My name is Ian Williams and I live in Long Beach, CA.

Describe your work in one sentence.

My style and subject matter have been evolving for a while but I like to draw and paint and somehow form something that I feel is interesting.

Who/what are your biggest artistic influences?

There’s many but some of my favorites are Twombly, Sargent, Neo Rauch, and James Jean.

Describe your history with Phone Booth Gallery.

I had a piece in a group show a while back and I was also in a two-person show last October at Phone Booth Gallery with my good friend, Paul Alvarez.

My name is Andrew Turner, I produce artwork under the alias of Famous When Dead and I live in Staffordshire, England.

Describe your work in one sentence.

Fresh, vibrant and thought provoking, I hope.

Who/what are your biggest artistic influences?

My biggest influences in my artwork are my wife and 3 children.

Describe your history with Phone Booth Gallery.

I remember receiving an email from Mr.Frivolous telling me that Phone Booth Gallery were doing a David Lynch themed group show back in 2011. I managed to submit a piece just in time for the deadline and have been involved with group shows at the gallery ever since.

Whats Next?

Who knows, I’m just enjoying the ride

Alex G from breezy Torrance California.

Describe your work in one sentence.

Simple figure based narratives.

Who/what are your biggest artistic influences?

I’m always referring to Italian paintings from the 15th-18th century. They were really into the figure and always had them in these really exaggerated and unrealistic poses. I also like how deliberate their compositions look.

Describe your history with Phone Booth Gallery.

I heard about PBG when I was still in school and went to a couple of openings. I got secret intel about certain group show submission deadlines these past couple years and weaseled my way into 2 group shows.

Whats Next?

I’m not really good at designing and executing longterm plans. I tend to juggle 2-3 options in my head for a while and then pick one extremely last minute. I’d like to believe it’s spontaneity but… come on. I have a show coming up that I am frantically making work for. I’m not really sure when it’ll open… first week of June or something. After that I’ll just keep making stuff until someone gives me a solo show.

Arminda Arroyo. I’m from Los Angeles- on the eastside.

Describe your work in one sentence.

I am drawn toward depicting a kind of bittersweet sensation in my work.

Who/what are your biggest artistic influences?

Language, music, poetry, animation, stories and my own life experience.

Describe your history with Phone Booth Gallery.

Been checking out Phone Booth shows since last year to support friends. Finally had a chance to submit something for the anniversary show. It’s been a lot of fun.

Whats Next?

Continue to develop my ideas until I die, heh.

Ryan Milner, Long Beach, California.

Describe your work in one sentence.

Jedi mind tricks with paint and pencil.

Who/what are your biggest artistic influences?

Things that move and make me laugh. Art, pop culture, B movies and chinese food. Anyone I’ve shared a garage with.

Describe your history with Phone Booth Gallery.

I’ve had the pleasure of working with PBG from the humble beginnings, including having the privilege of their first solo exhibition in 2008. I’ve since been fortunate to participate in various group, 3-person and solo exhibitions up to the present time. I’ve also participated in their live paint auction events, having great fun while drinking up all the complimentary beverages…

Whats Next?

Back to the trenches! Getting to work on some fresh freelance opportunities, in addition to launching a new website. I’m also planning to release a brand new art print, while later this year, gearing up for an another group exhibition with Gallery 1988 in Hollywood, CA.

Catch the latest on my blog, www.ryanmilnerart.blogspot.com

Matt Hendon and I am from Moorpark, California.

Describe your work in one sentence.

Part collaged sketchbook and part flat geometric shapes sort of mixed together.

Who/what are your biggest artistic influences?

Neo Rauch, Karel Martens, Sonnenzimmer are a few of my favorites.

Describe your history with Phone Booth Gallery.

First met Garry back in 2009 and we put together a two person show with Joel Zuercher and myself called Bafoozoolla. Since then I’ve continued participating in group shows with the gallery.

Whats Next?

Continuing a personal project series called “Everything That Can Expire” that I am putting into a book at the moment.

My name is Catherine Yi and I am from Los Angeles, CA.

Describe your work in one sentence.

Figures in surreal and/or emotional context.

Who/what are your biggest artistic influences?

Harry Clarke, Classicism, and music.

Describe your history with Phone Booth Gallery.

I participated in the “Reimagined” show last August and “Caped Crusader” an art show curated by Garry Booth at Art Du Vin last July.

Whats Next?

I’ll be working on comics and hopefully enter more galleries!

Nick Comparone. New England.

Describe your work in one sentence.

Discover, destroy, rebuild, repeat.

Who/what are your biggest artistic influences?

I get motivated by a lot of the other amazing artists I show with, and different medias: music, film, literature. The portraits of Renoir and Sargent always push me in new directions.

Describe your history with Phone Booth Gallery.

This is my second time in the gallery but got hooked up originally with Garry for the Long Beach Zombie show. Very supportive and always showing people way more talented than myself!

Whats Next?

I have this sticky note on my computer of about 14 shows I’m doing this year and I can’t look at anything past one show at a time, but be looking out for many more giclee prints this year and hand painted multiples.

JoKa, reporting from Philadelphia

Describe your work in one sentence.

An amalgamation of lots of dots to trick your eye into seeing a pop exploitation of artistic tomfoolery.

Who/what are your biggest artistic influences?

People who do really awesome things with paint. (the name game hurts my brain)

Describe your history with Phone Booth Gallery. 

Have known of PBG since they were just an online shebang, and once the stars aligned was able to show with them a few years back in a Zombie Themed art show curated by Garry Booth and Jason Liwag. Since then have shown in some group shows and hopefully will continue to in the future.

Whats Next?

Shows shows and more shows, and a lot of dot dot dot dot…

Bryan Schnelle, Long Beach, CA

Describe your work in one sentence.

One Sentence?!!…wow. I’ve already goofed. How about something like “An honest attempt”?

Who/what are your biggest artistic influences?

Lately I’ve been really into Metal. Too many bands to mention here. But a lot of Doom, Drone and experimental stuff lately I guess, Slow and Heavy. Amazing music to work to.

Describe your history with Phone Booth Gallery.

I’ve been showing with Phone Booth almost since it’s inception I guess. I’ve been in 5 group shows, as well as had 2 solo shows, Untitled in 2009, and Fear & Consumption in 2011. Also, in 2012 Phone Booth Gallery hosted an experimental exhibition of my large scale paintings where we installed 10 paintings in a giant abandoned/vacant building, effectively titled Ten Paintings in a Decaying Office Space.

Whats Next?

Well, I’m currently working on 3 different bodies of work, including my most ambitious project to date, all of which I hope to complete before the years’s end. So keep checking back! I update my website often!

Additional pieces shown on the left:

I Couldn’t Imagine Somebody Like Osama Bin Laden Understanding The Joy of Hanukkah, 2012
Paper collage and enamel on canvas
72×72 inches

Stomping Your Face Til Your Face Says Nike Air, 2012
Paper collage and enamel on canvas
72×72 inches

My name is Nicole Goux and I’m from Thousand Oaks, California. I went to CSULB and currently live in Huntington Beach.

Describe your work in one sentence.

My work is about flow, balance, and pattern.

Who/what are your biggest artistic influences?

I feel like this is a very difficult question for me because over the years I’ve absorbed so much from so many different sources. I’m currently really into Victo Ngai and Ken Garduno.

Describe your history with Phone Booth Gallery.

I have participated in a few group shows at Phone Booth Gallery including Almost Blue and Reimagined.

Whats Next?

I am just coming off my BFA senior show at CSULB and will have a piece in the UAM student exhibition Insights in May.

Ruel Pascual, I was born in the Philippines.

Describe your work in one sentence.

To achieve beauty through narratives by painting figures and landscapes that portray simple life experiences.

Who/what are your biggest artistic influences?

My family is a big inspiration to my work. Artist like John Singer Sargent, Norman Rockwell, The Wyeths, Burton Silverman and Jeremy Lipking.

Describe your history with Phone Booth Gallery.

I was in the a Zombie themed art show curated by Garry Booth in 2011, and “Reimagined,” a group show in August 2012.

Whats Next?

Currently working on my second solo show “Fantastic Nostalgic” for Van Eaton Gallery. After that a nice vacation!

Aurora Lady, from Pasadena Ca.

Describe your work in one sentence.

I’m ticketing you with a stone cold pop citation.

Who/what are your biggest artistic influences?

Ewan McGregor’s face when he smiles, wilting Pasadena roses, women who use their pain/confusion to fuel curiosity, generosity, and knowledge.

Describe your history with Phone Booth Gallery.

I’ve loved being part of Phone Booth’s group shows– I’m always stoked to get Garry’s call for entries and then bust out some workfor a themed show.

Whats Next?

I’ve always got something up my sleeve, and it’s always being shared at www.auroralady.com.

Brandon Starr, Southern California

Describe your work in one sentence.

An often whimsical celebration of the things that preoccupy my mind on a daily basis.

Who/what are your biggest artistic influences?

I idealize the romance of past times when the world was younger, though I’m sure it was not as wonderful as I imagine it, nor as wonderful as the books that inspire me from that era depict it. The concept of a world still ripe with adventure, with lands yet to be fully explored, not yet shrunk with the advances of modern communication; an era still innocent enough to embrace the concepts of faith and science without demanding they be mutually exclusive, that is what inspires me most days. Some days I just want to draw.
Specific artistic influences include NC Wyeth, Alphonse Mucha, Walt Disney, Harper Goff, Marc Davis, Charles Russel, John Singer Sargent and many others.
Specific things that inspire me artistically include nature, science, good books, movies, my wife, my pets, Disneyland, and the Bible.

Describe your history with Phone Booth Gallery.

I had the honor of working alongside Garry Booth during a brief freelance job, and through that got to know him as well as some of the other artists that have shown at the Phone Booth Gallery. I’ve had the opportunity to attend a couple of the exhibitions at the gallery, but this is the first time I’ve had the honor of showing any of my work there.

Whats Next?

I have been drawing from the time I could hold a crayon, and imagine I will continue until my hands are one day too weak.

Rodrigo Luff. I come from a land down under. Where beer does flow and men chunder. Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thundeeer? You better run, you better take cover.

Describe your work in one sentence.

“The owls are not what they seem,” said the giant.

Who/what are your biggest artistic influences?

Too many to name: Alphonse Mucha, J.W Waterhouse, Rod Wong, Sam Wade, James Jean, Coro, Wes Burt, Greg Capullo, Sydney Long, Hindu architecture and the plants in my garden.

Describe your history with Phone Booth Gallery.

Phone Booth Gallery found my work in 2009 just after art school and not only gave me my first ever exhibited work in LA. I’ll always be grateful for having been given my first solo show there as well.

Whats Next?

More drawing, more traveling, more learning and hopefully more exhibitions.

Peter Adamyan. I grew up in the San Fernando Valley outside of Los Angeles, but I’m now based out of Oakland in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Describe your work in one sentence.

I think Beautiful Decay put it best when they posted my work on their blog, “It seems that Peter Adamyan’s shaped paintings are equal part CNN & Cartoon Network”

Who/what are your biggest artistic influences?

I’d say artistically i’m most inspired by baroque era painters and the original low brow artists. Britt Ehringers 2005 show Bagdhad Pizza Hut at the Robert Berman Gallery in Santa Monica was probably the most influential show on me when i was first trying to find my voice.

Describe your history with Phone Booth Gallery.

This is only my second time showing with Phone Booth Gallery but I’ve been a fan for a while now so i’m looking forward to hopefully showing more!

Whats next?

Big secret projects, shh.

Mark Michelon, Laguna Beach now, Mammoth Lakes, the Valley.

Describe your work in one sentence.

Drawing drawing and more mark making.

Who/what are your biggest artistic influences?

Egon Schiele, John Lincoln, Franz Kline, Julie Mehretu, Pontormo, Lebbeus Woods, and so many more.

Describe your history with Phone Booth Gallery.

Had Garry and his wife Arlene as students in classes.

Whats Next?

Racing Father Time with a long bucket list.

Cody Lusby also known as Mustachio from Long Beach CA

Describe your work in one sentence.

I am a contemporary mixed media artist that combines figurative painterly styles and conceptual ideals.

Who/what are your biggest artistic influences?

Jenny Saville, Robert Rauschenberg, Jerome Witkin and recently looking at a lot of Gerhard Richter.

Describe your history with Phone Booth Gallery.

This is my first show with Phone Both Gallery and hope there will be many more.

Whats Next?

My solo show is coming up and I have a few group show before that.

Saturday April 20th, “Never a Dull Moment” at the Cella Gallery 11135 Weddington St. Suite #112 North Hollywood, CA 91601 (7p.m. to 10p.m.)
Saturday May 4th, “Love, Sex, Unity, Respect” at the PAS and Hibbleton Galleries 223 W Santa Fe Ave Fullerton, CA 92832 (6p.m. to 11p.m.)
*My Solo Show*-Saturday May 11th, “Goodbye Butterfly” at Design Matters 11527 West Pico Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90064 (7p.m. to 11p.m)

My name is Jennie Cotterill, I’m from Michigan, and studied Illustration at CSULB. I live and work in Orange County.

Describe your work in one sentence.

Cartoon realism blending 2 and 3D

Who/what are your biggest artistic influences?

My casual influences are flea markets, mid-century cartoons, and reliquaries. My proper noun influences are The Regionalist painters, Claes Oldenburg, and Liz McGrath.

Describe your history with Phone Booth Gallery.

I went to school with Garry Booth and his wife Arlene, c0-curated an all girl show when PBG was still “roaming” and a solo show a couple years ago.

Whats Next?

I’ll be part of Boxes of Death (a touring group show) this summer and I’ve got a solo show at F+ this October.

Whats your name and where are you from?

Alice Chiang, Taiwan

Describe your work in one sentence.

It’s about my memories of Banciao District, Taipei City where I spent four years living there.

Who/what are your biggest artistic influences?

Matisse, Paul Klee, many Japanese artists/illustrators (Ryoji Arai, Tatsuro Kiuchi, Takagi Naoko…)

Describe your history with Phone Booth Gallery.

My work had been exhibited in Art Du Vin last year, which was curated by Garry Booth. This is my first time to exhibit my works in Phone Booth Gallery, I’m very glad.

Whats Next?

I’m going to have my MFA illustration show this November or December. The Banciao series illustrations exhibited in Phone Booth Gallery now are actually part of my MFA show work. So, I still need to draw as much as I can this year.

Contact: Garry Booth
Email: phoneboothgallery@gmail.com

GROUP EXHIBITION: 5 YEAR ANNIVERSARY

Phone Booth Gallery is proud to present “5 Year Anniversary” an open themed group exhibition featuring regional and international artists.  Presenting some fresh new faces, as well as a stellar lineup selected from Phone Booth Gallery’s stable, this ambitious exhibition surveys the gallery’s past, present, and future. The exhibition opens with a reception on Saturday, April 13th, from 7-10pm. This all-ages event will be held at Phone Booth Gallery’s exhibition space, 2533 East Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90803. Many artists in attendance. “5 Year Anniversary” remains on view through May 22nd, at both at the gallery and at www.phoneboothgallery.com.

Participating Artists Include:

Alan James Villanueva
Alex Gardner
Alice Chiang
Arminda Arroyo
Aurora Lady
Brandon Starr
Bryan Schnelle
Catherine Yi
Cody M Lusby
David Lee Owen
David Soukup
Desiree Fessler
Famous When Dead
Handiedan
Ian Williams
James Brooks
Jason Liwag
Jennie Cotterill
Joel Zuercher
John P Wales
JoKa
Lola Dupre
Mark Michelon
Matt Hendon
Mr. Frivolous
Nancy Chiu
Nick Comparone
Nick Marquez
Nicole Goux
Paul Alvarez III
Peter Adamyan
Robert Hardgrave
Robert Pokorny
Rod Luff
Ruel Pascual
Ryan Milner

RSVP HERE

Kevin Tong also did a great blog post about it on his own blog here:

http://tragicsunshine.com/newsletter/travelevents/march-2013-schedule-of-live-events/

Take a look at a couple photos of his booth from his last WonderCon.

If you didn’t get a chance to see the work opening night, the exhibition is on view through April 3rd during regular gallery hours of Thurs-Sun 12-5pm and on phoneboothgallery.com.

These were officially released in person to attendees of Flatstock last weekend in Austin, TX.  A handful of remaining copies will be made available through Phone Booth Gallery.

Like “These Moments Never Stay,” we will be raffling off the original drawing by Kevin Tong to one lucky person that purchases the print either online or in person.  We will be using a random number generator and contacting the winner via email.

Official online release date is Monday March 25th at Noon PST.

This book will only be printed once, so once their gone, their gone.

The edition size was 100 for the uncut, and 50 for the cut versions.  The cut versions were only available in a set of Mystery Packs we put together that included three random drawings.  They were a big hit.

We decided to raffle off the 5 original drawings that Tong did that make up the print to a randomly selected person that purchased the print.  We chose the name with a random number generator, and have contacted the winner!  Congratulations to Brian Wylie, of Woodland Hills, CA!

We will do the same with another upcoming print released for the exhibition titled “Exoskeleton.”

We covered the walls with sheet metal so we could display hundreds of unframed drawings with magnets.  Included in the exhibit were additional framed drawings, an installation of Kevin’s actual drawing table with materials and sketchbooks, screen prints, and a limited run of hardcover books published on the occasion of the exhibition.

A big thank you to everyone that made it out to the opening reception.  If you didn’t get a chance to see the work opening night, the exhibition is on view through April 3rd during regular gallery hours of Thurs-Sun 12-5pm and on phoneboothgallery.com.

Contact: Garry Booth
Email: phoneboothgallery@gmail.com

KEVIN TONG: SIGHTS UNSEEN

Phone Booth Gallery is proud to present “Sights Unseen” a new selection of never before seen work by Los Angeles based artist Kevin Tong.  Spanning more than 5 years, this ambitious exhibition pulls out all the stops to present hundreds of pieces of varying size, shape, and color. The exhibition opens with a reception on Saturday, March 9, from 7-10pm. This all-ages event will be held at Phone Booth Gallery’s exhibition space, 2533 East Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90803. Artist in attendance. “Sights Unseen” remains on view through April 3rd, at both at the gallery and at www.phoneboothgallery.com.

Kevin Tong is primarily known for his screen printed art editions, though his prolific career stretches a wide range of commercial illustration from the toy industry to Playboy magazine.  He has created band posters for some of his favorite music, including The Black Keys, Beck, and Bon Iver and created licensed imagery for movies and television like Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Lost, and Transformers.

“Sights Unseen” will be Kevin Tong’s second solo exhibition with Phone Booth Gallery, and will be his most ambitious fine art venture to date.  The space will be transformed to house Tong’s enormous concept, which will best showcase his personal and professional career.  Opening night of the exhibition will be a thrilling surprise to attendees, as they will experience a first-hand look into the mind of the artist, as well as a few additional surprises.

RSVP HERE

“Owl Song” is Rod’s first giclee release of 2013, and is available exclusively through Phone Booth Gallery.

Check out the video below:

And some additional closeup photos:

“Fantasmagorik Gun” is the first image of the series translated to screen print, available exclusively through Phone Booth Gallery.

Heres a little video we put together:

…and here are some additional closeup photos:

Nick Marquez

David Owen

Kevin Bannister

Jennifer Messock

Mariya Suzuki

Jennie Cotterill

Ryan Milner

Contact: Garry Booth
Email: phoneboothgallery@gmail.com

DAVE RANKIN: SEA, SNAKES, AND SPIKES + LIVE PAINTING

Phone Booth Gallery is proud to present “Sea, Snakes, and Spikes,” a solo exhibition of new work by Dave Rankin, in conjunction with a live painting event featuring artists David Owen, Jennie Cotterill, Jenny Messock, Kevin Bannister, Mariya Suzuki, Nick Marquez, and Ryan Milner. The event and exhibition open with a reception on Saturday, November 10th, from 5-10pm. This all-ages event will be held at Phone Booth Gallery’s exhibition space, 2533 East Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90803. “Sea, Snakes, and Spikes” will remain on view through December 4th at the gallery and online at www.phoneboothgallery.com.

RSVP HERE

Contact: Garry Booth
Email: phoneboothgallery@gmail.com

PAUL ALVAREZ III & IAN WILLIAMS: WRECKED AND RAVAGED

Phone Booth Gallery is proud to present “Wrecked and Ravaged,” a two-person exhibition of new work by Paul Alvarez III and Ian Williams, two emerging artists with bold graphical styles. Alvarez III and Williams, who take a dynamic, sometimes dark approach to fantasy and technology, will be showing work that merges the mythic with the natural. The exhibition opens with a reception on Saturday, September 29, from 7-10pm. This all-ages event will be held at Phone Booth Gallery’s exhibition space, 2533 East Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90803. “Wrecked and Ravaged” remains on view through October 30, at both at the gallery and at www.phoneboothgallery.com.

Paul Alvarez III’s series of Diver drawings takes the themes of deep-sea dives and shipwrecks to a murky, mysterious place, where waves turn into monsters and scales and tentacles grow out of diving gear. In one piece, ocean water rises up over a desert landscape and an ill-fated ship sinks down into a sea that looks like sand. A series of paintings depicts old-fashioned diving headgear so ungainly and otherworldly it begins to resemble sea creatures. Yet Alvarez uses old-fashioned, illustrative mark-making – pointillism and hatch marks like in graphics from nineteenth century weeklies – and leaves plenty of pure, still space. Because of this stillness, his images have a surprisingly calming effect and feel more meditative than catastrophic.

Ian Williams’ drawings riff on images and themes that appear in ancient fables or creation myths. Though done in a style reminiscent of the nature drawings made by explorers and pioneers, his ink and acrylic renderings piece together something altogether different: a strange, sensuous post-modern mythology. A half-fox, half-woman has the feathers and claws of an eagle sticking out of her mouth in one drawing. In another, a man looks like a Native American chief might have if captured in profile in a nineteenth century daguerreotype, wears a fantastic headdress with antlers, fox skulls and foliage growing out of it. Behind him, the desert rock formations look like skyscrapers in a cityscape.

Together, Williams and Alvarez’s work, made in the 21st century but informed by past legends and lore, invites contemplation more than anything else. The fantastic scenarios they create are just starting points. Viewers are invited to let their minds ease into, wander through and attempt to finish the stories they’ve set up.

RSVP HERE.

Contact: Garry Booth
Email: phoneboothgallery@gmail.com

GROUP EXHIBITION: REIMAGINED

Phone Booth Gallery is pleased to present “Reimagined,” an exhibition of new works that re-interpret old masterpieces. Each artist in the show chose a historical artwork to respond to – maybe “Cyclops” by French symbolist Odilon Redon, or paper cutouts by tale-spinner Hans Christian Andersen. The results range from whimsical to startling, and as contemporary artists’ toy with its forms, the authority of history becomes less and less weighty. The exhibition opens with a reception on August 4th, 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. “Reimagined” will remain on view through September 18th, both at the exhibition space and on www.phoneboothgallery.com.

“The burden of history” is a millstone for some artists. How do you add to a lineage that includes Pablo Picasso, Roy Lichtenstein or Willem de Kooning? How do you take inspiration from the historical artists who have informed your taste, even your worldview, while still saying something new?=

Some artists in “Reimagined” take a subtle approach to masterworks. In Sarai Villalobos’ rendition of Winslow Homer’s 1873 painting “The Farmyard,” the little girl Homer once painted wearing boots with a serene smile on her face, now wears untied sneakers and scowls. The boy beside her wears a baseball cap instead of a straw one. Ruel Pascual has combined the work of two realists – a blue chair in the style of tight-edged realist John Register sits in a field in the softer style of the Andrew Wyeth – to make a scene all his own. Nick Comparone redoes Renoir’s 1880 portrait of serene redheaded girl, Irene Cahen d’ Anvers, in spray paint, a medium tightly tied to urban street art.

Other artists are more overt. Isaac Bidwell turns the woman from Gustav Klimt’s iconic, particularly abstract 1909 portrait, “Judith,” into a ghoulish figure with ram’s ears and skeletal hands. Peter Adamyan’s “A Complete Breakfast” combines Goya’s 1808 painting “The Third of May,” which depicts a scene from the Spanish resistance to Napoleon’s forces, and Jacques Louise David’s “Napoleon Crossing the Alps” with a cereal logo. Instead of a firing squad, Adamyan has painted sugary bits of cereal with rifles. The effect is humorous, but also ominous. Are colorful, kid-friendly cereal ads evidence of a commercialism that’s a bigger threat than Napoleon ever was? It’s not an easy question.

Can recasting the past in the present can tell us something about our time? “Reimagined,” even when it’s homages are tongue-in-cheek, tries to find the answer.

Exhibiting artists include: Adam Jackson, Catherine Yi, Dave Perillo, David Lee Owen, Famous When Dead, Isaac Bidwell, Joel Zuercher, Lola Dupre, M C Michelon, Matt Hendon, Natalie Rosen, Nick Comparone, Nicole Goux, Peter Admyan, Ruel Pascual, Sarai Villalobos, {ths} and more!

RSVP HERE.

This is what the day will look like, and I hope we can all stick to these simple guidelines to make things simple, and headache free. No camping out. Some of you have mentioned this, and I doubt the Long Beach Police Department will tolerate it, so I wouldn’t try. Also, no lines before noon. We’ll be around before then, and we’ll tell you to leave if you are there before noon.

Around 3 o’clock we’ll come out and give everyone a number. The gallery isn’t set up well for a long line, so we think this is a good way to play it to avoid any chaotic line cutting, throwing elbows, etc.

There will be no signing of previous prints during the exhibition. From 6:00-7:00 will be a print signing hour in the gallery. This will be the only time anyone can have prints signed by the artists, so make use of the time. Please limit signing to 5 prints total (not per artist), if you have more than that, choose wisely. Signing will be first come first serve, so please be in and out so everyone can get a turn. Starting at 7:00 we will unveil all the work, prints and originals, at one time, and begin taking numbers for sales. No print sales will be made before 7:00pm. We’ll have a few Ipads going and a couple people rolling prints, so we are hoping in conjunction with the number system, the process will be somewhat smooth.

Thanks for the cooperation, and see you all on Saturday!

Contact: Garry Booth
Email: phoneboothgallery@gmail.com

KEN TAYLOR, MARTIN ANSIN, RICH KELLY: A DISTANT WINTER

Phone Booth Gallery is proud to present “A Distant Winter,” a three-person exhibition of work by Ken Taylor, Martin Ansin and Rich Kelly, each of whom will contribute a series of limited edition prints, and original paintings. The opening reception is scheduled for Saturday, June 23rd from 7-10pm. 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. The exhibition will remain on view through July 24, 2012, at both the exhibition space and on www.phoneboothgallery.com.

“A Distant Winter” opens in the heat of summer, the season that makes SoCal feel murkiest and most stifling. But the exhibition conjures up images of frigid terrains, risk-taking and adventure. Melbourne-based artist Ken Taylor, a prolific illustrator and designer, makes exquisitely detailed, bold fantasy and merges his interest in the otherworldly with his interest in nature. Flora and fauna appear in his renderings of stoic heroines, who look like mythic beings from a fantastic future.

Martin Ansin’s smart graphics, which have recently appeared in Rolling Stone, The New Yorker and elsewhere, collapse whole stories into single, simple and striking scenes. For this show, he muses about Alaskan wilderness through a triptych in which red billowing flags and futuristic vehicles interrupt an expanse of wintery white ground. Figures in heavy red and white uniforms prepare to launch their sleek machines.

Rich Kelly, whose highly stylized, comic comments on pop culture often appear in posters for bands like Flight of the Concords or the Hold Steady, considers iconic adventurers, particularly Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. The two men were the first to set foot conclusively on the peak of Mount Everest. Despite constant public debate over which of the two was really first to the top and a few public disagreements over what actually happened in the last leg of the climb, Hillary and Norgay remained friends for life.

Thus, “A Distant Winter” weaves together multiple ideas of distance, closeness and coldness. Factual circumstances coexist with imaginary ones and the careful artistry of Taylor, Ansin and Kelly is as cool as any expanses of white snow could ever be.

RSVP HERE.

View the FULL EXHIBITION HERE

“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.

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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.

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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.