SHEPARD FAIREY
Shepard Fairey was born in Charleston, South Carolina. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island. In 1989 he created the "Andre the Giant has a Posse" sticker that transformed in to the OBEY GIANT art campaign, with imagery that has changed the way people see art and the urban landscape. After more than 30 years, his work has evolved into an acclaimed body of art, including the 2008 "Hope" portrait of Barack Obama, found at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery. In 2017, the artist collaborated with Amplifier to create the "We The People" series, which was recognizable during the Women's Marches and other rallies worldwide in defense of national and global social justice issues.
Fairey's stickers, guerilla street art presence, and public murals are recognizable globally. His works are in the permanent collections of the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and many others.
Shepard Fairey has painted more than 105 largescale murals across five continents worldwide.
For more information, visit OBEYGIANT.COM.
RISK
Kelly Graval, the multi talented fine artist, illustrator and graffiti artist known as RISK has been synonymous with the Los Angeles art community for decades. With a career spanning 30 years, RISK has solidified his place in the history books as a world renowned graffiti legend. He has come a long way since he pioneered the painting of freeway overpasses, signs and billboards, dubbed “heavens”. Although RISK loves aerosol art, he sees it as merely one genre in his life’s work. From his days as a student at the USC School of Fine Arts to gallery and museum exhibits around the globe, RISK has transformed from a street artist to a rising star in the contemporary art world.
RISK’s works are a cross-section of color field painting, light and space conceptualism and finish fetish sensibilities. Experiential methods exploit transparent aspects of kandy and pearl paint utilizing hi-tech materials, from California car and surf culture while staying true to his adaptive graffiti roots, recycling or re-purposing materials all the same.
RISK’s work is a constant juxtaposition of advanced color theory. The work depicts an ethereal Yin and Yang quality visually and conceptually. RISK applies paint to his surfaces in multiple layers of various techniques starting with graffiti and ending with fine sprayed lacquer or resins over vintage candy, metal flake and pearl car paints. The finish product evokes emotion as the coats of atmospheric colors and gradation are trapped between the layers of lacquers and pearls. The end result is a dynamic, well-balanced and organized chaos.
RISK has been compared to the Ferus Gallery movement buy art academia. “Being called the new generation of the Fetus movement is the biggest compliment anyone could give me. They have been a huge inspiration to me.” I have had the opportunity to work with some of the original Ferus Gallery artists. Currently RISK is working on a small body of work with one of his heroes. Ed Moses. They are also painting a huge outdoor installation later this year. In this body of work The artist is continuing to push his boundaries in true Ferus style while introducing more light and space elements to his work.
DAMON MARTIN
Born in Washington State, Damon's mother and grandmother, both painters, exposed him to several great artists at an early age and he took to the visual arts with great enthusiasm.
He continued his training in oil painting under a master Venetian artist, attended various art academies and studied oil painting at UCLA. His working knowledge of the Old Masters' painting techniques informs his modern-era modality.
Martin has shown with Scope Art Fair Miami, The Armory Show in NYC and the Los Angeles Art Fair. He has also been a resident artist at the Fountainhead Residency in Miami. Martin has also worked with renowned artist JR covering Times Square in New York City with the Inside Out Project and he created multiple art campaigns with IFAW (International Fund for Animal Welfare) for endangered elephants and tigers.
COLE JAMES
Cole M James (They/Zi/She) is an interdisciplinary artist. Their work uses both figurative and abstract images, sound and scent to amplify the subtle ways perception can collapse and expand time. James received their MFA from Claremont Graduate University in Installation & Digital Media.
“I make work as a negotiator, navigating the African Diaspora, circling the expanse of queerness and traversing through womanhood. I am in interested in the intersections between digital production and the analog collecting of lived experiences.” Born in Chicago, raised in Moreno Valley California, James works and lives in Los Angeles, California.
Cole is a Somatic Communal Consultant and has trained with Resmaa Menakem through the organization Education for Racial Equity and a Climate Justice Activist connected with the Emergence Network envisioned by Bayo Akomalafe in India and has collaborated with organizations centering on restorative justice and environmental advocacy throughout Los Angeles and abroad.
Community Collaborators include: artworx LA, Liberated Justice Coalition, UCLA, FOLAR, California African American Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, Michelada Think Tank, Play the LA River, LA Bird Day, Black Women Artist for Black Lives Matter, Justice LA, Los Angeles Nomadic Division, Emergence Network, and Judson Studios.
FREEHAND PROFIT
Gary Lockwood, better known as Freehand Profit, is an LA based artist who has examined issues of identity and materialism since 2010 through the creation of more than 200 one of a kind masks. These masks, often gas masks and usually crafted from iconic sneakers, reflect a balance of the celebratory aspects of our humanity & culture with the awareness that we are a world at war, plagued by injustice, oppression and environmental destruction.
Masks as a focus have allowed Freehand Profit to explore a wide variety of ideas and stories, from the conservation of endangered species to processing grief and difficult emotions. Masks give us the ability to both conceal our identity and show our true selves. They are fashion, they are symbolic, they protect and fascinate.
The process of dissecting, twisting and transforming sneakers was inspired by Hip-Hop; how DJs and producers scratch and sample records, the way graffiti artists twist alphabets, the B-boy spins and the stories eMCees told. Freehand Profit's work combines his talents across multiple mediums through sculpture, photography, design, painting, illustration and more. His art has been featured in global and local campaigns for brands like Nike, adidas, Puma, and Cadillac, with collectors around the world like Kevin Durant, Everlast & PJ Tucker.
For more information, visit freehandprofit.com.
JASON MEADOWS
Since the mid-1990s, Jason Meadows has explored formal notions of space, narrative, form and material through engaging sculptures that hover between abstraction and representation. Drawing from a wide range of sources including popular culture, art history and literature, the artist skillfully manipulates familiar forms and narratives in ways that challenge linear narratives and perceptions of space. Everyday materials such as wood, metal and found objects appear regularly in his assemblages, lending a rough-edged, handmade production quality to his work that is frequently offset by a painterly use of color. Layering these formal referneces with cultural iconography and shifting perspectives, Meadows' sculptures filter our own perceptions of the familiar through a new lens of spatial complexity.
Born in 1972 in Indianapolis, Jason Meadows currently lives and works in Los Angeles. He received a BFA from the School of the Arts Institute of Chicago in 1994 and an MFA in sculpture from the University of California in Los Angeles in 1998, where he studied under Charles Ray and Mike Kelley.
His sculptures have been exhibited at institutions worldwide, including the Tate Modern, UCLA Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art in Oslo, de Appel arts centre in Amsterdam, and the CCA Wattis Institute in San Francisco, among others. His work was also featured in the group exhibition, Alexander Calder and Contemporary Art: Form, Balance, Joy, which traveled from the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago to the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, TX, followed by the Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA and Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC from 2010-12.
THOMAS GARNER
Thomas Garner was raised under the glow of Southern California sunshine. He studied art at UCSD at a time when everything was Conceptual and Avant-Garde: Installation Art, Performance Art, Video Art, etc. Thomas went to do his junior year abroad at the Academia di Belli Arti in Venice. He fell in love with all things Italian, and there was no turning back. Everything was too exciting and too interesting. He learned directly from the great Venetian masters: Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese and Tiepolo.
His love affair with Italy lasted 24 years where he bought a 17th century home on the beautiful Brenta River that flows into the heart of the Venetian lagoon, married Italian, and had three sons. He built a successful career in the fashion business. He worked as a graphic designer for some of the biggest brands of the time such as Diesel, Benetton, Nordica, and eventually as Creative Director at Replay. He published a book in Italy of his design called Casual Design by ThomasGarner. He was a member of the Italian art group, Gruppo Tata, founded by renowned artist/designer Ennio Chiggio. During this period he worked on many portrait commissions among which were Princess Stephanie of Monaco and her children and Eros Ramazzotti and his family.
He was later repatriated to Los Angeles by Lucky Brand as Art Director. He currently works freelance, designing graphics for such clients as Bob Dylan, Paul Simon and John Fogerty. He teaches at UCLA Extension Classical Painting in the Style of the Venetian Masters among other classes, and at the Kline Academy. He has exhibited widely from Milan to Los Angeles.
See his website at: tomgarner.com.
RILEY HOLLOWAY
Riley Holloway, born in Los Angeles, CA (1989), currently lives and works in Dallas, TX. Growing up, he developed an early interest in art, learning from his mother, who is an artist herself. He attended The Art Institute of Dallas and the Florence Academy of Art.
Holloway is best known for his dynamic work and fresh look at figurative art. His images are often accompanied by text and personal references embedded within the work. Holloway uses a traditional oil painting technique and bold lines to create depth within the portraits. There is a wonderful counterbalance of softness and masculinity seen in the works.
Holloway’s aesthetics create familiar spaces that are rich in storytelling, free from constraints, and true to his subjects. His content is rich in drama, history and intimacy.
VICTOR CASTILLO
Victor Castillo was born in Santiago, Chile in 1973. He began drawing obsessively at the age of five, inspired by the animations he saw on television, science fiction movies, and the illustrations on record covers such as Pink Floyd's "The Wall".
Following studies at the University of Art and Social Sciences (ARCIS) and the Catholic University of Chile, Victor joined the independent experimental art collective Caja Negra in Santiago, creating multimedia installations.
In 2004 Victor moved to Barcelona, Spain, where he dedicated himself to painting and established his style with references to comics, graffiti, and old master paintings, particularly Goya's Black Paintings after seeing them at the Prado Museum. Victor's first solo exhibition in the United States When the Heavens Open was with Roq La Rue in Seattle in 2008, followed by Gameland with Merry Karnowsky Gallery, and in 2010 Victor moved to Los Angeles, California, where he lives and works.
Sourcing imagery from children's books and animations, Castillo appropriates American cartoon vernacular and reconstructs the violence of colonization in pictorial form in his practice. His work, which spans painting, sculpture, and installation, chronicles the history of neoliberalism and its aftermath.
YASSI MAZANDI
Yassi Mazandi was born in Tehran, Iran, raised in Great Britain and lives and works in Los Angeles. She describes nature and her reaction to it, both conscious and subconscious, as the driving forces behind her art. She sculpts in porcelain, clay and bronze, and also creates works on paper and canvas. She enjoys expanding her creative frontiers with constant experimentation, including the combination of traditional hand-intensive skills with the most relevant technological innovations. In 2019, she completed her first video artwork and, in 2021, her first NFT. Her work has been the subject of several solo exhibitions, numerous group exhibitions, as well as a video interview with the BBC in 2013. In 2012, she was in the first group selected by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation for its Artist in Residence program on Captiva Island in Florida. Her work is in the collections of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, University of California and in other public and major private collections both in the United States and internationally.
ELIZABETH ORLEANS
Elizabeth N. Orleans was born and raised in Philadelphia, PA. By the age of four, Elizabeth was sitting under the drafting table creating works of her own while her mother was pursuing her Masters in Interior Architectural Design. Her great grandfather, grandfather, and father were all builders, which also later had an impact on her work.
Elizabeth earned a Master of Fine Arts degree at California College of the Arts in Oakland, CA, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in ceramics at Tulane University in New Orleans, LA. She has taught at many institutions and continues to teach out of her Venice Beach studio.
In 2004, Orleans was chosen to create her first large-scale, site-specific installation, "Internal View," involving thousands of ceramic elements, at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Santa Rosa, CA. The piece was featured in Ceramics Monthly magazine. In addition, it was shown at several museums, galleries, and public spaces in California and is part of several permanent collections.
Continuing the tradition of the Southern California ceramic artist movement, Elizabeth strives to break down the boundaries of clay being utilitarian objects with her ambitious scale. She pursues her innovation in ceramics and furthers her interest in altering pre-existing spaces by creating architectural interventions.