Chicana/Gypsy/Italiano, Los Angeles, under the radar, self-taught, artistic graf phenom, MROC, a.k.a. MELO, is unstoppable.  Precisely because, there is no destination.  Infinite is the mindset and wicked skillz is the stilo.  The work speaks for itself in a familiar language of words, colors and symbols that always touches on the transcendental within human experience.

(Image: Motus Apperendi, 2008 by MROC)

A magical reality emerges from MROC’s work that suggest a mystical flow modified through the lens of an East Los Angeles lifestyle full of beauty, pain, music, art, and adventure. Color sent forth from the universe manifests in each illustration through animated forms grounded in lived experience - true to the game with a twist.  How does one function as a vessel for the divine, a medium for energy, in a world built on static structures, labels and categorizations?  Shake it up. Dance. And, try to survive the impact of various collisions with so called reality.

(Image: Karma Loop: What Goes Around Comes Around, 2008 by MROC)

Not only does MROC, a.k.a. MELO, have the gift of imagination, she has the gift to manifest.  To many, where her mind, body and spirit travels probably seems quite foreign. But, to those who walk a fine line between formlessness and form, where the former is home and the latter is unchartered territory, MROC’s artistry captures a multidimensional vibration in 2D.  Representin’ for life lived outside the box, and better for it, her work redefines the matrix and gives anyone who views it a chance to fly with angels (fallen or otherwise), if only for a moment.

(Image: Angel Dust, 2008 by MROC)

MROC currently lives and works in Tucson, Arizona, where she specializes in putting her custom touch on multiple mediums including: clothing, leather, accessories, indoor and outdoor-public/private murals, tattoos, and more…To view more work visit myspace.com/mrocla.

(Above left to right: The World Is Mine, custom t-shirt by MROC. MROC with more custom t-shirts.)

(Image: Wrapping Diary, video still, Anna Campbell, 2007.)

Anna Campbell has a fascination with romanticizing failure and idolizing drive for its own sake. But, as we all know, romanticization has a shadow side. For Anna, that shadow rests in the space of marginalized people for whom failure is not a luxury. In an effort to challenge her fascination, Anna has used boxing as a metaphor for an ongoing series of mixed media/installation work entitled Making Contact.   To this end, she trained for one month at the all-female (trans-friendly) Toronto Newsgirls boxing gym where she created video work on-site.  The project highlights Anna’s own internal emotional/mental dialogue while simultaneously creating a third-eye perspective (critical distance). The artist’s exploration of boxing, failure and drive speaks from the vantage point of a politicization of gender and power. However, when considered from the perspective of consciousness expansion, the works potential lies in its multifaceted reflection on the use of mind (a conscious substratum or factor in the universe) - mental chatter vs. meditation, critical understanding vs. unitive understanding.  Considering this, Anna’s videos Chase, Wrapping Diary and Slow, speak to a time/space continuum that includes the dialogical nature (with self and other) of boxing as well as the meditative quality of training.   Watch video…

Anna Campbell’s installation, Getting Strong Now, from the Making Contact project, will be on view at the Second Bedroom Project Space in Chicago, from November 1st - 30th, 2008.  Anna Currently lives and works in Grand Rapids, Michigan and is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art & Design at Grand Valley State University.

What if Andy Warhol was Latin? This is the question that M. Tony Peralta is bringing to the canvas/t-shirt matrix for his, Andrés Warhol-What if Andy Warhol was Latin?, project - out for viewing pleasure in 2009. Known for screen prints, paintings, illustration, design and assorted urban gear, the Tony Peralta aesthetic speaks on iconic individuals and ideas of a politicized pop culture populated by people-of-color.

Visit The Peralta Project…

Buy the GOYA CAN T-shirt…

At first glance, 2D technological intangibility is what appears to be captured in the latest work of, Yale University M.F.A. candidate, Jaret Vadera.  A pixelated abstraction that the viewer can identify with via the technological zeitegist of the moment.  Or perhaps an alternate new media rendering of a timeless amoeba-like embryonic form suggesting the infiniteness of birth/creation.

(Image: Jaret Vadera, untitled, 2008, digital print from ink on mylar paintings merged with digital video stills.)

Vadera’s backlit digital prints comprised of ink on mylar paintings merged with digital video stills (above and below) represent the artist’s exploration of, “…the space where biology, technology and fiction intersect and how we ‘make sense’ of fragmented or ambiguous data.”  The works 2D form captures a moment in psycho-physical organization that highlights the process of meaning/value creation in the mind of technology, the mind of the individual and thus, the mind of the collective. The implied stoppage of time that reverberates from Vadera’s images causes a physical energetic sensation while viewing the work.  The question of how the process of data sense-making happens then moves from abstraction into the real world as the viewer becomes aware of his/her own subjective power in making reality. At this point, the viewer takes hold of movement and becomes a collaborator in the creative process through the imagination of where the image might complete itself beyond abstraction.

(Image: Jaret Vadera, untitled, 2008, digital print from ink on mylar paintings merged with digital video stills.)

In the artist’s digital images of screen scaptures of glitches in Skype conversations (below) the subjectivity of the human experience is highlighted even more.  The pixelated feel of the work creates a unique juxtaposition between human feeling and technological form. Which in turn, isolates the human experience at a higher octave stimulating deeper inquiry into the agency of “how”.  Vadera’s mission of inquiry, “…to draw parallels between neuronal/biological systems of processing information and technological ones…” uses Skype as a point of entry, the artist’s hand as a point of departure and the viewer as a point of completion.  Thereby re-imagining the cycle of re-birth, life and death for a technological age.

(Image: Jaret Vadera, untitled, 2008, digital print from Skype digital captures.)

Contact Jaret Vadera.

In the summer of  2007, tired of curators with puppet strings on their backs, a host of Los Angeles based artists decided to take a hippy approach to the white cube side of artist life. Their brainchild - an artist run space known as Monte Vista located in Highland Park, an area just a few subway stops (or a quick cruise on the 110 freeway) from downtown Los Angeles. The space, subletted from Los Angeles based contemporary artist Sam Durant, houses 3 artist studios and one exhibition space built out by 2 of the founding artists, Noah Peffer and Frank Chang. Rent is split amongst studio renters and the collective, while time is divided into 5 hour shifts to cover the spaces weekend hours of operation.

With general aims to bring a platform for art and conversation to Los Angeles that sidesteps the influence of the commercial market, Monte Vista has successfully completed a year’s worth of exhibitions, talks and events that support so called “non-traditional” sources and dialogues.  Motivated by a collective urge for self-determination, the space’s democratic nature serves as a balance to the moodiness of art market trends and the confines of “the game.”

Current collective members include: Noah Peffer, Candice Lin, Chris Bassett, Frank Chang, Shizu Saldamando, Ryan Taber, Jeff Cain, Nikki Pressley, and Jay Lizo.