The 2nd Annual Coaster Show & Harold Fox

The Coaster Show, Our Annual L.A. Beer Week Tie-In Show
& Harold Fox “On the Fringe of the Mundane”

September 5 – 28, 2014
Opening Reception: Friday, Sept. 5th, 8-11 PM
Closing Party: Sunday, Sept. 28th, noon-six PM

Harold Fox “On the Fringe of the Mundane”

Harold Fox has been in retirement for quite a few years now, but you’d never know it from his output. His paintings are vivid reminiscences of a bygone era. If Charles Bukowski used paintbrushes instead of a typewriter, the outcome might look something like this. But there’s also a bit of Steinbeck and Hemingway and a whole lot of Nightmare Alley. Like a skid row Robert Williams, or a sideshow Frank Cassara, Fox’s work is both cartooned, but realistic, with the types of surrealist flourishes that would make Dali proud. Fox’s is a dark, shadowy world of second rate carnivals, low rent flophouses and dustbowl trailer parks filled with ornery hustlers, scheming grifters, and Machiavellian femmes fatales, as witnessed by a support cast of affable hobos and menacing clowns.

When you find an artist whose collector base is composed mostly of other artists, you know you’re onto something. And it’s not enough that his paintings are the cat’s pajamas, he also custom carves his own frames. The resultant tramp art aesthetic adds a whole other dimensionality to the work, as each frame seems predestined for the piece that occupies it.

The Coaster Show 2014

We’ve all done it. We’ve sat at the bar, drinking a beer and doodled on a coaster.

But most of us aren’t the extremely skilled painters, illustrators, animators, tattooists, sculptors or collage artists that are featured in this exhibition that takes a love of craft brewing and elevates it to high art.

The folks behind L.A. Beer Week produced a custom canvas for some of our favorite gallery folks to do what they do best, and transform a 4″ tondo coaster into museum worthy exhibition pieces.

Last year, we dotted our walls with over 700 tiny masterpieces, and this year we’ve outdone ourselves–with over 1000! The rules were simple: Each coaster must be a solitary work (though it’s fine if several pieces work together contextually), and they must be priced $250 or less. There is no bottom, so some coasters were even free!

 

This isn’t just the same, old crop of folks you see in every group show across town. There are a lot of participants who we quite frankly can’t believe we got to participate. Maybe it’s because we kept the rules simple: We told them to do whatever they wanted. Whether you love beer or don’t, the art will blow your mind.

And just like last year, there will be some amazing beer here, too!

 

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