based orders, and theories around these ancient fraternities whose clandestine orders formed the foundation for our country and even today hold the most powerful positions in our government. Daily found the imagery, iconic symbology and secret rituals irresistibly striking and became fascinated that a country that was supposed to be founded on the Hebrew God was founded by men who performed ancient rituals behind closed doors. “Covenant” is Daily’s interpretation of the mystique, rumors, facts, research and theories based on the cloaked oaths and pacts that man makes with the mystic and odd.  Daily lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.

Steven Daily’s blogspot

Steven Daily “Covenant” VIDEO PREVIEW from Sketch Theatre on Vimeo.

Howard Hallis “The Picture of Everything”
Howard Hallis earned a BFA in Fine Art at UCLA studying under Chris Burden, Charlie Ray, Richard Jackson, Paul McCarthy and Nancy Rubens. He was at the creative center of Yidcore band Gefilte Fuck, and collaborated on three books with Timothy Leary. Howard is the world’s authority on Dr. Strange and has been an important force in the Los Angeles counter-culture scene for decades. Reminiscent of Mike Kelly, Hallis’ art betrays a level of obsession far beyond reasonable calculation. He began work on “The Picture of Everything” in 1997, and by the time he finished his masterwork in September 2010, it was almost 15 feet tall and 12 feet wide. This is the first public showing of the complete, finished work, which is so large that it must hang at an angle to fit in the gallery. Divided into eight framed sections, this incredibly unique, detailed and whimsical work will be offered for sale for the first and only time at this showing. A series of five oversized lenticulars of The Picture of Everything and an edition of 420 signed and numbered giclees (sized 27″ x 39″ and printed on 10-point card stock) will be available for purchase at the exhibition, which will include several additional, unique, large-format lenticular collages.

It’s easy to get lost in the miasmic nostalgia that this giant, hand-drawn masterpiece epitomizes, as the artist has captured literally everything that you could possibly recall from the world of pop-culture. It took the better part of 13 years to create, and it could take you even longer to identify all of the characters that it references, making this is a must see installation -enjoyable for all ages. Howard Hollis Blogspot

Click here to see “The Picture of Everything” in more detail on Howard’s website (WARNING: Large files)

Tammi Otis “A Fertile Madness” Oil on gold-leafed panel 10″ x 10.75″
Tammi Otis “A Fertile Madness”
Tammi Otis paints in oil glazes because they convey a luminosity that she can’t get with other mediums. “I need that special light effect because it’s an integral part of what I want my work to convey…an inner world – maybe not seen clearly, but definitely felt” states the artist. Otis conveys through her artwork, the emotional being manifesting itself as a tornado, a halo, or a bird such as a crow.  She paints the joy, sorrow and spiritual secrets of our intimate minds.

“Madness is a fullness in my mind—-Each idea, each thought, chasing one another round and round without end until I MUST paint them, if only to still the voices for a minute. Birds flit about between realities, bringing truths and secrets back and forth across great chasms of forgotten things. Souls are bound by an interior web of emotions that manifest in odd projections about their heads or even physical ties to……And always, the orbs, because my madness is circular…….it comes back on itself. My process for each work takes months, with every figure telling me what SHE needs in the next glaze. Many paintings will have 30 or more layers by the time they’re finished, much like the layers of a personality. They change. They speak to me in whispers……madness.”  Tammi Otis lives and works in Wheat Ridge, Colorado. www.tammiotis.com

Click here for Tami Otis show preview

Thursday, December 9, 2011  6 – 9 pm
La Luz de Jesus / Soap Plant
4633 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA.  90027
www.laluzdejesus.com
info@laluzdejesus.com

• Have a bicycle-powered margarita or smoothie c/o Natural Kitchen’s Deborah Eden Tull.

• View mad professor Mel Gordon’s rare footage of the Weimar-period priestess of depravity, Anita Berber.

• See original art of the first Jewish superhero, “Funnyman“, by Superman’s Siegel and Shuster.

• Have your I Ching thrown and interpreted by the fabulous “Secret Source” author Maja D’Aoust.

• Ogle all the new, amazing, celebrated, and banned Feral House and Process titles.

• Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen (“The Urban Homestead”)
• Adam Parfrey (“Secret and Suppressed II”, “Apocalypse Culture”)
• Cletus Nelson (“Depression 2.0”)
• Louis Sahagun (“Master of the Mysteries”)
• Secret Guests (shhh)

Topless Summer Love Girls – A Gentleman’s Guide to Women, Relationships, and Breasts” by Leslie Cabaraga – Book signing – Live Music –  Burlesque Show – Party!

Saturday, Dec. 4, 6 – 9 pm

La Luz de Jesus Gallery
4633 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles CA 90027
323-666-7667
www.laluzdejesus.com
info@laluzdejesus.com

“Topless Summer Love Girls” is a zany, pop culture commentary on growing up male in the era of Playboy, feminism, and swimsuit editions. Arming men with new insights into themselves and the eternal battle between the sexes, this hilarious and sexy book filled with hundreds of titillating photos of half-naked women is a passionate and unapologetic examination of men, women, and breasts.

Come join author Leslie Cabaraga – and enjoy live Western Swing music from Will Ryan and the Cactus County Cowboys – see the Controversial Port-O-Bra and burlesque by Eliza Bane plus free beer and margaritas!

“Topless Summer Love Girls” is a lavishly-illustrated, full-color, high-quality coffee-table-sized book. It’s a crazy compendium of dirty pictures, anatomical charts, bad cartoons, fake news clippings, spurious essays, hysterical sidebars, funny jokes, satirical essays, pseudo-scientific studies, and weird theories about women and breasts. It s also filled with great art–some created especially for this book, and some rarely seen–by some of the best illustrators and cartoonists of today and yesterday such as Charles Dana Gibson, H. T. Webster, Chas. Addams, Al Capp, Will Eisner, Mitch O Connell, Bill Presing, Shane Glines, Ragnar, Alex Nino, Milton Knight, Victor Juhasz, and Rian Hughes.

“Topless Summer Love Girls” is a serious mix of satire, outrageous assertions, outright lies and intelligent, sensitive, searching observations on men, women, and breasts. It s a men s empowerment book for men who would never ever pick up a men s empowerment book and who are not afraid to laugh at themselves.

“Topless Summer Love Girls” contains not only page-after-page of sumptuous color photos of topless girls sunning themselves on the beaches of Spain and the South of France, but it’s got excellent advice for men on dating and making the best choice in women, sexual relationships with women and women’s wiles, warnings about marriage, fatherhood, and divorce; and what every man should know about feminism. In short, it’s got everything a modern guy needs to survive love in the 21st Century.

* Paperback: 272 pages
* Publisher: Iconoclassics; First edition (November 10, 2010)
* Language: English
* ISBN-10: 096576284X
* ISBN-13: 978-0965762847
* Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.4 x 0.9 inches

www.toplesslovegirls.com

Black Friday Art Sale

Friday, November 26, 2010, all day!
La Luz de Jesus
4633 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles CA 90027
323-666-7667

www.laluzdejesus.com
info@laluzdejesus.com

Art from the collections of their collectors, including paintings and more by Robert Williams, The Clayton Brothers, Tim Biskup, Liz McGrath, Camille Rose Garcia, Shepard Fairey, Marion Peck and many others!

As the birthplace of the lowbrow and pop-surrealism art movements, La Luz de Jesus has hosted exhibitions for the most collectible artists in post-pop. We hosted three shows for Robert Williams, four for Gary Baseman, and granted the very first solos to Pizz, XNO, Tim Biskup, Chris Mars, Liz McGrath and The Clayton Brothers. We granted early wall space to artists Camille Rose Garcia and Kukula and showcased an important retrospective for  Ed “Big Daddy” Roth. In recent months, a number of our patrons have offered some of the most desirable pieces from these and many other artists. Follow this link for a catalog of some truly remarkable work that has re-entered the marketplace via this single day event. For those who have long sought pieces from these artists, but have lost out to clients on their waiting lists, here’s your once in a lifetime chance to acquire blue chip art at significantly lowered prices.

Destroy All Movies!!! The Complete Guide to Punks on Film. Book signing by the authors Zack Carlson & Bryan Connolly

Sunday, November 21st
5pm – 7pm
La Luz de Jesus
4633 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles CA 90027
323-666-7667
www.laluzdejesus.com
info@laluzdejesus.com

This wildly comprehensive release features A-to-Z coverage of over 1100 feature films from around the world, as well as dozens of exclusive interviews with the cast/creators of crucial titles like “Repo Man,” “Return of the Living Dead,” “The Decline of Western Civilization” and “Valley Girl.” Also examined are countless prime examples of straight-to-VHS slasher trash, Brooklyn skid row masterpieces, Filipino breakdancing fairytales, no-budget apocalyptic epics and movies that shouldn’t even have been released, many of which have never been written about. Also included are hundreds of eyeball-smashing stills and posters, many in full color!

In addition, the book features tons of exclusive interviews with music/big screen luminaries including Ian MacKaye, Richard Hell, Penelope Spheeris, Nick Zedd, John Doe & Exene Cervenka, Alex Cox, Martha Coolidge, Lee Ving, Keith Morris, Mary Woronov and many more!

“Destroy All Movies!!!” nails down decades of insanity with superhuman research, vicious precision and electrically charged stills and images, and is the first and final definitive armchair roadmap to punk and new wave on celluloid. Five years in the making, this pulse-bursting monument to lowbrow cultural obsession is a must for all film fanatics, music maniacs, anti-fashion mutants, ’80s nostalgists, sleazoids, cop-killers and spazzmatics!

Check out www.PunksOnFilm.com for more info.

About The Editors
Zack Carlson has owned a punk record store, taught college courses on disreputable film history, toured internationally in various bands, and has amassed a bone-crushing collection of over 3000 forgotten VHS treasures. He’s a lead film programmer for Austin’s original Alamo Drafthouse Cinema called “The best movie theater in America” by Entertainment Weekly) and Fantastic Fest, the nation’s largest genre film festival.

Bryan Connolly has been movie-obsessed since childhood. A screenwriter and filmmaker, he is also one of the driving forces behind Vulcan Video, one of the world’s last flourishing independently owned movie rental stores. A fearless warrior in the arena of underappreciated entertainment, Bryan is the founder of the international event VHS Day, which will take place each October 1 from now until the end of time.

Tonight marks the opening of a double-header art exhibition featuring the insanely detailed drawings of Laurie Lipton and the unusual and creepy hybrid sculpts of Jessica Joslin at La Luz de Jesus Gallery in East Hollwood  / Los Feliz, CA. The show remains up until November 28.

“Motoring” – Charcoal and graphite on paper, framed  39.5″ x 29.25″

“This show was inspired by the Steampunk movement that is sweeping Britain. Instead of steam, however, my devices are mostly run by electricity and madness. I was vacuuming one day and noticed the amount of plugs and cables on the floor… a veritable wasp’s nest of wires and sockets connecting a hoard of gadgets and doo-dads intertwining around the house and my life. I was trapped like a fly in an electrical web. What had happened? Were these things making my life easier or more complex? I began with The Steam Punk Pocket Watch, an absurd idea of a time piece too huge & complex for anyone’s pocket, and went whirling on from there. These machines are designed to hinder, control and/or give the illusion of technology. I had a tremendous amount of fun creating the images and think that this show will touch anyone who has ever become entwined, up to the eyebrows, in the Technological Age.” – Laurie Lipton

Inspired by the religious paintings of the Flemish School, Lipton tried to teach herself how to paint in the style of the 16th century Dutch Masters and failed. When traveling around Europe as a student, she began developing her very own peculiar drawing technique building up tone with thousands of fine cross-hatching lines like an egg tempera painting. “It’s an insane way to draw”, she says, “but the resulting detail and luminosity is worth the amount of effort. My drawings take longer to create than a painting of equal size and detail.”

“Illusion of Control Tower” Charcoal and graphite on paper, framed, 59″ x 21.75″

“Stardust”

Jessica Joslin’s “Hybrids” is a circus of oddities, a mixed-media menagerie of unexpected creatures. A whimsical cat in a red leather harness harness pulls his polycephalic partner along on a wooden cart, blue and brown eyes gleaming mischievously. An exquisite two headed tropical bird with lush brass plumage preens on it’s perch. A troupe of monkey-cat hybrids engage in mysterious shenanigans, and truncated half-creatures preside over the festivities.

The creatures that populate Joslin’s world are intricate fusions of bone, brass, antique hardware and other bits and bobs. Sparkling glass eyes are inset in kid leather, giving these fanciful hybrids the illusion of life and animation. They seem ready to spring up and play, just as soon as no one is watching. In her work, Joslin celebrates wit, whimsy, ingenuity, insightful curiosity and skill. The finely wrought craftsmanship renders the hand of the maker at once visible (the miniature bolts, springs and joints which comprise anatomical structures are readily discerned) and invisible (there is a keen sense of their unique personalities, and as such, the illusion that they are not constructions, but rather living beings.)

“Clio and Loci”

Joslin grew up collecting flies off the windowsill to look at under her microscope. Ever since, she has been enchanted with collecting a magpie’s array of remnants from the natural world. The collection gradually grew to include obsolete bits of antique mechanical mechanisms, hardware and other oddball artifacts. In 1992, she began building the first beasts of this menagerie, using objects sent in a care package from her father, the same pieces that she’d collected as a child.

To preview all show images, click here

Richard Kalisher loves art – so much that he publishes a magazine called American Contemporary Art through his American Contemporary Magazine Group. Since moving to Los Angeles from New York, Richard has become a fan of Southern California’s New Contemporary Art and started up a publication called Pop Surrealism Magazine which is dedicated to supporting  artists and galleries in the New Contemporary Art Scene. Richard can be found attending art openings all over Los Angeles, checking out the works and chatting with the artists.

He has just released the second issue for Fall 2010 on the web and a print version will be available in a few days. We will hopefully be selling the magazine via Dionysus Mail Order as well!

Read Pop Surrealism Magazine Online –  Download PSM as PDF – View PSM Fall 2010 on iPad or Mobile Device – Join PSM’s Facebook Page

Both issues can be seen here: www.popsurmag.com –

If you are interested in contacting Richard and PSM, please send an email to Dionysus Records and we will forward to him.

BEYOND EDEN: Over 3,000 attend opening – Robert Williams honored – opening night pictures

L to R: Andrew Hosner (Beyond Eden organizer, Thinkspace Gallery, Sour Harvest,)  Matt Kennedy (Gallery Director – La Luz de Jesus,) Robert Williams, Billy Shire (Owner, Curator – La Luz de Jesus,) Lee Joseph ) (Beyond Eden publicist and coordination assistance.)  Photograph by Sam Graham

From Andrew Hosner / Beyond Eden event organizer:
BEYOND EDEN 2010 opened with a blast this past weekend drawing  nearly 4,000 people total over the weekend to the beautiful grounds of Barnsdall Park and the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery.

We would like to thank everyone who came out to support the artists and to extend our gratitude to the staff at LAMAG for making the event possible and nurturing it into such an overwhelming success. Saturday night’s opening reception alone drew well over  3,000 people and the energy in the air was palpable.

At 8pm when the time came to present the one and only Robert Williams with a Lifetime Achievement award, the venue was simply packed with a crowd of friends and revelers that stretched outside into the municipal gallery’s courtyard. Robert Williams, ever a gentleman, was gracious and ribald during the well received presentation.

We can’t stress enough what a huge honor it was to have Robert–the progenitor of contemporary West Coast art–there and to be able to present him with this award in front of all his friends and family. It was truly the crowning moment of an already amazing night that saw so many new people exposed to the thriving New Contemporary Art Movement. Long ignored by the mainstream, this movement continues to gain momentum and supporters all the while further breaking down the doors at institutions and museums the world over.  A new generation of artists and art enthusiasts is rewriting the rule books and we are excited that BEYOND EDEN can serve as a vehicle of enlightenment and change.