Jason Freeny & Miso & William Mortensen

February 6 – March 1, 2015
Opening Reception: Friday, February 6th, 8-11 PM
Feral House Book Signing: Friday, February 13th, 7-9 PM

Jason Freeny
Molt

molt verb \ˈmōlt\

:  to cast off (an outer covering) periodically; specifically :  to throw off (the old cuticle) —used of arthropods

Jason Freeny aptly chose the word MOLT as the title for his La Luz de Jesus debut, reflecting the display of transition inherent in the subject matter of his sculptural pieces. He has shed and moved forward from his iconic toy dissections onto pieces that are strictly about form.

Freeny has always had a fascination with clean surfaces, crisp edges and beautiful volumes, and this show is simultaneously the end of his exploration of vinyl toy anatomy and the beginning of his own, original surface and form based characters and creatures.

 

 

Miso
Cornucopia

Cornucopia began life as a meditation on 16th century Flemish still life paintings, but evolved into something more descriptively elusive. The relatively small, but lavishly illuminated oil paintings that comprise the exhibition feature botanical wonders alongside the dissected anatomical figures that populate Karen Hsiao‘s fantasy Miso world.

The titular cornucopia relates to Hsiao’s vast collection of specimens, both flora and fauna, that continue the tradition of scientific classification paintings spanning Audubon to Walton Ford–but reflecting a modern context of fetishistic connoisseurship.

 

 

William Mortensen
American Grotesque

American Grotesque is a lavish retrospective of grotesque, occult, and erotic images by the forgotten Hollywood photographer William Mortensen (1897–1965), an innovative pictorialist visionary whom Ansel Adams called the “Antichrist” and to whom Anton LaVey dedicated The Satanic Bible.

Mortensen’s countless technical innovations and inspired use of special effects prefigures the development of digital manipulation and Photoshop. Includes a gallery of more than one hundred striking photographs in duotone and color, many of them previously unseen, and accompanying essays by Mortensen and others on his life, work, techniques, and influence.

This exhibition features 12 original, archival photographs, signed by Mortensen and available for purchase as well as a collection of affordable C-print reproductions of some of his most highly recognized images.

On Friday, February 13th (Valentine’s Eve), publisher Adam Parfrey and authors Larry Lytle and Michael Moynihan will be present to sign copies of American Grotesque as well as The Command to Look: A Master Photographer’s Method for Controlling the Human Gaze, with Lytle speaking about Mortensen with a slide show. Other special collaborators are scheduled to appear as well.

 

Contact Gallery Director Matthew Gardocki for purchase info:
info@laluzdejesus.com  (323)666-7667