“Ten Paintings in a Decaying Office Building” opens May 18, 2012, with a reception from 7-10 pm. This all-ages event will take place at 737 Pine Avenue, Long Beach, CA 90813. The exhibition will remain on view through June 15th by appointment only. To set up a viewing after opening night, contact Logan Crow at lbcinematheque@gmail.com.

Contact: Garry Booth
Email: phoneboothgallery@gmail.com

LORA ZOMBIE: WHALES.LOVE.PROCRASTINATION

Phone Booth Gallery is proud to present “Whales.Love.Procrastination,” the gallery’s second exhibition of work on paper by Russian artist Lora Zombie. The exhibition opens with a reception on Saturday, May 12th from 7-10pm. This event will take place at Phone Booth Gallery’s exhibition space, 2533 East Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90803. Zombie’s work will remain on view through June 12, 2012, at both the exhibition space and on www.phoneboothgallery.com.

Zombie continues to create poetic, pithy spin-offs on pop culture tropes and myths — she reinvents the hobo, the rock star, or the mermaid. But this new body of work has deeper roots in the language of storytelling. It’s the visual equivalent to the ballads of a traveling bard, had that bard had come of age reading Marvel Comics and tagging city walls. References to Hans Christian Andersen and Lewis Carroll appear alongside references to vintage pin-ups, rock music and folk tales. In one drawing, Alice, slightly older than she was in “Alice in Wonderland” and wearing shiny red nightclub heels, nearly fills the little stone house she is inside of while the well- dressed rabbit sits by quietly. In another watercolor, a huge whale swims up to kiss the bottom of a small fishing boat. The painting reads, “Sometimes big whales kiss your boat, not so as you’d notice.”

Because Zombie’s paintings and drawings often melt into pools of color or erupt into speckles of pigment, her storytelling feels ephemeral and whimsical. She is offering glimpses into dreamscapes that could dissolve at any moment. But leaving the space of the dreamscape is what Zombie avoids; she procrastinates a return to any more grounded reality by delving into this web of subconscious influences and immersing herself in the visual languages she loves. In “Whales.Love.Procrastination,” she invites us to procrastinate with her, and to use her renderings as starting points for narratives we weave for ourselves.

RSVP HERE.

Take a look at the well crafted print, executed with help from our friends at Color Beast. Also, watch the video with some extra closeups and flyovers.

Anyway, time passed, and we decided to do a print.  One print turned into a series of three, and “Skullduggery: A Tribute to the Dark Side” was born.  Here are some photos of the signing, as well as a video with some nice closeups of the prints.  Get yours in our PRINTS section of the site.

Contact: Garry Booth
Email: phoneboothgallery@gmail.com

JASON EDMISTON, JOE KING, RYAN MILNER: ROCK PAPER SINNERS

Phone Booth Gallery is pleased to present “Rock Paper Sinners,” a three-person exhibition featuring paintings and drawings by Joe King, Jason Edmiston and Ryan Milner. Irreverent, garish, fantastical and playful, the exhibition opens on Saturday, April 14th with a reception from 7-10 P.M. This all-ages event will take place at Phone Booth Gallery’s exhibition space, 2533 East Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90803. All three artists will be in attendance. “Rock Paper Sinners” will remain on view through May 8th and on www.phoneboothgallery.com.

It’s fitting that these three artists, all of whom understand that fantasy is the best vehicle for allegory, would exhibit together. In “Rock Paper Sinners,” fun, outlandish work has some serious undertones.

Joe King’s ink-on-paper illustrations depict battles, duels or struggles of some sort. King draws in an old fashioned, almost Victorian style, but his works are not necessarily traditional. They’re nonsensical sometimes and, at other times, perverse, like the one in which the goddess of Victory hacks off her own head while battling a crocodile. In another, a Veronica Lake doppelganger claws herself free from the jaws of a shark, and, in a third, the angel of death rides through a desert over a pile of skeletons. The forebodingness of these in part has to do with King’s concern about our own battle with our environment. How can we re-establish a healthy balance between the natural environment and ourselves?

In Jason Edmiston’s “Monsters of Rock,” crazy creatures with globular eyes and wrinkled, colored skin have the hairdos, tattoos and general comportment of rock stars: there’s an Axl Rose look-alike and a Tommy Lee. All of these paintings evoke the style of Basil Wolverton, the American cartoonist who made politicians and public figures comically grotesque.  By similarly recasting rock icons as monsters, Edmiston shows how big a hold celebrities have over us, but also pokes fun at the very idea of star power.

Ryan Milner’s “Sitcom Series” portrays beloved TV characters as gangsters and thugs, giving tattoos to Steve Urkel and 80’s science fiction sitcom star ALF. In his black and white paintings, he imagines these characters fallen from their former, PG-rated glory. Being a kitsch, family-friendly pop presence takes its toll, it seems. These characters, now weathered, show scars from their previous lives, evident in what they’ve inked on their limbs.

“Rock Paper Sinners” reimagines cultural icons, destabilizes celebrity and pits nature and humans against each other in a battle to the death. The work in the show — arresting, energetic and deftly executed — suggests there’s a dark side to everything, and that visiting that dark side can be rewarding.

RSVP HERE.

Contact: Garry Booth
Email: phoneboothgallery@gmail.com

GROUP EXHIBITION: ALMOST BLUE

Kind of blue, blue skies ahead, having the blues, true blue — is any other color positioned so close to the middle of the road? The feelings blue connote are neither desperate nor euphoric; instead, they’re often wavering between good and bad, unobtrusive but always ubiquitous. “Almost Blue,” a group exhibition at Phone Booth Gallery, will read into the ubiquitous color blue and suss out its nuances and meanings. The exhibition officially opens February 25th, with a reception from 7-10 P.M. This all-ages event will take place at Phone Booth Gallery’s exhibition space, 2533 East Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90803. “Almost Blue” will remain on view through March 31, 2012 both at the exhibition space and on www.phoneboothgallery.com.

“I started painting in blue when I learned of Casagemas’s death,” Picasso said, referring to the suicide of a friend as his famous Blue Period’s inciting incident. Sadness and loss were, according to him, a fair reason to use just the one color, and sadness occurs in Almost Blue, too, like in the ephemeral, grayish mountains painted by Yevgeniya Miikhailik or David Owen’s penetrating portrait of Muddy Waters. Then there’s the ambivalence of a drawing like Mr. Frivolous’ A Load of Blueming Nonsense, which shows a big-eyed girl with an bluish lily in her hair surrounded by text that tries to find significance in random instances of color (does mean anything to eat a blueberry under a blue sky?).

Moses Black finds spirituality in a blue that is speckled with spots that look like stars, and the deep night blue background makes Rod Luff’s sensual portrait feel like fantasy. But blue also is just a color, a primary on the color wheel that’s often used to “cool down” a composition, which is how it works in Robert Pokorny’s delightfully abstract portrait studies and in John P. Wales’ far less abstract painting of an angst-filled superhero riding in on a rocket.

That colors have personalities and effects may be age-old knowledge, but that doesn’t make it an any less compelling or constant. Almost Blue invites you to spend some time thinking about what blue is and it feels.

Exhibiting Artists Include: Alex Gardner, Arlene Booth, Bryan Schnelle, David Owen, Famous When Dead, Garry Booth, Harry Diaz, John P. Wales, JoKa, Jonathan Baker, Kevin Bannister, Mariya Suzuki, Mark Michelon, Moses Black, Mr. Frivolous, Nick Comparone, Nicole Goux, Rod Luff, Robert Pokorny, Ryan Milner, Scott Flanders, {ths}, Yevgeniya Mikhailik, and more!

RSVP HERE.

Contact: Garry Booth
Email: phoneboothgallery@gmail.com

HANDIEDAN: UNITED TASTE OF A MIRACLE

Phone Booth Gallery is pleased to present United Taste of a Miracle, the fourth exhibition by Dutch artist Handiedan. In a new series of tactile, layered collages, the artist continues to interact with the iconography of the pin-up and the mystique of ornament. The exhibition opens with a reception on November 19, from 7-10 P.M. This all-ages event will take place at Phone Booth Gallery’s exhibition space, 2533 East Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90803. United Taste of Miracle will remain on view through December 17, both at the exhibition space and on www.phoneboothgallery.com.

Handiedan’s exploration of the vintage sensuality of pin-up culture has become more dimensional and more intricate in this new instance. Figures and the decorative patterns that surround them protrude slightly from pages of yellowed advertisement text, tempting you to run your fingers across them. Text has even been superimposed back over girls’ intertwined limbs, collapsing background and foreground and emphasizing the bodies themselves as ads for a certain kind of sassy sexiness.

Ornate frames surround each image and little message bubbles, like the kind from comic books, hover around the girls or lurk off to the side. A tiny Supergirl makes repeat appearances and Asian characters appear, written in blue pen across limbs or in the background, bringing World War II era exoticism into the mix. Layer upon layer of references twist together. In all, the cultural mélange in this series is dense, varied and surprising.

Like the work of Joseph Cornell, Wallace Berman, Kurt Schwitters or other collage forerunners, Handiedan’s collages communicate a mood more than a message, peaking curiosity rather than offering any sort of thesis about culture. They make seduction graphic, fully aware of all its often tamped-down cultural ramifications. But the work still leaves room for reflection. You can get lost in the beauty of the detail and the drama.

In addition to intricate new mixed media works, United Taste of a Miracle will include three large prints, a series of regular print releases and a to-be-announced special release.

RSVP

Contact: Garry Booth
Email: phoneboothgallery@gmail.com

LOLA DUPRÉ: SHRAPNEL

Phone Booth Gallery is pleased to present “Shrapnel,” a collection of all new work from Glasgow based artist Lola Dupré. Consisting entirely of her “Exploded” series of portraits, Dupré delivers her strongest work to date, exploding portraits such as Tura Satana, and Nikola Tesla, as well as exploded versions of work by artists like Man Ray and Jan Van Eyck.

The exhibition opens on October 8th, 2011 with a reception from 7-10 pm. This all-ages event will take place at Phone Booth Gallery’s exhibition space, 2533 East Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90803. “Shrapnel” will remain on view through November 5th, 2011 at the exhibition space and on www.phoneboothgallery.com.

RSVP

Contact: Garry Booth
Email: phoneboothgallery@gmail.com

DAVID SOUKUP: IN THE MOMENT

Phone Booth Gallery is pleased to present “In the Moment,” an exhibition featuring new paintings and prints by Chicago based stencil artist David Soukup. The exhibition opens on September 17, 2011 with a reception from 7-10 pm. This all-ages event will take place at Phone Booth Gallery’s exhibition space, 2533 East Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90803. “In the Moment” will remain on view through October 6th, 2011 at the exhibition space and on www.phoneboothgallery.com.

Having built a reputation as one of the most detailed stencil artists in the country, Soukup is no stranger to finger-numbing precision and perfection. At first glance, his work may lead you to believe it’s is a digital transfer or electronic print-out, but on closer inspection, you’ll see what makes David’s work so special: the details. Each painting is produced by a precise layering of stencils, meticulously cut by hand, and applied using layers of spray paint.

Soukup’s new body of work shows a slight change in direction for the artist, who has elevated his paintings to include geometric abstraction, texture, and motion. Consistently raising the bar on what can be done with the stencil medium, Soukup focuses on relational composition while exploring positive and negative space. Working with reclaimed wood, found imagery, photography, and a variety of painting techniques Soukup explores individual relationships between mediums and elements interconnected in the moment.

In addition to showing new paintings, Soukup will also show two new screen prints. Similar to his originals, these prints implement layering techniques, textures, and subtle color shifts. Artist in attendance.

RSVP

Contact: Garry Booth
Email: phoneboothgallery@gmail.com

HARRY DIAZ AND RICK REESE: NEW WORK

Phone Booth Gallery is pleased to present “New Work,” a two-person exhibition featuring paintings by Rick Reese and Harry Diaz. Both artists explore the evocative potential of abstraction and pattern, generating images that ask more questions than they answer. The exhibition opens on August 20, 2011 with a reception from 7-10 pm. This all-ages event will take place at Phone Booth Gallery’s exhibition space, 2533 East Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90803. “New Work” will remain on view through September 10, 2011 at the exhibition space and on www.phoneboothgallery.com.

Rick Reese’s new body of paintings represents a departure for the artist, who has moved away from figurative imagery toward a new, crisp approach to abstraction that questions the difference between order and chaos. Do shifting, patterned planes and vertical colored columns simplify and minimize complicated realities, or do they obscure and confuse what’s real? Can indistinguishable, amorphous shapes join with angular lines to become powerful and yet still feel in some way familiar? These are old questions, but Reese’s work refreshes them, bringing a hip design vocabulary, architectural savvy, and a calculated dose of ambiguity to geometric abstraction.

Harry Diaz explores the power and familiarity of abstraction, too, though his exploration is more deeply entrenched in personal history than Reese’s. Born in Guatemala City, Diaz has lived in the United States since childhood, and his memories of his first home have begun to seem more and more distanced over time. The patterns—stripes, pyramids, circles and loops—that he has pieced together in these paintings are stand-in memories, abstract gestures toward a heritage that has itself begun to seem to abstract. Articulating his heritage in this way, through colors and shapes that are both evoke Maya textiles and present-day pop culture, Diaz pulls his remembered heritage back from the brink of obscurity and visually cements it for himself and his viewers.

Together, this new work by Reese and Diaz proposes that abstraction today can live richly in a space between expression and calculation. In this space, questions about what’s real and what’s remembered bounce around perpetually and ritualistically until the question-asking itself becomes comforting.

RSVP

Contact: Garry Booth
Email: phoneboothgallery@gmail.com

BRYAN SCHNELLE: FEAR & CONSUMPTION

Phone Booth Gallery is pleased to present “Fear & Consumption,” a solo exhibition of new work by Bryan Schnelle that cuts open the sensationalism of advertising culture, exposing the menace of mainstream media.

The average American is exposed to 3000 advertisements daily. Each of us sees more ads in a year than people of 50 years ago saw in their entire lifetime. Annually, global companies spend an estimated minimum of $620 billion to compel consumers, creating marketing campaigns that elevate financial status and autonomy over all other qualities, steeply skewing the actuality of class and economics around the world. The mind-numbing effect of this skewed media saturation impels Schnelle’s newest body of work, an op-art extravaganza that enhances the already topsy-turvy, delusionally sexy strangeness of advertising culture, making it all the more sinister.

For his untitled series of defaced magazine pages, Schnelle has covered the hyperbolically beautiful bodies, air brushed limbs and lush fabrics of print ads with spinning black and white patterns. The patterns, as blatant as Bridget Riley at her best but also hands-on and rough around the edges, pull your eye through on a journey. In one image, black and white triangles move inward, getting smaller and smaller until they converge on a jaunty model’s ski-mask covered head. In others, webs of black, concentric stripes confines hazy scenes of lounging women, or a bean-shaped growth of black and white sits atop a sea of purses. “Meaningless mind-garbage” (Schnelle’s term) thus becomes mind-bending.

In the show’s largest work, the six foot “Static (A Whole Lot of Nothing),” the black and white triangles and stripes appear again. So do circles and zig-zags, each pattern surrounding a single, altered magazine image—women’s eyes have been painted out, masks have been drawn over heads, hands and feet have been severed. The effect is kaleidoscopic. And strangely liberating.

Schnelle, in his own low-tech way, takes over media imagery, claiming it as his own territory. It’s the art-maker’s equivalent to guerilla warfare. Through his op-art interventions, he turns the subjects of advertisements into his soldiers, masking them, obscuring their over-produced beauty and then enlisting them in his cause. Thus, the image of what’s for sale—beauty, prestige, sexiness—fights back.

“Fear & Consumption” is Schnelle’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. It opens July 9, 2011, with a reception from 7-10 pm. This all-ages event will take place at Phone Booth Gallery’s exhibition space, 2533 East Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90803. “Fear and Consumption” will remain on view through August 6th at both the exhibition space and on www.phoneboothgallery.com.

RSVP VIA FACEBOOK: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=217714811602693

Contact: Garry Booth
Email: phoneboothgallery@gmail.com

JENNIE COTTERILL: FAMILY ALBUM

Phone Booth Gallery is pleased to present “Family Album,” an exhibition of new work by Jennie Cotterill. Cotterill’s endearing mixed media montages troll the textured territory of personal history, putting heartfelt sentimentalism on a collision course with the knottier idiosyncrasies of family life. The exhibition opens on May 21st, 2011, with a reception from 7-10 pm. This all-ages event will take place at Phone Booth Gallery’s exhibition space, 2533 East Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90803. “Family Album” will remain on view through June 25th at both the exhibition space and on www.phoneboothgallery.com.

Cotterill’s work embraces optimism and nostalgia as openly as it embraces tongue-in-cheek quirkiness. It also has an acute awareness of how medium changes meaning. For this reason, “Family Album” feels as multivalent as any family history that has been documented through stacks of snapshots.

The various painterly techniques Cotterill has employed—fading colors, softly blurred black and white and markedly photographic framing—evoke the conventional tropes of photography just enough to make her work resonate with anyone who has ever perused a few decades worth of family pictures, or even just stood in an unfamiliar foyer, looking up and down photo-laden walls.

Mixed media dioramas accompany Cotterill’s two-dimensional paintings, bringing the language of the relic or heirloom into conversation with the family photograph, and making her version of “history” as tactile and multidimensional as the real thing.

On the whole, “Family Album” says more about being human than about any one, staid idea of family life. Cotterill’s album glories in connection-making and collection-amassing, fixating on moments and memories in a way that makes having a history—something we tend to take for granted—seem rich, intense and entirely worth while.

ROD LUFF: ANIMA

Phone Booth Gallery is pleased to present the U.S. solo debut of prolific Australian artist Rod Luff. The exhibition, Luff’s first at the gallery, consists of contemplative body of soft-edged paintings and drawings that explore harmony, both as a general sensation and an intimate experience. Titled “Anima,” the exhibition opens with a reception on April 16th from 7-10pm. This all-ages event will take place at Phone Booth Gallery’s exhibition space, 2533 East Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90803. The work will remain on view through May 14th at both the exhibition space and on www.phoneboothgallery.com.

Luff’s sensibility, which evokes pre-Raphaelite lyricism and surrealist-worthy caprice, combines an immense respect for human imagination with a fascination with the organic. For Luff, the space between private fantasy and natural world barely exists. Even when his work depicts relationships—between people, or individuals and nature—the mystique of quiet, subconscious experience invariably holds sway.

In “Liminality,” an ingénue reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland communes with a glowing yellow blossom as trees and plants lean toward her and the sunset appears to channel her introspection. A less romanticized but equally concordant series of images, the Feeding Bird Series, shows an older woman alone with a cadre of devoted pigeons, a theme of human-animal togetherness that repeatedly appears in Luff’s work. It’s a theme particularly intensified in “Dream Hug,” an image that veers full speed into the realm of fantasy and shows a young woman falling through undefined space clinging to a fleshy, abstract creature. Again, the oneness of this woman and animal pulls the image into an introspective space, one that invites its occupants to find themselves through synchronizing with the world. Even “Offering,” a dark drawing of six figures engaged in a ritual worthy of “Lord of the Flies,” favors subconscious experience; though acting together, every one of the figures seems deeply embedded in his or her own interior world.

“Anima” traverses a surprisingly wide terrain of sentiments and situations, from simple, familiar moments to uncanny fantasias. But, regardless of the context, Luff’s figures always seek that perfect place of harmony, where being in touch with the pulse of the natural world is the same as being whole in themselves.

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Established in 2008, Phone Booth Gallery exhibits many talented and up and coming artists from around the globe including Handiedan, Ryan Milner, Kevin Tong, Garry Booth, Rod Luff, Bryan Schnelle, Kevin Bannister, and Lora Zombie.
We are owned and operated out of Long Beach, CA. www.phoneboothgallery.com
For more information about this event, or future events, or to schedule an interview with any artists, please contact Garry Booth.

Logan Crow, Founder of Long Beach Cinematheque, and Garry Booth, Director of Phone Booth Gallery.

Check out the print HERE.

Check out the print HERE.

GROUP EXHIBITION: “OH, YOU ARE SICK…” AN ART SHOW DEDICATED TO DAVID LYNCH

Phone Booth Gallery and Long Beach Cinematheque are pleased to present “Oh, You Are Sick…,” a juried group exhibition of visual work loosely informed by the films of David Lynch, the enigmatic director who turns the mundane into grisly, surreal adventures. The exhibition opens with a reception on March 12th from 7-10pm. The all-ages event will take place at Phone Booth Gallery’s exhibition space, 2533 East Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90803. The work will remain on view through April 9th at both the exhibition space and on www.phoneboothgallery.com.

David Lynch’s filmic oeuvre manages to pull noir, camp and—sometimes—even brutal realism together into ominous narratives and this uniquely intermeshed sensibility has been inspiring artists of all mediums for decades now. Those included in this show work primarily in two-dimensions, a format well-suited to probing Lynch’s eccentric visual world. Some explicitly respond to or appropriate the director’s imagery, like UK artist Famous When Dead whose “Rabbit” is a refined portrait of the quietly patriarchal animal that appeared first in an online sitcom and later in “Inland Empire,” or Aurora Armijo’s distraught portrait of Lynch’s repeat leading lady, Laura Dern.

But others take a looser approach. Handiedan’s “Lost Highway” is, like all of her work, fragmented and darkly nostalgic—in other words, wholly resonate with a Lynchian aesthetic—and Bryan Schnelle’s slick explorations of the visually absurd have an unsettling glamour that would be at home in “Mulholland Drive,” or even parts of “Blue Velvet.” David Atkinson’s bloody “What About Bob” makes implicit, eerie Lynchian violence aggressively explicit, and John Ottinger’s “Dark Father” speculates on what would have happened if Lynch had directed “Return of the Jedi.”

It’s been forty years since David Lynch moved to Los Angeles, and thirty-five since “Eraserhead” debuted. In that time, he’s become embedded in the collective psyches of aesthetes and film buffs. This exhibition explores what his legacy might mean, though it makes no definitive interpretation, generously leaving the interpreting to its viewers.

Each week throughout the show, die-hard Lynch fans and curious newcomers alike can view one of Lynch’s seminal films via the Long Beach Cinamatheque; the series begins with “Blue Velvet” and moves on to “Eraserhead,” “Dune,” “Lost Highway,” and “Wild at Heart.” Each screening will be accompanied by the release of a limited edition, signed 18” x 24” print. Screening information and schedule at www.LBCinema.org.

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Established in 2008, Phone Booth Gallery exhibits many talented and up and coming artists from around the globe including Handiedan, Ryan Milner, Garry Booth, Mike Knife, Bryan Schnelle, Kevin Bannister, and Kareem Rizk.
We are owned and operated out of Long Beach, CA. www.phoneboothgallery.com
For more information about this event, or future events, or to schedule an interview with any artists, please contact Garry Booth.

Remaining copies will be available Saturday at a random time in our print shop HERE. Blind sets of all 5 prints will be available online as well starting this Saturday. Remaining prints will be released throughout the month.

This is a beautiful (in a Blue Velvet sorta way) 5 color screenprint on Cougar 100 lb Cover, signed and numbered by the artist in an edition of 100.

“The Stupid The Proud”

“Dee Kaa Dzhee”

“Bang”

LORA ZOMBIE: BROKEN DOLL LA LA LA

Phone Booth Gallery is proud to present “Broken Doll La La La,” an exhibition of new work on paper by Russia-based artist Lora Zombie. The exhibition opens with a reception on February 12th from 7-10pm. The all-ages event is located at Phone Booth Gallery’s exhibition space, 2533 East Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90803. Zombie’s work will remain on view through March 5th, 2011 at both the exhibition space and on www.phoneboothgallery.com.

Renegade and succinct in a Banksy-like manner, Zombie’s work responds to popular culture, incorporating the in-the-moment energy of graffiti with the pithiness of comic strips. While she’s worked in the street arena and a number of other non- traditional venues, “Broken Doll La La La” exclusively features paintings and drawings. Each image plays out like an episode in a non-linear narrative. Most present specific but open-ended scenarios—like “Jellyfish,” in which a girl in he Sunday best maneuvers a dripping, massive sea jelly that resembles an apocalyptic mushroom cloud; or “Guinieoink,” in which a translucent, winged pig wears a machine gun attached to its torso. Perfectly dressed girls flit through the show, such as in the title image, “Broken Doll,” which depicts a high-heeled blond with a wind- up key in her back embracing a child donning a crimson Mohawk. Red marks that intermittently resemble blood stains and misshapen hearts surround the embracing figures.

There’s a clash between dreamy optimism and crass reality that appears again and again in Zombie’s work. The artist has said she responds to the senseless delirium coursing through today’s cultural landscape, and delirium is something her work both captures and attacks. With a loose but wholly sincere sassiness, her images depict malaise in order to cut into it and expose its human guts. Ultimately, that’s exactly what “Broken Doll La La La” is: gutsy and human.

# # #

Established in 2008, Phone Booth Gallery exhibits many talented and up and coming artists from around the globe including Handiedan, Ryan Milner, Garry Booth, Mike Knife, Bryan Schnelle, Kevin Bannister, and Kareem Rizk.
We are owned and operated out of Long Beach, CA. www.phoneboothgallery.com
For more information about this event, or future events, or to schedule an interview with any artists, please contact Garry Booth.

So I have to ask, how did you come by the name Handiedan? Does it has anything to do with your Dutch heritage?

It’s based on a little rhyme with my first name in Dutch. When I write emails or text messages I often end my messages with these kind of rhyme words and combinations. ‘Cheers van han dan’, (Cheers from Han than), ‘xx van han die dan!’ and ‘Han says hi!’

Han = my name, the short version of my first name.
die = that
dan = than

In English I know it’s a little confusing. People often think I am a guy, because they read ‘Handy Dan’ or something, but in Dutch it is actually a funny little rhyme.
A little help in pronouncing my name: During my visit in Long Beach I found out that you can pronounce my first name just like the Jewish Holiday ‘Hanukkah’. Or you can say ‘Heineken’ but than with an ‘Hah’ in the beginning. What cool things you can do with a typical Dutch name, right?

Your work is amazing! How and when did you first start collaging?

Thanks! – A couple of years ago I decided to move to Amsterdam. However, because it is hard to find a decent place to live, I decided to rent a friend’s apartment for a few months. Its was spending time in a new city that gave me a sense of quietness and some distance from my friends and family. Definitely a good time for a new concentrated period of reflection and study with my work. This ended up being the big fusion with my different experiences and techniques, my recent pin-up mixed media work.

What kinds of tools & materials do you use to fashion your collages? 2 words: “YES” paste?

I experimented before with different glues, but now I stick with a nice pretty expensive acid free acrylic binder and a matte acrylic transparent varnish with UV-filter. I really love it how the structure of the thin skin varnish works over the papers!

I love the way you compose your pieces, especially the way your figures blend in and out of their backgrounds, making the whole piece come alive. Was this aesthetic planned out, or discovered by happy accident?

I think it’s a combination of both. I play around with the different ornaments and it almost feels like things are happening by ‘happy accident’ through deep concentration and the right flow. I’d also say, because of such deep concentration and sense of aesthetic feelings for balance, a good image vibration and interaction between the elements surfaces from the unconscious to conscious minc.
Still getting my point?

You must tear up tons of books, magazines and other materials to find those great images, how much time do you spend looking for your material?

I have a little “old-material-radar-light” on my head that goes off when I’m coming close to something interesting. Even if I’m not specifically looking for it, I’m always keeping my eyes peeled, sort of an automatic reflex. I love making the discoveries—it gives me so much pleasure!

Do you have a favorite place you look for your collage materials, imagery, etc?

My favorite places are the markets in Amsterdam. The Northern Market, the Albert Cuyp and the market on the Waterloo Square. But holidays in Belgium, France and small towns in other countries are the best and very inspirational, because you can find stuff you can’t find in your own country! And of course, being the computer squared eye’d person I am: Surfing the internet for antique treasure is the best!

Is that whole mayonnaise on fries thing really true?

Yep, mayonnaise all over the place and we LOVE it! You get mayonnaise with your fries standard. You’ll have to order ketchup extra if you prefer it.

What attracted you to combine iconic pin-up figures with ornate design elements from stamps and currency?

Two big fascinations fusing in one image. Need I say more?

Not only do you include such strikingly beautiful figures in your collages, but you also pepper in some of your own drawings throughout the work. At times, it acts as almost a satirical element contrasting the subject matter (i.e mustache on pin-up), is this meant to poke fun at the glamorized imagery, or act as a supportive element within the work?

I like it to play little tricks within my work. Dare to scratch over a new piece and adding my own little characters with small comments. This shows the working process and gives the piece balance–Playing with perfection and imperfection, seriousness and humor. I’m always trying to look at elements with an eclectic point of view, a big eye blink and poking fun!

Your past and current shows with Phone Booth reinvent the traditional pin-up in such interesting ways, could it be said that your creations act as a social commentary on the modern day perspective of sexuality and feminism?

Not specific. I like it that my work communicates with all different kind of people; young, old, different cultures and sexes and that all these people are able to see their own story in it. I don’t add any specific perspectives to my work on purpose. Of course there are little personal stories and comments added to each piece, but for me it is not important for people to know these stories when they view my work.

What’s your process of envisioning a piece, especially how you choose to compose your characters?

Mostly, I have a blurry idea of the pose and how many characters will join the piece. Then it’s just a matter of playing around with the elements, replaying and recomposing until the moment my mind says ‘Stop! This is the composition and the vibration you are looking for.’

Is there a preferred scale, material, or method of working that you choose?

There is no preferred scale and material. I like it to experiment and be surprised with all different sizes and materials, constantly reviewing and curiously investigating the possibilities of the image. One specific design can end up as a tiny piece of art on paper, as a middle sized piece on old metal, or as a significantly larger piece on wood, or collage on paper. I find it interesting how the same design works on different sizes and carriers, because the structure and atmosphere of the image changes every time.

Have you ever done any wheat pasting?

Not yet, but there are some exciting plans that hopefully will come true for the upcoming year!

Do you have any weird tendencies, or habits while you create your art?

Not sure if this is weird, but I always work on the ground — except while working on the computer of course — with loud music.

I’ve noticed that you have begun to incorporate some male pin-ups in your current body of work, what other couplings, or subject matter can we expect to see in the future?

Creating black and white work was something I had in mind for quite a time. This resulted in the two works called ‘Thats a Damn Fine Coat Your Wearing’ and ‘Valkyries’ for my recent ‘Habba Habba’ show at Phone Booth Gallery.
This moment I’m very excited to add some more b&w works! A few that I’ll mention are a number ‘Three’ male piece, a playing card piece and an Asian themed piece. They’ve been running around in my mind for some time, so there’s a big chance they will show up somewhere in new year.

Handiedan

Paul rolls some prints

Handiedan was nice enough to draw on some of the prints on special request!

Handiedan with PBG Director Garry Booth

Photos Courtesy of Alicia Friedman Photography

HANDIEDAN: HABBA HABBA

Phone Booth Gallery is pleased to present it’s third exhibition by Dutch artist Handiedan, an intricate opus of new mixed media work that expands the artist’s exploration of bodies, sensuality and iconography. The exhibition opens with a reception on November 6th from 7-10pm.  The all ages event is located at Phone Booth Gallery’s exhibition space, 2533 East Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90803.   After opening night, the work will be available through December 18, 2010 at the exhibition space, as well as www.phoneboothgallery.com.

Handiedan’s collage work, now even more layered and labyrinthine than in the past, feeds on the tainted history of pin-up girl posters, using torn, aged surfaces to subvert sexiness. At first glance, the images have a nostalgic feeling, fueled by their ornate details and seemingly straightforward compositions, but a closer look quickly reveals their brutality.

Handiedan’s work is neither clear-cut nor gentle. Limbs tangle with each other, eyes, or even whole swaths of figures’ faces, have been scratched out or blurred to the point of obscurity; texts and flourishes from antique ads become almost sinister as environments for these nearly dismembered figures; tattoos and hidden patterns etched into the images add to the density; and gilt frames emphasize an already over stimulating effect.

Like her equally obsessively predecessors Joseph Cornell and Hans Bellmer, Handiedan acts as a collector of the mundane and eccentric, telling visual stories that are familiar but far from linear. In this exhibition, her interest in Victorian erotica and burlesque meshes with Eastern influences—barely clad girls begin to resemble Hindu goddesses, with multiple limbs and towering headdresses. As divergent icons and eras merge, women become symbols of power as much as desire, yet it’s not clear which, or if either, is better.

Though her current work tends toward multi-faceted, multi-hued theatricality, it also embraces an element of noir-inspired starkness. For the first time, Handiedan has experimented with black and white imagery, and to haunting effect. In “Valkyries No. 2,” a cool white skull becomes a habitat for two grayish, ghostly bodies and, in “Thats a damn fine coat your wearing No. 2,” two gun-wielding women embrace each other with suaveness worthy of Bogart and Bacall.

Ultimately, Handiedan presents a new history by repurposing an old one. Posters, icons, typography, constructs, and decorations of earlier eras are toggled together in a way that scratches away at the past’s objectification while celebrating its glamour.

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Established in 2008, Phone Booth Gallery exhibits many talented and up and coming artists from around the globe including Handiedan, Ryan Milner, Garry Booth, Mike Knife, Bryan Schnelle, Kevin Bannister, and Kareem Rizk.
We are owned and operated out of Long Beach, CA. www.phoneboothgallery.com
For more information about this event, or future events, or to schedule an interview with any artists, please contact Garry Booth.

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