We Was Them Kids … Group Exhibition
A collection of works from friends of the HVW8 Art + Design Gallery.
Curated by Tyler Gibney
We Was Them Kids -Press Release
Brent Rollins – Brooklyn, NY
Artist. Art Director. Designer. Author. TV Producer. ego trip co-conspirator. A libra. & always fashionably late.
Geoff McFetridge – Los Angeles
McFetridge is a artist based in Los Angeles California. Born in Canada, he was schooled at the Alberta College of Art and the California Institute of the Arts. He is part of the Beautiful Losers Exhibition, and makes solo exhibitions from Los Angeles, Berlin, Paris, London, the Netherlands and Japan. Instinctively ignoring creative boundaries McFetridge is a truely multidisciplinary artist, ‘an all round visual auteur’. From poetry to animation, from graphics to 3D work, from textile and wallpaper to paintings, McFetridge has complete control over these widely divergent disciplines.
Alvaro Ilizarbe – Miami
Alvaro Ilizarbe was born in Peru in 1981 and moved to Miami, FL when he was 9 years old. He attended the Art Institute of Ft. Lauderdale, graduating with an Associate’s Degree in Graphic Design in 2002. Alvaro’s artwork has a strong emphasis on black and white designs, intricate line-work and repeating patterns. His work explores space, energy, and tension. TRansforming the perceptions of space and dimension through large scale installations. Alvaro’s work has been exhibited in venues like MOCA in North Miami, and an APEX Art Foundation group show in Thailand, among many others.
Kevin Lyons – Brooklyn, NY
Kevin Lyons is a dad, designer, and creative director living in Brooklyn, New York. He has pimped his skills to many a corporation including Nike, Converse, Stussy, Stacks, Beams-T, SSUR and Girl Skateboards. He is the founder and creator of Natural Born.
Yogi Proctor – Los Angeles
Yogi Proctor practices the proliferation of decoys. His works span a variety of mediums, appearances, and approaches, de-stablizing notions of “originality” and “artist” with wit, while expanding our perception of “sculpture” and “producer” in the process.
Yogi Proctor holds a BA in Visual and Critical Studies from The School The Art Institute of Chicago, and an MA in Aesthetics and Politics from CalArts.
Most recently his work has been shown at The Poor Farm in Wisconsin, La Gaite in Paris, Yale School of Art Gallery in Connecticut, and Seeline Gallery in Los Angeles.
Winston Tseng – New York
Winston Tseng was born and raised in Redondo Beach, California where skateboarding consumed his life then and has shaped his artistic sensibilities now. He is a self-taught graphic artist best known for his work with Enjoi Skateboards, where he has been the company’s art director since 2005. Described as graphically simple, bold, humorous and slightly twisted, his artwork often polarizes the viewers to either “love it” or “hate it”.
Charles Munka – Hong Kong
Born in Lyon, France, (1982). Charles Munka (a.k.a. QUES) lived and studied art in the city before spending much of his adult life in Asia. Spanning multiple continents and absorbing the raw data of his surroundings, Munka calls his work a type of mind map. He is renowned for his ability to seamlessly blend traditional aspects of graffiti along with his identification of contemporary and historical imagery from films, video games, ancient symbols and pop references. Munka’s style is strongly influenced by hip-hop and the progressive L.A. beat scene. Using mixed media, Munka’s work undoubtedly captures a new style of art. With his unique approach to street art, Munka’s work resembles carvings of music from the world that surrounds him; allowing the viewer into a new dimension of sound and sight, led by a distinctive visual voice.
Matt Irving – San Francisco
From his humble log-cabin up-bringing in the wild woods of British Columbia to a skateboard industry staple based in San Francisco, this hick has sure grown up. After migrating south to the promised land of California, Matt designed literally hundreds of graphics for Element Skateboards, later moving on to Stereo Skateboards where he further developed his creative sensibilities. Now, having blossomed into a fine man, he spends his days as a co-owner of Juice Design directing the creative identity of the Adidas Skateboarding program and guiltily neglecting his artistic brainchild, Delphi – named after the pet donkey of his youth. Along the way, Matt’s wife and son have learnt to adapt to these waves of dedication and have developed a shared appreciation for vintage wallpaper, bold imagery, solid craftsmanship, and Bauhaus architecture. It is very unlikely that Matt will ever enroll his son in team sports because Matt thinks baseball and football are for dickheads.
http://www.delphicollective.com/
Parra – Amsterdam, NL
Parra (b.1976) is best known for his curved post-Pop imagery, highly saturated colors, vibrant hand-drawn letters and worlds inhabited by hybrid, surreal characters. Celebrated by galleries and championed by an underground following from the outset, Parra has quickly become a respected and eclectic artist worldwide. Working across drawing, painting, animation and sculpture, Parra creates an enigmatic and instantly recognizable style that defies easy categorization. Parra is cofounder of cult apparel label Rockwell Clothing and a member of electronic music group Le Le. Parra lives and works in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
HVW8 Art + Design Gallery – Los Angeles
In 2007, Tyler Gibney and Addison Liu opened the HVW8 Art + Design Gallery in Los Angeles. With a focus in supporting avant-garde graphic design, it soon became the premier underground gallery in Los Angeles and over the past three years has featured artists such as Parra, Geoff McFetridge, Kevin Lyons, Ed Templeton, Lance Mountain, Mos Def with Cognito, Charles Munka, Michael Leon and Alvaro Illizarbe.
www.hvw8.com