UGLAR: L.A.’s Best Kept Secret?

PUSH x UGLAR x ZES for L.A. Freewalls

If that is the case, they aren’t hiding very well these days.

I suppose you could blame TNT’s popular TV cop drama Southland for some of that. The group’s “Painting the Painters” mural was prominently featured in a recent episode titled, oddly enough, “Risk.” In addition, UGLAR member Evan Skrederstu was commissioned by The Wende Museum (the same institution that commissioned RETNA, D*face, and Herakut to paint portions of its Berlin Wall) for the L.A. Chamber Orchestra’s “Play Me, I’m Yours” Project to paint a piano to stand across from LACMA, next to the wall segments.

The group has also completed two murals with ZES (including one in collaboration with PUSH for L.A. Freewalls), and features in the upcoming La La Gallery show.

The word is out, it seems. So who are they?

UGLAR stands for Unified Group of Los Angeles Residents and consists of five members: Evan Skredertsu, Christopher D. Brand, Steve Martinez, Espi, and Jose A. Lopez. They recently added ‘works’ to their name in honor of the great public works projects that were once commonplace in Los Angeles during the era of Rivera and Siqueiros. Originally, however, the group took their acronym from the Ulysses Guide to the L.A. River when they created a book celebrating the river and its inhabitants in 2008. This culminated in a show at the Pasadena Museum of California Art that featured Chaz Bojorquez and others. Perhaps what is most remarkable about that show is that the group fabricated and installed the entire exhibition by hand and brought the feel of the concrete L.A. riverbed indoors by obliterating the white gallery walls.

And yet, just a glimpse of their work shows it to be incredibly diverse. Martinez paints, photographs, and is the only member to use Photoshop in conceiving his pieces. Lopez graduated from graffiti lettering to abstraction years ago, even taking to etching some recent works on copper. Espi adds a spiritual element to the group it seems, but what else would one expect from the Art Director of the Los Angeles Friends of Tibet?

As a group, they do far more than walls. They are kings of scale, from the huge to the tiny, from murals to bugs. Yes, bugs. The story goes that Skrederstu and Brand were painting in the L.A. River a decade ago and accidentally sprayed a cricket blue. What grew out of that happenstance is amazing to see. Yet, what I find so fascinating is they do more than simply paint, and they don’t work exclusively with aerosol. Brand also sculpts, and is capable of some incredibly lifelike pieces similar to those of Ron Mueck. By way of example, check out the severed head below.

At a time when many are asking if street art can transition indoors (obviously the techniques can, but how well, and to what effect?), it is fascinating to watch contemporary street artists adapt to new spaces after having few limits. I can’t help but wonder which artists will transcend such labels by producing regardless of venue, and which will be limited in new environs. Considering the breadth of UGLAR’s skills and polish, it seems reasonable to conclude that they have all the potential necessary to effectively make that leap. Perhaps most importantly, they don’t seem satisfied to work exclusively on the street, but anywhere their creativity takes them.

UGLAR's "Painting the Painters" on Southland (© TNT)
"Old Blue Eyes" by Evan Skrederstu (Piano Painting Process)
"Abstract Warfare I" by Skrederstu, Brand, Lopez, and ZES
"Starting of a New Metropolis 1" by Jose A. Lopez, Etched on Copper
"Namakubi 2" by Christopher D. Brand
"Untitled (WWII)" by Evan Skrederstu

All photos courtesy of UGLARworks. For more photos click here

Herakut Hits “The Wall Along Wilshire”

Herakut, "Good Can Come From Bad Can Come From Good" (Complete)

The Wende Museum has been doing some very interesting things lately, including the creation of an outdoor gallery wall (complete with framed work) on Main Street in Downtown Los Angeles, but its current project on Wilshire looks to be the most intriguing yet.

Now standing directly across the street from LACMA are several weathered sections of the concrete Berlin Wall. “The Wall Along Wilshire” is part of “The Wall Project,” the museum’s ongoing cultural history program.

For the front of the wall, the artists paired with Thierry Noir (one of the first artists to paint the Wall in 1984) were Kent Twitchell, Farrah Karapetian, and Marie Astrid Gonzalez. Yet, the museum also saw fit to invite several street artists to paint the back of the sectionals, asking Herakut, RETNA, and D*face to do the honors. It is expected that the other street artists will start Thursday or Friday evening, but Herakut have already completed their work.

I arrived last night when they had just finishing painting. One half of Herakut, Jasmin Siddiqui (Hera) explained that the Wall holds a very special significance for Herakut, not just because they are from Germany, but because she grew up in the West, while her partner, Falk Lehmann (Akut), grew up in the East.

“It’s amazing how small it looks now,” Jasmin said as she surveyed their work, “and it’s hard to imagine it kept so many people apart.”

Their piece on the left-most sectional, “Good Can Come From Bad Comes From Good,” was informed by the transformative circularity of history, and features two pregnant women crouched together in a yin-yang position. Their piece on the right-most sectional, “We Are All Just Kids, Right?” depicts a thin schoolboy tapering into a teddy-bear-like black and green shadow. Both showcase the dark, illustrative quality of their work, and are all the more poignant given the history of the material they are painted on.

“The Wall Along Wilshire” will be in front of 5900 Wilshire until November 13, 2011, where a private reception will be held with the artists from 1 to 4 p.m. After that, the sectionals of the Wall will shift to The Wende Museum’s permanent collection at 5741 Buckingham Parkway, Suite E, Culver City, CA 90230.

Herakut, "Good Can Come From Bad Can Come From Good" (Yang, Phase 1)
Herakut, "Good Can Come From Bad Can Come From Good" (Yang, Complete)
Herakut, "Good Can Come From Bad Can Come From Good" (Yin, Phase 1)
Herakut, "Good Can Come From Bad Can Come From Good" (Yin, Complete)
Herakut, "We Are All Just Kids, Right?" (Boy)
Herakut, "We Are All Just Kids, Right?" (Shadow)

Photos by Ryan Gattis