Gallery Artists: Incognito 2011

April 26th, 2011

The gallery is please to announce that Chris Natrop and Kimberly Brooks are participating in Incognito 2011 at the Santa Monica Museum of Art.

INCOGNITO
Saturday, April 30, 2011, 7 – 10 pm
Doors open at 7 pm sharp

Santa Monica Museum of Art’s highly anticipated annual art exhibition and benefit, INCOGNITO, will return for its seventh year on Saturday, April 30. INCOGNITO features original works by 500 contemporary artists. (For the list of participating artists, please scroll down.) From sophisticated art patrons to first-time collectors – all guests are encouraged to trust their instincts to guide their selections. Each 8″ x 10″ work is signed on the back and artist identities are revealed only after purchase. Hundreds of artworks are available for only $300 each.

FROHAWK TWO FEATHERS: Art in America

March 12th, 2011

Soul Searching in the U.S.A. by Michael Duncan. March 2011.

FROHAWK TWO FEATHERS: Crocodile Company, Part I. La Guerre Des Machettes Danseuses (The War of The Dancing Machetes)

March 7th, 2011

FROHAWK TWO FEATHERS: Crocodile Company, Part I.  La Guerre Des Machettes Danseuses (The War of The Dancing Machetes)

February 19 through March 26, 2011

Taylor De Cordoba is pleased to present Crocodile Company, Part I.  La Guerre Des Machettes Danseuses (The War of The Dancing Machetes), a new series of mixed media paintings and drawings by Los Angeles-based artist Frohawk Two Feathers. The exhibition will run from February 19 through March 26, 2011, with an opening reception for the artist on Saturday February 19 from 6-8pm. This is his third solo show with the gallery.

Frohawk Two Feathers continues to demonstrate his skill as a master storyteller, spinning tales of colonialism, imperialism and conquest with his wholly unique iconography. Blending his obsession with the history of conflict and pop culture influences from video games, films and TV shows, the artist tells a wartime narrative starring an imagined cast of fascinating characters. Using two classic traditions of both painting and map making, Two Feathers communicates a tragic, yet often humorous story that, through a slight of hand and bristle of the brush retell and reshape historical roles of race, class, and gender. Originally trained in photography, the artist uses elaborately staged photographs of friends and family as the source material for the final portraits on view.

As with his previous bodies of work, each series functions as a chapter in a never-ending tome. Set in 1789 in the Caribbean, “The War of the Dancing Machetes” is a story of assassination, slavery and the fight for power. Deadly clashes between the black ruling class and “The Crocodile Company” (the newly propertied “mulatto” soldiers), drive this story. While these themes of unrest are familiar in art history, Two Feathers approaches his subjects with a keen eye, creating a unique and memorable visual language. And as a viewer immersed in his storytelling, one cannot help but question whether the specifics come from the artist’s mind or straight from the history books. The artist loosely based this series on the actual “War of Knives” that was fought as a precursor to Haitian independence.

FROHAWK TWO FEATHERS: LA Weekly

February 17th, 2011

Frohawk Two Feathers: Some Enchanted Faux-Naive, by Shana Nys Dambort, February 17, 2011.

FROHAWK TWO FEATHERS: New American Paintings

February 16th, 2011

Known for his master narratives, vivid re-imaginings of imperial history, and playful revival of colonial portraiture, Los Angeles-based artist Frohawk Two-Feathers directly references a legacy of historical art while troubling it with the modern. His upcoming solo show at Taylor De Cordoba, opening this Friday, is no different.

EC: You’ve been telling the history of the Frenglish Empire, a fictitious blending of 18th century imperial England and France, for some time now and this show focuses on your reinterpretation of the Haitian War of Knives… How has your work changed since your last L.A. show?
FTF: Instead of the whole Haitian Revolution, I’m focusing on parts, like a wide-angle and zoom lens at the same time. I’m peeling back the layers so my audience can see more of the characters. I have more of a handle on how I want to present the image and I’m getting more comfortable with compositions. It’s a perpetual learning process trying to narrow things down to get to the more intimate history that I’m recreating.

EC: I know a lot of people focus on the narratives behind each character and portrait, but I continue to be intrigued by the framing devices you use. I noticed that you shifted from the smaller, elliptical frame to a much larger frame with a rounded top and angular bottom.  What made you switch to this new shape?

FTF: The new shape has multiple meanings. I like the shape first and foremost. The frame I use to make the outline came from a mirror, so it’s like people are looking at themselves when they look at my portraits. The shape also references a gravestone because everyone in the series eventually dies. Additionally, it references an Egyptian cartouche pattern, which is fitting since Egypt factors into the symbology and secret orders I reference, including the Company Crocodile……

Reframing History: In the Studio with Frohawk Two Feathers, by Ellen C. Caldwell, February 16, 2011.

SASHA BEZZUBOV: Wildfire

February 12th, 2011

Sasha Bezzubov: Wildfire,

January 8 – February 12, 2011

Taylor De Cordoba is pleased to present Wildfire, the galleryʼs third exhibition by Brooklyn-based photographer Sasha Bezzubov. The exhibition will run from January 8th through February 12th, 2011. The gallery will host an opening reception for the artist on Saturday January 8th from 6pm-8pm.

This exhibition consists of nine large-format color photographs that document the aftermath of wildfires in California between 2003 to 2007, including those at Running Springs, San Diego County and Cedar Glen. Bezzubov creates powerful images of mundane places that have been instantly transformed through the violent power of a natural force, into dreamscapes of apocalyptic proportions. The artist shows us the moments just after disaster strikes: a bare hillside with one precariously perched charred car; a spiral staircase jutting into the landscape surrounded by rubble of the home that once encased it; and eerily empty forests scattered with seemingly never ending rows of blackened trees. While these images evoke a post-apocalyptic sense of dread, there is something jarring in their quiet beauty.

With the photographsʼ muted, dusty palette and empty spaces, viewers often recall images of the “wild west” and the desert landscape of pre-development California. Russian born Sasha Bezzubov writes in his project statement that Wildfire “pays tribute to those earlier photographs, but also brings them and the landscape they helped to fashion into question.”Here, the artist presents a view that could be taken from a past period in history, just as easily as it could exist in a dystopic future. Yet, there is something undeniably calm about these images that are nearly devoid of any evidence of man and industrialization. Standing before these epic works, one canʼt help but reflect on how little control we actually possess when confronted with the unstoppable forces of nature.
Sasha Bezzubov is the recipient of numerous awards and grants for his photographic works, including two Fulbright Scholarship Awards for his work in Vietnam and India. He earned his MFA from Yale University in 1997. His work is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and has appeared in The New York Times, Esquire Magazine, Newsweek, Details Magazine, The Village Voice and Blind Spot.

SASHA BEZZUBOV: The Huffington Post

February 10th, 2011

Haiku Review, by Peter Frank, February 10, 2011.

TIMOTHY HULL: New York Times, T Magazine

February 4th, 2011



Visiting Artist by Johnny Misheff, Feburary 4, 2011.

KIMBERLY BROOKS: Angeleno Magazine

December 18th, 2010

Kimberly Brooks featured in the December 2010 issue of Angeleno Magazine.

KYLE FIELD: Waxing Marks

December 18th, 2010

Taylor De Cordoba is pleased to present Waxing Marks, an exhibition of new works on paper by San Francisco-based artist and musician, Kyle Field. The exhibition will run from November 6 – December 18, 2010.  The gallery will host a reception for the artist on Saturday, November 6.

For his third solo exhibition at Taylor De Cordoba, Field presents a series of ten small ink drawings (approximately 8″ x 10″ each). In his previous body of work, the artist created surreal worlds of fantastical creatures, whose shapes twisted apart and melded together to create intricate yet loose patterns. Here he has stripped away the majority of representational imagery and focuses primarily on richly detailed textural patterns.

The daunting and often humbling task of filling an entire surface motivated Field to produce these dense pieces, which almost completely lack negative space. While referencing the subconscious act of daydream-inspired doodles, he found this kind of drawing to be an exercise in patience. Patterns would form only to fall apart and then form again. Occasional mistakes forced him to retire his intended patterns, as new ones would emerge. The resulting effect is a visual tension between Field’s original road map and the inevitable surprises and unexpected turns he encountered while creating the work.

The title of the exhibition, “Waxing Marks” relates to the artist’s passion for surfing. In these drawings he expertly weaves colors and shapes into patterns that reference the way wax can build up on a surfboard. With a nod towards op-art, magic eye pictures and blotter sheet art, the recognizable images become almost completely phased out. Viewers are left to stare into Field’s intense and often hypnotic designs and form their own meaning.

Kyle Field lives and works in San Francisco, California. His work has been exhibited in numerous venues, including Atelier Cardenas Bellanger (Paris, France), Le Confort Moderne (Poitiers, France), The Palais des Beaux-Arts BOZAR, (Brussels, Belgium), Musée Janisch (Switzerland) Cinders Gallery (Brooklyn, NY) and New Image Art (Los Angeles, CA). He has been featured in Artnet, Artinfo.com, New American Paintings and Le Monde. He also performs as a musician under the name Little Wings. He received his BFA from UCLA in 1997.