Porridge Radio- Sick of the Blues
This song is from Porridge Radio’s 2024 album, Clouds In The Sky They Will Always Be There For Me.
The band is playing at the Echoplex in Los Angeles on Sunday, 2/9/25.
Porridge Radio- Sick of the Blues
This song is from Porridge Radio’s 2024 album, Clouds In The Sky They Will Always Be There For Me.
The band is playing at the Echoplex in Los Angeles on Sunday, 2/9/25.
This mural in Akron by Axel Void was organized by Curated Storefront and is based on a photograph taken with a ring camera and posted on the Neighbors app.
From Curated Storefront about the work-
This piece is a note on human inter-relational experience. The work presents a highly specific, anonymous interaction between neighbors in the digital realm.
The image is sourced from a post on the Neighbors app, a location based message board designed to connect Ring doorbell cameras into a network of private surveillance, with the intention of “always knowing what is happening in your neighborhood with real time, hyper local safety.”
The posting was created on June 18th, 2022 by an anonymous neighbor 3.4 miles away from the site of the mural. The post is titled: “Unknown visitors, Strange kids at my door 10:30 pm do you recognize them?” The Ring doorbell footage shows a young man at the door for about one minute; the footage is grainy and black and white, he is hard to make out and shuffles from side to side; a friend waits in the background on a bicycle. Twelve commenters on the post argue on whether or not the boy appears suspicious, or if he is merely looking for his lost dog; casing the house or calling for help.
This piece proposes a discussion point on irrational fear, the changing nature of surveillance, and an overarching sense of paranoia in modern society.
Pictured are selections from Gustavo Prado’s Tempo, located in the windows of the University of Akron’s Polsky Building. You can also see the pieces lit up at night which give it a very different look. It is one of several works that are part of Curated Storefront’s ongoing project to transform downtown Akron.
From their website about the work-
Employing sculpture, performance, photography, and video, Gustavo Prado examines shifts in perspective to produce works that investigate different conceptions of reality. He focuses on light, site, and context to create a body of work that dissects the need to constantly negotiate inhabited space as a means of deriving an understanding of personal identity.
Exploring the complexities inherent in the act of gazing, Prado makes inquiries into a series of notions that are both intrinsic and extraneous to the field of art, such as surveillance, appropriation, voyeurism, aggregates, artificial intelligence, narcissism, information overload, and the right to privacy. He uses off-the-shelf materials that he slightly alters, enabling viewers to recognize the source material while understanding potential deviations from the intended use. Through processes of combining seemingly disparate materials and subject matter, Prado tests cultural assumptions of what can or should belong together.
Curated Storefront is an Akron arts organization started in 2016 that is working to turn downtown Akron into an arts destination. Their projects include a collection of public murals and art in store windows. They also offer studio spaces to local artists.
One of their projects, Outside the Box, is a series of up-cycled shipping containers that house pop-up galleries and rotating murals.
Below are more selections from Outside the Box and information on the works from their website.
El Mac, “Stardust”
From the information plaque-
This mural titled Stardust depicts El Mac’s son as a baby looking up towards the sky, which creates imagery that the artist hopes “can be relatable to people and hopefully it suggests youthfulness and new beginnings. I had fun with the rendering , patterns, movement, and shapes. It was challenging for me and I think it’s beautiful, so I hope others do too.”
Palehorse, “Garuda”
About Palehorse’s mural from Curated Storefront–
Painting of the deity Garuda from Hindu mythology. Garuda (King of Birds) symbolizes the harmonious union of earthly strength and celestial freedom. As the divine messenger, he traverses between realms, embodying the bridge between humanity and the sacred. His outstretched wings form a shield of protection, a testament to his role as guardian and defender against adversity. Garuda’s presence inspires us to embrace our inner courage and navigate life’s challenges with unwavering determination. Just as he faces the serpents of life, we too can rise above obstacles, guided by his example. As you gaze upon this mural, may Garuda’s symbolism ignite your spirit, reminding you of your own capacity to soar to new heights, find peace amidst chaos, and stand strong in the face of all trials. Jai Guru! OM Garuda!
With over 20 years of experience as a professional illustrator, the catalogue of work created by Palehorse now serves as a breadcrumb trail, highlighting his intense curiosity and a relentless quest for deeper meaning and self-discovery. Years of seeking and following delightful and mysterious curiosities, eventually led to a devoted spiritual practice, arising from an ever-expanding love for sacred art, mystical scriptures, ancient cultures, plant medicine ceremonies, world mythology and travel.
The artwork of Palehorse aims to become more refined and meaningful as he increasingly becomes more spiritually adventurous through the years. His aesthetic harnesses the ancient power of traditional Thai ornamental design, blended with Indian motifs and symbols derived from the Thangka paintings of Tibetan Buddhism. As a follower of Paramhansa Hogananda, these inspirations are then filtered through the lens of an American yogi/psychonaut/illustrator, who was born in the late 70’s and grew up skateboarding, surfing, getting tattooed and playing guitar in metal bands.
John Comunale “The First Energy Monster”, Recycled tires and golfballs
John Comunale, whose work is pictured above, is an Akron artist with many works located around the city.
Studio Haz – Joshua Hall and Diana Paz- “This and That”
About the Studio Haz mural from Curated Storefront-
This mural is a visual dialog, a conversation between order and fluid organic forms. It is the first collaboration between the two artists.
Diana Paz is a Venezuelan Multidisciplinary artist based in Miami, FL. She has been fully dedicated to her art since 2012, right after graduating from her graphic design studies. Navigating between artistic expressions, she explores materials, shapes, spaces, textures and colors; reinterpreting elements from her native region as well as others taken from her everyday life. The result is a balanced union of elements; coming all-together in the cleanest and simplest way.
Joshua Hall, AKA Baghead, (born January 5, 1988) is a contemporary Latin- American artist from Miami, Florida. His work is derived from 90’s skateboarding, street typography, and early animation. He is known for his wooden sculptures as well as being a muralist. In his practice, Joshua reflects on his suburban adolescents; recounting them in fluid, abstracted and sometimes sculptural forms.
Steiner, “Repetitive Nature”
About Steiner and Repetitive Nature–
The bright and psychedelic colors and mutation of the third eye on the leopards represent human negative effects on nature. However, nature is ferocious (like a leopard) and fights back, reclaiming what is left behind by humans in a cycle that is repetitive. Nature finds a way.
Raised on surf/skate art and comics, and influenced by the likes of Jim Phillips and Todd McFarlane, Steiner began spray painting walls during middle school in the 90s. After traveling abroad and formal art training he returned to his street art and graffiti roots. He has lived and painted in San Francisco and New York, and now resides in Los Angeles. His work is reminiscent of the Toxic Avenger. It shows man’s effect on nature and manipulation of the environment. His work often has mutated beasts with multiple eyes, bright un-earthy colors and smoke ring cloud (pollution) backgrounds … so the 3 eyed Simpsons fish is a good reference to sum it up … an actual issue with a somewhat humorous delivery.
Axel Void (Alejandro Hugo Dorda Mevs), “Untitled”
L.E.O. (Reginald O’Neal), “Dr. John Henry Clarke And the Mundari People”
About L.E.O. (Reginald O’ Neal)–
L.E.O. (Reginald O’Neal), born in 1992 in Miami, Florida, began painting in 2012 and soon met his friend and mentor, Alejandro Dorda, also known as Axel Void, who would teach him classically.
In 2014, L.E.O. took his first trip to Europe to complete murals in Austria, Norway, and Spain, as well as exhibit in a collective show alongside his teacher in Berlin, Germany. In the years since, Reggie has focused on canvas work, residencies, and murals that embody his community surroundings, experiences and beliefs.
Gabriela Ayza Aschmann, “Momentum Absence Act”
From Curated Storefront about the Gabriela Ayza Aschmann’s mural-
It has two faces. What we see and what may be behind. Is it the absence of oneself that creates emotional instability? Sometimes we are in a sea of fire and we have to warp to hold on to ourselves so we can be our own lifesaver. With the vertigo of falling, you create a dance that in the end only you can learn to enjoy. Emily Dickinson wrote, “I was falling and in each crash hit, I ran into a world.”
Born in 1991 Cologne, Germany, Gabriela Ayza Aschmann is a Spanish-German artist currently based in Miami, Florida. She lived and studied in Andalusia, graduated from the University of Fine Arts in Seville, Spain. She continued learning with workshops and follow ups from different artists. In 2020, Gabriela attended her first artist residency with Void_ Projects in Miami, FL. Later, she followed her next artist residency at Gotulist Froyar, Feror Island, Denmark. Her last two shows titled I have an idiot inside me and Mom, let me be an animal for one day opened in Miami, FL where she presented a mixture of her personal collection of paintings.
Her practice represents the search for the poetic. She begins with considering that listening to ourselves and our environment brings us closer to the core of our existence. In her paintings one can find humor, sweetness and hardness at the same time. The artist observes and empathizes how humans are, measurably, beasts and brutes. Bluntly, she questions why humanity hides its beastiality: What is so dangerous about our depths? Her work is focused on oil painting, although in her process we can find poetry, theater, analog photography and other sculptural aspects.
Johnny Robles, “Gloria Bow”
About Johnny Robles and the mural from Curated Storefront–
Johnny Robles is a multi-disciplinary artist working at the intersection of art, technology, and nature. Studies in color theory, geometry, and science, combined with his natural and spiritual world interests are central to his work.
The artwork’s title, Gloria Bow, is derived from a glory rainbow, a halo of interlocking colors made up of tiny droplets of water reflecting sunlight scattered back towards the viewer. This phenomenon we see in nature can be experienced from tall buildings, a mountain top, or an airplane. Over the years, the artist’s experiences of observing glories have marveled and served him as reminders that nature seeks each of us. This painting intends to engage passersby in a moment of solitude, clarity, or stillness.
This mural by Los Angeles based artist Mikael B was created for the 2017 SHINE Mural Festival in St. Pete, Florida.
For the most recent work by Mikael B, check out his Instagram.
Marti a flor de labios (Marti on the lips) is a portrait of Cuban poet, writer, journalist, philosopher, and activist José Martí by Cuban artist Edel Alvarez Galban (AGalban). The painting was part of the 2023 exhibition El Arte: Echos of Cuba at the Clearwater Library in Florida. Galban emigrated to the United States in 1995, later moving to St. Petersburg, Florida in 2001 where he works in both the medical profession and the arts.
José Martí was born in Havana on January 28th, 1853 and died in 1895 during the Battle of Dos Rios, fighting for Cuba’s independence from Spain. He traveled to Tampa Bay’s Latin Quarter, Ybor City, on several occasions while in exile to give speeches and to raise funds to support his cause.
Parque Amigos de Jose Marti (Friends of Jose Marti Park) in Ybor City features a statue of Martí and a plaque. The land was gifted to the Republic of Cuba in 1956 and was once home to the boarding house of Afro-Cuban activist Paulina Pedroso. She was friends with Martí and he stayed with her during his visits to the area.
Pearl & The Oysters- Side Quest
This song is from LA band Pearl & The Oysters’ 2024 album Planet Pearl.
They are playing at Alex’s Bar in Long Beach this Friday, 1/31/25, with Wargirl and Chapis.
“Snow-Laden Primeval (Meditations, on Log Phase and Decline rampant with Flatulent Cows and Carbon Cars)”, 2020, oil paint on canvas
Blockade ‘The Risen’, 1960-1961/2019, Oil on canvas / RISEN from the New York 1960-1961 painting, reconstructed in Amsterdam in 2019
Artist Jo Baer passed away this Tuesday at the age of 95. Her long career was marked by her transition away from the abstract works she became known for to figuration. She destroyed several of her original minimalist paintings but would later reproduce them in 2019 from archival images.
The works above are from her 2020 concurrent exhibitions at Pace Gallery– The Risen/Originals.
More on her life and career from Pace Gallery–
Born in Seattle in 1929, Baer studied biology at the University of Washington—where she also enrolled in introductory painting and drawing courses—and earned a graduate degree in psychology from the New School for Social Research in New York. She began her artistic career in Los Angeles in the early 1950s before returning to New York in 1960. There, she would become a key figure in the city’s burgeoning minimalist scene with her hard-edge paintings featuring bands of color around their edges. She also painted symbols and objects in some of her early works, often examining sexual and gender politics in these more figurative compositions.
Over the course of the 1960s, her paintings were exhibited alongside works by her mostly male peers—including Kenneth Noland, Robert Mangold, Frank Stella, Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, Robert Morris, and Sol LeWitt—and she presented her first-ever solo show at Fischbach Gallery in New York in 1966. Following her mid-career retrospective at the Whitney Museum in 1975, she relocated to Europe, first living in England and Ireland before settling in Amsterdam in 1984.
Baer’s search for renewal in the 1970s brought her to “radical figuration,” a term she coined in her now famous 1983 letter to Art in America, declaring that she was “no longer an abstract artist.” The term, which the artist later moved away from, describes a midway point between abstraction and figuration in which she could utilize partial, edited, or layered images—both found and created—to generate space for a new language within painting.
During her years in England and Ireland, Baer departed from pure abstraction in her work, developing a new aesthetic grounded in images, text, and prehistoric signs that combined the new, the old, and the mythical. Over the nine years she spent living in Smarmore Castle in County Louth in Ireland, Baer became fascinated by the region’s Neolithic history, opening her practice up to ancient histories of civilization. Seeing painting as a continually evolving tradition that could not be easily broken down into neat stylistic or periodic categories, Baer found as much inspiration in archaeology, anthropology, astronomy, and geography as in contemporary culture.
“I wanted more subject matter and more meaning,” the artist once said of her decision to move away from Minimalism. “There was an awful lot going on in the world, and I didn’t just want to sit there and draw straight lines.”
Below, in this video from the gallery, she discusses her body of work.
Blitzen Trapper- Planetarium
Every month I listen to the majority of bands/singers/musicians/artists who are playing in Los Angeles and select some for a monthly playlist. It includes a variety of genres and usually newer work by the artist.
The song above is from Blitzen Trapper’s 2024 album, 100’s of 1000’s, Millions of Billions.
Below are December’s selections-
This artwork, painted on a door in the East Village, was created by Australian American painter Charlie Hudson.
You can also find his work on Instagram.