We are attempting to write a daily little blurb on most (hopefully all) of the artists involved in our upcoming “These Friends 2″ show opening February 4th but how do we decide who goes in what order? Pick out of a hat! The artwork shown is not what is in the show BTW, you’ll have to come to the show to see that. Here’s Jim Houser.

Jimbo Houser. He is one of the gallery favorites… Then again, he is on most everyone’s favorites list. I was lucky enough to be invited to give a hand with his latest LA solo show at Subliminal Projects this past year and meet up in Philly last winter during the blizzard. He also has a dog with 3 legs and a baby named Seamus.

Jim has amassed a wide array of characters and situations in his signature palette of soft greens, blues and browns. His work is highly nostalgic and heart felt whether you are seeing it for the first time or the 100th. He also released his first album, on light blue vinyl, this year with Free News Projects.

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We are attempting to write a daily little blurb on most (hopefully all) of the artists involved in our upcoming “These Friends 2″ show opening February 4th but how do we decide who goes in what order? Pick out of a hat! The artwork shown is not what is in the show BTW, you’ll have to come to the show to see that. Here’s Cleon Peterson.

Cleon lives in Altadena near JPL. He can draw like a bandit, paint like a mad man and owns one of the most valuable Dutch typography books ever. He has done countless graphics for seemingly every skateboard company ever and has a real famous art star brother – Leigh LeDare. Not only is he the Associate Creative Director at Studio Number One in Los Angeles, but he is constantly showing his paintings at galleries all around the world: New Image LA, Joshua Liner Gallery NY and ALICE in Brussels, to name a few.

Here are some heady words about Cleon’s latest work from the show DAYBREAK .. “shadowy figures mete out violence in images that could just as well depict justice as they do barbarity. ”DAYBREAK” can be viewed as both a continuation and a progression of Peterson’s past works, in which graphically rendered scenes of sadism portray chaos as the inevitable order of things. Many of those scenes have featured characters with physical appearances largely undifferentiated from one another, suggesting a classless unsympathetic society, yet in this new body of work Peterson incorporates ”shadow” figures and a new dichotomous order. There are haves and have-nots, but amid the havoc it’s hard to decide who’s who. ”

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We are attempting to write a daily little blurb on most (hopefully all) of the artists involved in our upcoming “These Friends 2″ show opening February 4th but how do we decide who goes in what order? Pick out of a hat! The artwork shown is not what is in the show BTW, you’ll have to come to the show to see that. Here’s Sunny Shokrae.

Who knows how/when we first met Sunny but it’s been a long time. She is a photographer living in Brooklyn but is from out here in Southern California somewhere. Sorry, bad at writing these things but Sunny takes pretty pictures and we are excited to have her in the show.

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We are attempting to write a daily little blurb on most (hopefully all) of the artists involved in our upcoming “These Friends 2″ show opening February 4th but how do we decide who goes in what order? Pick out of a hat! The artwork shown is not what is in the show BTW, you’ll have to come to the show to see that. Here’s Andres Guerrero.

Andres is this dude from Wattsonville. He was 1/2 of White Walls and the Shooting Gallery in SF, but now does his own thing and runs an amazing space in The Mission called Guerrerro Gallery.

Andres is fun as hell too. He knows everyone, and has a great time. He wore a white wife beater the whole time we were at Art Basel last year. Maniac. We even solved the mystery of a dinosaur sized plaster egg one night. Long story…

His work is a great mix of patterning, words and really strong iconography. He has shown all around the world, and last year exhibited at Subliminal Projects in Echo Park.

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We are attempting to write a daily little blurb on most (hopefully all) of the artists involved in our upcoming “These Friends 2″ show opening February 4th but how do we decide who goes in what order? Pick out of a hat! The artwork shown is not what is in the show BTW, you’ll have to come to the show to see that. Here’s Frank McCauley.

Frank. Frank’s a great painter and a really good drummer. We were in a band together for about 6 months. We broke up because he graduated college.

I have known Frank since the beginning of high school back in South Carolina when we were in art school together. That also continued to college where our studios were right down the hall from each other. Frank’s studio was always a mess. I mean really messy. And there was never anywhere to sit down. I always stopped by to keep an eye on what he was doing. He was one of the first painters that I could observe the process and evolution of a painting. I liked his work a lot then. I still really enjoy it. We were even in a band together

Frank went onto Syracuse for his MFA and is now the Chief Curator at the Sumter County Gallery of Art. He has shown all over the US for years.

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We are attempting to write a daily little blurb on most (hopefully all) of the artists involved in our upcoming “These Friends 2″ show opening February 4th but how do we decide who goes in what order? Pick out of a hat! The artwork shown is not what is in the show BTW, you’ll have to come to the show to see that. Here’s REVOK.

There are so many insane stories out there about REVOK. Honestly, I just don’t see it. This guy doesn’t look tough at all and he would never do anything that would be considered “against the law”. The internet is so fake.

Back to reality. Jason is always on it. Anytime I ever go out, he is always leaving because he was there first and on to the next thing. It always seems like he is in some exotic local getting into some shit that you will ready about tomorrow. He has a great hand, a really good eye, and is pretty solid with Adobe Illustrator as well.

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We are attempting to write a daily little blurb on most (hopefully all) of the artists involved in our upcoming “These Friends 2″ show opening February 4th but how do we decide who goes in what order? Pick out of a hat! The artwork shown is not what is in the show BTW, you’ll have to come to the show to see that. Florencio Zavala.

Flo was the first person I (Justin) met when I moved to LA 6 years ago. He has remained a close friend ever since. He was named a ADC Young Gun a couple of years back, has an MFA from CalArts and also knows the smoothest “raggah” tracks when he is DJing under his moniker “Mr. Stephanie”.

I’ve always appreciated his ability to talk through design concepts so that there is more of a direct route to the solution rather than a bunch of mucking about – that might be the CalArts in him. He has been a guest lecturer at the University of Florida, Loyola Marymount University, Chaffey College, Boston University, California Institute of the Arts and the Southern California Institute of Architecture. A graduate of the University of Florida (BFA) and the California Institute of the Arts (MFA), Florencio also operates Big Skills, a platform for experimental design, film and animation projects.

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We are attempting to write a daily little blurb on most (hopefully all) of the artists involved in our upcoming “These Friends 2″ show opening February 4th but how do we decide who goes in what order? Pick out of a hat! The artwork shown is not what is in the show BTW, you’ll have to come to the show to see that. Here’s Chuck Anderson.

If you are keeping score on success vs. age in the design community, then Chuck Anderson will most certainly be the winner. It seems like he has already worked with every great agency, done a collaboration with every company and still had time to co-author a very successful blog ( the brilliance ).
He will probably end up writing a book on Photoshop secrets as well as secrets to landing big clients from the comfort of your own home. He lives in Grand Rapids with his wife and cat. One day he will wise up and move to LA or NY. Or maybe he is already over that and will just stay put.

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We are attempting to write a daily little blurb on most (hopefully all) of the artists involved in our upcoming “These Friends 2″ show opening February 4th but how do we decide who goes in what order? Pick out of a hat! The artwork shown is not what is in the show BTW, you’ll have to come to the show to see that. Here’s Ruben Fleischer.

Most of us that started THIS have known Ruben Fleischer for roughly a decade now. He hails from Washington D.C. but has lived here as long as we have. He’s the classic L.A. story. Kid who moves to the big city with some dreams, busts his ass making music videos for less than a penny, starts doing some commercial work and finally ends up (because of pure talent) directing his own movies. Ruben has made countless incredible videos and commercials and went on to direct Zombieland and the upcoming 30 Minutes or Less (we’ve seen it…it’s amazing). We couldn’t be prouder of our pal Ruben. He is super excited to show his work for the first time in a gallery setting, and thats what the “These Friends” shows are all about.

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We are attempting to write a daily little blurb on some (hopefully all) of the artists involved in our upcoming “These Friends 2″ show opening February 4th but how do we decide who goes in what order? Pick out of a hat! The artwork shown is not what is in the show BTW, you’ll have to come to the show to see that. Here’s Jesse Spears.

Jesse Spears is from Los Angeles. She likes cars, stickers, making things, and has the most entertaining blog on the internet.

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