2017Exhibitions

31st Anniversary Drawing Show

Exhibition: December 1-31
Reception: Fri. Dec. 1, 8-11 PM

2017 is our 31st year of continuous, monthly exhibitions.

Think about that: La Luz de Jesus Gallery is 31 years old!

Some of the artists in this show weren’t even born yet when Billy Shire decided to clear out the storage apartment at the corner of Melrose and Martel, upstairs from his flagship Soap Plant shop with marked purpose. His vision: to showcase the incredible, ethnic folk art he brought back from Mexico, Guatemala, and museum quality pieces from Asia and elsewhere alongside that of his talented friends–people who were finding a hard time being taken seriously by the art establishment of the era in spite of their technical prowess. His experiment has spawned a legacy. The renewed interest in illustration art resultant from his gallery’s success influenced the zeitgeist, and launched industries. The lowbrow movement of California Art (which in turn informed the Pop Surrealists that followed) influenced fashion, television, film and culture. The rest, as they say, is history.

The 31st Anniversary Drawing Show is an invitational event that traces the history of Post-Pop in its birthplace.

We chose from the best illustrators featured in the 31 year history of La Luz de Jesus to create a new, original drawing for this show, allowing us to trace a line all the way from Robert Williams to Annie Owens.

Since this is a drawing show, the work will be graphite, charcoal, colored pencil, ink or ballpoint pen, watercolor and/or gouache on paper. Whatever the preferred technique, the dominant medium of expression will classify the work as a drawing.

The last time we embarked on something this ambitious was for our 25th anniversary book project back in 2011. The last six years have been particularly fertile and we expect this show will close out the year on an exceptionally high note. We’ll be adding to this preview as we receive all the images–right up to opening night!

We’re also including some select drawings from prior shows and treasures from a few private collections. These will be interspersed among the new drawings to create an anachronistic travelog of this gallery’s first three decades.