The team at Arrested Motion have curated their second show, and it is set to open in LA next month. City of Fire opens June 5th at Stephen Webster. The show includes work by Ron English, Kid Zoom, Pedro Matos, Nick Walker, Rostarr, Jeff Soto, Judith Supine, TrustoCorp and others. For more info about the show, email exhibitions [at] arrestedmotion (dot) com.
Photo courtesy of Arrested Motion
This week I’ve got a rather major correction to make. A few days ago, I wrote about a piece by Jeice2 where it looked like he went over a bunch of tags with with a poster. Turns out, the poster was just taped on for the purpose of a photograph, and so the graffiti was not covered.
Anyway, here’s what I’ve been looking at this week:
Photo by Mike Pearce
Okay this is a little bit outside of Vandalog’s usual coverage, but the fantastic street photographer and filmmaker Cheryl Dunn has a show opening in London this month at a brand new gallery run by Pedro Matos called Ivory & Black. Dunn’s work was included in the Art in the Streets show at MOCA in LA last year and also in the classic documentary Beautiful Losers. Dunn’s show, Sometimes the Answer, will open on March 23rd from 6-9pm and run through April 21st. Work for the show will span Dunn’s 30-year catalog of images and there will be a book published to accompany the show.
Ivory & Black promises to be an important addition to London’s art scene. They are working with Andrew Schoultz, Cleon Peterson, Cheryl Dunn, Deanna Templeton, Ed Templeton, Geoff McFetridge, James Jean, Pedro Matos, Richard Colman, Ryan Travis Christian, Skullphone and Wes Lang.
Photo by Cheryl Dunn courtesy of Ivory & Black
The work that I’ve seen from this show has got to be Pedro Matos‘ best yet. On Saturday, Pedro’s solo show opens at Shooting Gallery in San Fransisco (7-11pm). The paintings for Ephemera tick a lot boxes for me: The portraits are interesting and well painted, Pedro has pulled off the faux-décollage style that is so difficult to do well and there’s of an influence from Specter‘s sign and fabric paintings. I’m very jealous of all of you in San Fransisco who will be able to check out Ephemera in person (and if you miss the opening, it runs through September 24th), but for the rest of us, here’s a taste:
Photos courtesy of Pedro Matos
Pedro Matos has a solo show opening on June 4th at the Montana Shop and Gallery in Lisbon. Should be interesting. Pedro’s piece for Art Stars really impressed me, so I can’t wait to see what he’s painted for this show.
The press release:
Montana Shop&Gallery Lisboa is proud to present Reality Show, a solo exhibition of new works by the Portuguese young artist Pedro Matos. The exhibition will feature a new series of oil, acrylic and aerosol paintings on canvas, as well as two site-specific gallery installations thought to make the connection between Pedro’s work both on the street and gallery.
Pedro has been developing a body of work focusing on his concerns about people and their values, about society and the human condition. Although aesthetically influenced by a mix of the old masters, the religious subject matter have been replaced by the portrayal of those who are downtrodden, unnoticed, unappreciated and forgotten. His work also shows a post-graffiti sense of beauty found in the decaying and abandoned surfaces and places. This same sense of beauty and aesthetics is also found in the subjects that Pedro chooses to portray.
Pedro started painting at the age of 16 (2006) completely self-thaught and began by showing his work in small local venues. Simultaneously, Pedro pasted up original charcoal drawings, first in the streets of Lisbon and then around Europe.
Pedro Matos is an artist from Lisbon Portugal, and this is a piece he did recently in Santarem, Portugal. I’m really enjoying how he has brought together all these different styles into one piece without coming across as another artist pandering to the street art fad.
