Alex C Moore’s work leaves something to the imagination. A rarity in a world in which visual language often seems to become ever less subtle over time, Moore’s uncomplicated compositions speak to viewers in a pleasantly colloquial tone. They are at once inviting and mysterious, with a pitch perfect mixture of maturity, grace and humility. Her sometimes disorienting paintings isolate passages of disembodied figures, elevating small gestures and minute detail to a plane of autonomous importance. Though her approach is smart and agilely conceptual there is nothing flashy about the work, and each pieces resonates with a humble intelligence. Colorful mittens perched implausibly in midair on their expressively posed, yet barely alluded to, hands manage to convey a wide range of emotions. Their positioning could just as easily read as joyful surprise or alarmed defense. Without the whole of the figure to fill in the narrative gaps, Moore’s singular abstractions work as a sort of Rorschach test, gently reflecting the immediate emotional state of the viewer.

Moore, who spent the first 14 years of her life outside London before moving to Seattle, did her undergrad at Wesleyan University, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in 2005. This year she will earned her MFA from Claremont Graduate University. Her education has obviously done her well. She paints with a self assuredness that speaks to her experience and knowledge. Her palette is bright and compact, with the dreamy intensity of late afternoon light. Her suggestively worked passages of oil paint stand out on the raw canvas she chooses to paint on, like fresh tattoo ink on abraded flesh; provocative and painfully exciting. The artist write of this technique, “The interplay between the raw canvas and the thick fleshy oil paint blurs the boundary between surfaces and thus between figure and external influences.” Likewise the work is infused with a play between introverted and extroverted energy. While there is obviously something very intimate about each piece and the quiet scenes that they capture, there is also a tangible sense of wanting to share and relate to the world in which each scene plays out.

Recently Moore’s work was featured in the GLAMFA group show (Greater Los Angeles Master of Fine Arts) curated by a group of MFA students at California State University Long Beach. She recently moved to Los Angeles and got a studio. Expect big things from this budding talent.

London Miles Gallery is one of the UK’s leading contemporary art galleries. Specializing in surrealist, pop, lowbrow and illustration, the gallery prides itself on unearthing and nurturing new emerging talent. London Miles, in the city’s arts rich West London, has been open since April 2009 and staging impressive solo and group shows since their inception, including July’s Thinkspace curated “The Next Generation” exhibit that featured a veritable who’s who of contemporary art.

Opening this Friday, September 10th, London Miles has put together yet another compelling group show, this time focused on artists from their homeland. “Made in Britain” will feature work from some of the UK’s hottest young talents. Each artist has created a 24″x24″ piece in their own style reflecting on something uniquely British. Artists were encouraged to draw upon “a British tradition, iconic figure or historical memory of theirs.” London Miles has done a good job with their roster, including an interesting blend of styles and techniques. Featured artists include realist figurative painter Paul Sontag, street artists Inkie and Ink Fetish, and mixed media artists like Ben Jensen and Maddy Sargent.

Opening reception will be held at London Miles’ Westbourne Studios location from 7-11 PM. While there be sure to check out their concurrently opening exhibition “Visual Splendor” a solo show from UK pattern artist David Marsh aka Mesh 137, whose vibrant street art led him indoors to a growing gallery career.

London Miles Gallery
Westbourne Studios. 242 Acklam road.
Unit 303. London. W10 5JJ
info@londonmiles.com
phone: (44) 020 3170 8618

When I was a kid my grandma used to have a turn of phrase that I still love and use often: “God doesn’t give with both hands.” More often than not she would use this to describe pretty people who weren’t very bright, muttered conspiratorially under her breath with a teasing elbow to the ribs. Despite my decidedly agnostic nature I love this little colloquialism and find myself repeating it often. “He’s really nice, but he doesn’t have much of a sense of humor,” my friend tells me. God doesn’t give with both hands. “I love being back in school, but I don’t have enough free time!” God doesn’t give with both hands. “This burrito is filling, but not very delicious…” God doesn’t give with both hands. And then on rare occasions, this simply isn’t true. He’s a great dancer and he volunteers at a soup kitchen on the weekends. This burrito is delicious and filling. The artwork of Alicia Escott is a perfect example of both hands giving generously. Too often artists sacrifice technique in the pursuit of high concept, or vice versa. Escott’s work is smart and markedly original on a conceptual level and exquisitely executed with masterful technique.

Escott is a San Francisco based artist, curator and environmental activist. She did her undergrad at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago and earned her MFA at California College of the Arts. Her work focuses on a recurrent theme of loss, on a personal level as well as a societal level. Much of the loss that Escott deals with is ecological: endangered species, loss of habitat, and lost battles against the ever encroaching threat of environmental devastation. She uses beautifully rendered paintings and drawings to communicate a sense of urgency about the state of the planet. Her work is intelligent, touching and at times deeply humorous, without trying too hard. Take for example the drawings she did using National Geographic articles about conservation from the 70s and 80s as source material. Escott redrew imagery from the texts tromploi el on biodegradable plastic bags to signify the lack of progress made in conservation in the past few decades. Like the efforts and ideals of past environmentalists, whose attempts at ecological redemption have sadly been eroded by the swelling tide of consumerism and short term thinking, these drawings will quickly disintegrate.

I was fortunate enough to stumble on Alicia’s work at her show at Portland’s SEA Change Gallery, which is a must see gallery for me on First Thursdays. Last month the gallery hosted her exhibit Last night, again, you were in my dreams…. a collection of conceptual paintings and installations. In the series Escott painted animals on plastic sheeting, which she installed in the gallery filled with lifelike volume, and often accompanied by photographs of the painted animals in their “natural environment.” Though the work was obviously meant to be both critical and conscientious, the absurdity of it often caused me to laugh out loud, an element of levity that served the work well, as it was overall quite sad to see the majestic animals juxtaposed with quotes about species loss. One of my favorite pieces was a highly detailed painting of a pelican done on a Barney’s New York bag. The title of the piece sums it up quite well: Drawing of a California Brown Pelican on a Barneys plastic garment bag. The California Brown Pelicans currently being considered for removal from the Endangered Species Act after thirty years of protection allowed populations to rebound. This is a documentation of the drawn bird’s reintroduction into its natural habitat after having achieved couture status via Barneys New York.

Alicia Escott is certainly one to watch. An almost implausible blend of intelligence, wit, vision and candor, her talent and dedication to her practice only seem to be growing. In a recent undertaking, while living at an artist residency where leakage caused her windows to be covered in plastic, Escott endeavored to paint the plastic sheeting with a composition of what the view would look like from the nearby Bishop Pine Preserve if the house were not there. With enviable painting technique, and an expansive, forward thinking imagination, Alicia Escott is a talent on the rise.

Open until September 4th The Shooting Gallery has a stellar solo show from SF-based artist and illustrator Ferris Plock. As a kid Plock created comic books with his two older brothers, inspired by the stories that his mother, a teacher, would read to him. Early on his work had a sense of humor, and over time he developed that wit into a mixed-media style usually focused on his animal/monster characters in funny, human scenes. Plock works from sketched in acrylic, spray paint, ink, gold leaf, and polymer medium, as describes himself as “an illustrator that paints and nowhere close to being a painter that paints.”

From the press release: “Highly inspired by bedtime stories and comic book consumption as a child, Plock’s resulting nostalgia drives the creation of his art today. Plock utilizes his art practice as a mental and emotional outlet, where he illustrates the childhood spirit of make-believe and fantasy. The artist, a storyteller by nature with a formal education in creative writing and modern literature, easily encapsulates a full narrative voiced through a single character. He breathes a sense of humor and cheer into his pieces by depicting unexpected characters (such as TuffTaco), monsters and animals in everyday human conditions. He cites Japanese comics and cartoons as consistent influences for his work as well as traditional Ukiyo-e wood block print.”

Lapiztola is an urban art collective composed of three artists from Oaxaca, Yankel, Rosario and Roberto. The name itself, Lapiztola, is a play on word composed of the spanish word for Pistol (pistola) and the spanish word for pencil (lapiz). The intent was to create a name where two elements are combined to have a greater meaning – that of shooting graphic elements into the city. “Our style emerged from the need to express and demonstrate against what was happening in our city.” the collective shares.

“El Grito.”, or ‘the scream’ in english, is from the drug culture series. Much of the work made by the collective exposes the faults of the local government in order to eradicate local problem via their art work. “When the movement started the work started to pop up in prominent areas and the art work became very charged with social and political messages. There was suddenly more critique and people were more conscientious about the urban art that plastered the city.” the collective expresses in a recent interview with Curbs and Stoops.

“El Grito.” is a 20″ x 26″ silkscreen on fine art paper limited edition of 45. Each print will go for 60$ which includes shipping in the United States.

Read more about Lapiztola by checking out their interview with Andamos Armados here. Check out their page over at Just Feeds here. And check out their Curbs interview here. Buy the print here.