OFF THE HOOK III: GROUP EXHIBITION- PHONE BOOTH GALLERY SNEAK PEAK

Joe King - Liberty - 8 x 14 - Pen and ink - NFS

Rodrigo Enrique Luff - Neurosis - 23.6x31.5 - Pencil and Oil Pastel on Paper - $600

Ryan Milner - Precious - 8x10 - Graphite on Bristol - $200

OFF THE HOOK III: GROUP EXHIBITION

Phone Booth Gallery is proud to present “Off the Hook III,” the third annual open-themed group exhibition featuring many of Phone Booth Gallery’s principal artists. The reception will be held at the atmospheric Fix
in Echo Park, on April 3, and continues through April 30, 2010 from 7-10pm. Fix is located at 2100 Echo Park Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90026.

An open-themed exhibition featuring over 40 artworks by more than 20 diverse artists, “Off the Hook III” channels the inventive, renegade, and reflective energy that makes Phone Booth Gallery distinct. Smartly
crafted and inquisitive, the work in the exhibition ranges from pen and ink to painting and collage, but a unifying, voracious interest in the iconic potential of images is what ties the exhibition together.

Vincent Pacheco’s cleverly straight-faced “Cigs” diptych captures a nostalgia that has become toxic now that smoking’s image has changed from sophisticated to deadly. Handiedan also plays into nostalgia, exploring the tangled relationship between bodies and their histories, and turning the pin-up into a layered cacophony of limbs, faces, and torsos. Strangely aggressive, Bryan Schnelle’s collage work disrupts the sleekness of mainstream fashion, cutting into found images transforming them so that they become almost predatory.

New to Phone Booth Gallery, Joe King and Yevgeniya Mikhailik both take a more tangible, narrative approach to image-making. Mikhailik’s miniature watercolor, “House Fire,” is cinematically ominous, while King’s iconoclastic pen and ink drawings shatter pantheons of American history and blur the line between patriotism and anarchy. Softer and more lyrical, the pencil and oil pastel body-scapes of Rodrigo Enrique Luff, also new to Phone Booth Gallery, occupy a surreal, uninhibited space between fantasy and reality, suggesting that theatricality and romance can still be potent into today’s heavily mediated culture.

The uninhibited, geometrically forceful work of Robert Pokorny and the sassy, capricious serigraphs of Harry Diaz give the show its levity, and suggest that art is still the terrain of those with a sense of humor
and a need to challenge the way culture looks.

Phone Booth Gallery is proud to showcase the diverse work of:
Adam Isaac Jackson
Aurora Armijo
Bryan Schnelle
David L. Owen
Evanimal
Garry Booth
Handiedan
Harry Diaz
Hydeon
Iain Macarthur
Joe King
Joel Zuercher
Kareem Rizk
Kevin Bannister
Matt Hendon
Michael Slack
Mike Knife
Nancy Chiu
Rick Reese
Robert Pokorny
Rodrigo Enrique Luff
Ryan Milner
Vincent Pacheco
Yevgeniya Mikhailik
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Established in 2008, Phone Booth Gallery exhibits many talented and up and coming artists from around the globe. We owned and
operated out of Long Beach, CA. www.phoneboothgallery.com
For more information about the event, or to schedule an interview with any of the artists, please contact Garry Booth.