26

My birthday ended more than an hour ago

The end of summer entails two weekends in Los Angeles, and by great coincidence, my birthday is wedged between both of my trips. Hell yes, lucky me.
 

First weekend through pictures.

Friday:

Disneyland

Night walk, where I made contact.

This is me disappointed after my hair took a bath in my ice cream cone.

Peeping on Jessica Rabbit in Toon Town.

This where I learned how to aim a gun. Thanks to my sweetheart, I can shoot to kill.

Saturday:

MADE IN LA (Hammer)
Silver Lake

My medusa strands are caused by LA weather, which I'm fine. I prefer messy hair than being  involuntarily baked in the desert. Anyway, it took a few months until I finally got my ass to the LA Biennial. It was alright.. There were works that I would expect to see, and there were works that were actually pretty good. It's like this and that, good and bad.

Benton needing coffee.

Selected finds from Secret Headquarters. *jodorowsky heaven*

So this is what it looks like when Jodorowsky and Moebius have babies
(An excerpt in The Incal)

 Sunday:
Melrose Flea Market

Melrose

Flea Market find of the day.
Unfortunately I didn't have the money to spare. but this painting is just the right amount of everything.

Rich people problems..

Christine Melton

Artist Bio/ Statement

Artist Bio

Eri King was born in Kagoshima, Japan in 1986 and currently lives and works in Las Vegas, Nevada. In 2011, she received a Bachelor in Fine Arts in Studio Practice from University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She currently owns and curates 5th Wall Gallery & Project Space located in downtown Las Vegas inside the Emergency Arts. She has participated in group exhibitions at CAC’s Off The Strip: New Genres Festival (2010), CAC Eastside Projects Window Gallery (2010), Donna Beam Gallery (2011), Marjorie Barrick Museum (2011), MCQ Fine Art Gallery (2011), and has assisted performance artists such as MK Guth and Mai Ueda in association with NY Art Production Funds at P3 Studio, Las Vegas (2012). She recently received her first solo exhibition with Clark County Visual Arts at Winchester Gallery, Las Vegas and will be exhibiting in January 2013.

Artist Statement:

 Eri King investigates consumer identity in the backdrop of America’s contemporary social landscape. She creates site specific installations comprised of donated consumer products to create large-scale sculptures.  She utilizes discarded everyday items such as used clothing and damaged technological objects as a way to provide a closer examination about how these materials function in our daily lives. The intensive nature of her process in which she operates under a strict system of manual labor is a way to recycle the efforts of labor put into the manufactured goods being wasted. The towering stature of the pieces and great quantity of the materials being utilized functions as a way to confront the viewer in order to create a discourse about labor, materialism, and abundance of the things our society consumes and wastes every day and as well as to challenge the viewers to exercise introspection about their own roles in modern society.

eriking.net 

i'm a weirdo

Oft Wedding

Progress

 Week 1: boys over flowers

intro to week 2: city hunter

American Dream?

Hmmmmm.. It's transforming into something else. What to name it?

Studio Pic of the Day: Process

This is what keeps me up at night.

My mother

she is beautiful

weirdo

me at the very moment, at another place in time
me right now, but a long time ago
me in the present, from way before today

dusty tears in april

Around the house

closest I felt to freedom

Enough time has passed where I've lost all the details, and all I'm left with is the feeling from it all. Even that tends to fade, but this memory lets me time travel to a place in my mind.

For she lacks feeling

Digital Sketch of an idea inspired by Ingrid.
It wasn't until I was hanging out with Ingrid, when I realize Hello Kitty lacked expression. I use to draw characters for Ingrid, so she can apply color or design to her favorite cartoons. Her favorite character of all was Hello Kitty. Every instance I drew Hello Kitty for her, she would draw a  shape underneath her nose that represented a smile, and sometimes, a frown. ISometimes it was decorous with form and color, and sometimes it would be a line, but enough to give Hello Kitty a personality of her own, rather than a lifeless face.  By instinct, she wasn't comfortable with her cherished cat lacking a mouth. Anyway, that's where the idea derived, but this is actually about my sister.

Ugly Lisa

Pastel studies of Ugly Lisa.
When I went to Paris this past Spring, I missed my opportunity to see Mona Lisa in person. The Louvre closed an hour earlier than usual, and when I got there, they made no exceptions for me or anyone else. The entire day had been a series of disappointing failures; first, my camera broke at the Eiffel tower, then my wallet with my credit card, 100 Euros, and all my memory cards with photographs of my trip so far had vanished, and then I ran to the Louvre with great urgency only for them to close their doors on my face. I was devastated, then I remembered I was in Paris, so it didn't last as long as it would've if I was somewhere in America. The day turned around rather quickly, when my mother, as usual, came to the rescue, comforting me as her nature always does. She knew it wasn't close to the real thing, but she bought me a book with all the works inside the Louvre.  To me, it was just as good at the real thing.On the cover was an image of Mona Lisa. After that day, I couldn't stop seeing her. It was if she started to beckon to me. She was everywhere I turned: at the airport, in the market, at the hotel, on the bus, and so on and so on. Although I didn't see the REAL Mona Lisa, her face haunted me at every turn in Paris, then I went to Spain, and she was still there staring back at me following with her unsettling grin. Now, I'm back home, and her face still follows me. Isn't it said that her eyes follow you wherever you stand from the painting? Well, it's sort of like that except it's become mental for me now. I have yet to understand why the fixation, so I continue to draw her and draw her every chance I get. I don't know why, but I do.

Video & Sound at Wildlife Divide

Here's Benton at Fletcher Canyon during the Experimental Video & Sound Workshop by David Sanchez Burr. It was a pleasant treat to get out of this city and experiment with video and audio. I walked around for almost three hours on my own trying to find the rhythm and patterns of the landscape. I even had a chance to meditate, but it wasn't long until the silence was intruded by fellow hikers. I didn't mind though, the space wasn't mine to begin with.

I was deeply concentrated with my surroundings that when a jolly older gentlemen came up to me and asked if I wanted a picture of myself, I stuttered and fumbled out, "I'm not myself today." He blushed and silently walked away as confused as I was. Awkwardness is contagious.

When you're out there trying to find something else outside from what is already there, sometimes wolves comes out of trees. I needed that fresh air.

Curatorial Statement

To Be Titled, A social environment by Jevijoe Vitug

5th Wall Gallery
Written by Eri King

5^th Wall Gallery’s current exhibition transforms its space into a black void with a glowing orb of used shoes suspended center of the small room. The radiant sphere weighs over 200 lbs and contains approximately 244 shoes donated from the Las Vegas community. The black lights installed on the walls reveal the synthetic construction of the atom-like installation. Displayed on the floor is the word “Socialize,” utilizing the very materials that link the shoes together. Jevijoe Vitug’s social environment, To Be Titled, reflects the history of Nuclear Testing by creating an artificial environment containing a representation of a Nucleus, and examines social practice through sustainability and the interconnectedness of community and environment.
                Jevijoe Vitug’s first appearance at 5^th Wall Gallery began in March, with the performance Nuclear Fusion with collaborator and downwinder, Patricia Gordon Dominguez. “Downwinder” refers to the individuals or communities who lived downwind of nuclear testing locations, including the Nevada Testing Site, and have been exposed to radioactive contamination from the nuclear testing.  Many living in the surrounding cities of the Nevada Testing Site, such as Las Vegas, St. George, and Salt Lake City, were left with high levels of radioactive iodine in the atmosphere from nearly ninety tests, especially from 1950-1960, which has been known to cause biological damage passed through lineage. Dominguez also appears in the documentary, Dirty Harry: When the American Dream Becomes a Nightmare, in which she is interviewed about her experiences and the affects of living downwind of the Nevada Testing Site.
                In Nuclear Fusion, Vitug and Dominguez linked their shoe laces to the ball of shoes which is currently installed in 5^th Wall Gallery. At that time, the shoe sphere was approximately one-third its current size, but still heavy enough to weigh down Vitug and Dominguez as they struggled to walk through an unsuspecting crowd, stretching from 5^th Wall Gallery to Las Vegas Boulevard, and ending at The Fremont Experience.  The two worked cooperatively in order to advance each step.  At times, the ball would cause the two to halt, enforcing that mobilization relies deeply on each other. As they continued on their path along the street with the ball still attached to their shoes, they handed out pamphlets regarding a forum at the National Atomic Testing Museum that both Vitug and Dominguez were part of organizing at the time. The pamphlet contained information about nuclear testing sites in Nevada and Kazakhstan (former Soviet Union), and its effects on its people and the environment.  As Dominguez handed out pamphlets, she approached viewers stating, “Nobody wins the Arms Race. There is nowhere to go. We are constantly tied together.”
                Each shoe in a pair are opposites of each other (left and right), but both counterparts are necessary for functionality.  Vitug utilizes each pair of shoes to symbolize two opposing players that need each other to exist. He compares this notion to the Cold War’s arms race between the Soviet Union and the United States, as well as the correlation between the downwinders in Kazakhstan and Nevada.  By interconnecting the shoes in a sphere, Vitug conveys the fundamental connection between each person, or party, represented by the shoes. Nuclear Fusion utilized both the human body and the shoe sculpture, through a physical demonstration, to express the concepts inspired by the history of downwinders and nuclear testing.  
                A few months later, Jevijoe Vitug implored the Las Vegas community to donate pairs of shoes for the making of To Be Titled. Local artists also participated in making shoe inspired art to trade for each donation. The community gathered together, making new experiences with the old memories connected with each shoe, which are now all linked by shoe lace.  The same sphere that was used in Nuclear Fusion has grown three times in size since the community’s contribution. Today, 122 pairs of used shoes form a large sphere under a glowing illumination that mimics Las Vegas’s neon landscape. The Cold War’s Arms Race operated in a mode of destruction, but eventually it led to global cooperation.  To Be Titled revitalizes the history rooted in Nevada, and invites its viewers to investigate their own relationships to the community and to the environment.

Orange Assembly Poster

Orange Assembly

Rarely do I design my own poster, but I think this will be the first of many.

Orange Assembly

Here are some photographs by Taylor Ray Miller of my participatory performance Orange Assembly injunction with 2012 London Biennale in Nevada at Pop Up Art House.

Equus

I painted this all Tuesday to test out my new set of acrylics. I genuinely enjoyed painting with no intention or no reason, but to participate in the act of painting. It was a deeply meditative day, and I felt collected for once.

Each figure are two different studies, but because they are on one piece of 18 x 24 paper; it seems like they are meant to be read together. Don't let me fool you. This was just for fun. I have no idea why I would draw such a thing, but it kind of came automatically. Dig enough in my brain and I guess you'll find horses bones and naked men.

Yep, that sounds about right. I obviously loved Equus.