To wrap up 2021, Copro Gallery are finishing with a real bang! Not only one, but SIX artists will be decorating their fabulous walls in a series of individual solo shows throughout December! Each artist brings their own style and energy – all colourful, quirky, and playfully bizarre. Get ready for: Xue Wang, Nouar, Stefanie Vega, Amanda Adomiatis, Laurie Hassold and Karikatura.
Copro Gallery Krampmas Party & Art Exhibit Featuring:
Xue Wang | Stefanie Vega | Amanda Adomaitis | Karikatura | Nouar | Laurie Hassold
COPRO GALLERY
2525 Michigan Ave, #T5, Santa Monica, CA 90404, United States | Phone: 310 829 2156
Exhibition Dates: December 11 – December 21, 2021
Opening Reception: December 11, 2021 | 3:00-9:00pm
For more information, email Gallery Director, Gary Pressman at coprogallery@live.com or call 310-829-2156.
Xue Wang: ‘Friend or Faux’
Chinese-born Xue Wang’s new body of work focuses on the trickery of false friends. Consisting of six paintings and two drawings, the solo show explores this theme through the surreal use of beautiful females and their insect friends. The works are curious, surreal, and provide a lot to unpack the more you look.
I love vintage pin-up imagery, film noir and silent films.” Xue says. “We cannot escape the past and our sweet yesterdays, whether imaginary or real. They are my repository. Superficially my paintings may appear ‘cute’ but my intention is to unsettle, albeit subtly. Just as the creeping wasp on the fairy cake does.
Xue Wang: “Bad hair day” 
Xue Wang: “Me time”
Nouar: ‘Garden Variety’
In Nouar’s third solo exhibition at Copro Gallery, she expands upon her character-based aesthetic. Get ready for pin up girls frolicking with tasty anthropomorphic edibles, vivid colours and wonderfully chaotic situations! Nouar’s inspiration from vintage imagery encompassing post-WWII era animation, packaging and advertising art is clearly visible. The ongoing muse provides elements of nostalgia amidst her playful and humorous scenarios, intertwined with the artist’s darker personal narratives. Nouar shares: “I have always been completely fascinated by our massive consumer culture and often feel everything around us is a commercial, constantly manipulating us into desiring things we don’t really have a need for, or shouldn’t want in the first place.”
Nouar “Hazy state” 
Nouar: “Give ’em the pickle!”
Stefanie Vega: ‘An Incredibly Pecuilar Christmas’
Stefanie Vega once again exhibits at Copro Gallery, this time unveiling an “Incredibly Peculiar” accumulation of work celebrating Krampus and Christmas. Her hand-crafted mixed media works create an amusing parallel to the traditional festive decorations. Both beautiful and odd, Stefanie’s intricate pieces pop with colour and vibrant gothic energy.
It is my intention to jar the collective memory we have of imagery and symbolism through a crossbreeding of the unexpected. I hope to give new voice to an age-old doll tradition that insists on singing its own song. From the tales that left profound impressions in my earliest childhood memories, I began working not only with unwanted doll parts, but with skull, bones and birds. They spoke to me of wanting to tell the bigger story.
The dolls we played with as children were the totems of our dreams.
Upon them we laid our hopes and fears… upon them we projected our greatest selves. So, drawing on an enormous pool of archetypes and folklore and developing characters based on children’s literature and faerie tales, a new hybrid was born. I began to write verse in order to share the tales that influenced the work. This rogue taxidermy with discarded porcelain doll parts and accompanying limerick became a cross-breeding of the unexpected and a departure from the familiar.”
Stefanie Vega: “Orange Jewel Beetle” Stefanie Vega: “Tea House” 
Stefanie Vega: “Little Ghost” 
Stefanie Vega: “Krampus Cometh”
Amanda Adomaitis solo show
In Amanda’s solo exhibition, she focuses on the concept that beauty enhances people lives. The designer and ceramicist shares a series of bright and impish works which radiate humour, oddity and warmth in equal measure. Amanda originally studied literature and that love of character and story has continued to inform her work across varied disciplines ever since. She has spent years creating her own creatures; at the root of these creations is her fascination with the idea of the uncanny and the notion of feeling as action.
The simultaneous reaction of being drawn to something while also being repelled by it, the combination of the familiar and the unfamiliar: these are the ideas that drive her. Crucial to this notion is the difference between the sensation of the uncanny and its position in stark difference to shock or gothic sensibilities. She is constantly striving to reach that level of engagement that is paramount to the uncanny.
Amanda Adomaitis: “Bernice” 
Amanda Adomaitis: “Patrice”
Laurie Hassold solo show
Internationally exhibiting artist Laurie Hassold’s sculptures are uniquely gothic and primal, presenting to the world pieces she imagines as possible “future fossils”. Swirling and mesmerising shapes splay unapologetically, imbued with a reverence for Nature and its brutal force.
Knowledge of and obsession with mortality may be at the root of humanity’s greatest achievements as well as our most destructive tendencies.” Laurie shares in her statement. “But Nature, for me, is the only real evidence of divinity. It is at once glorious and cruel, innocent and perverse, comedic and tragic. We are at the mercy of its bountiful gifts, as well as its crushing disasters. My sculptures are an attempt to imagine “Cross-breeds” that traverse social, biological and psychological barriers, and reconcile the alienation I feel between humanity and the natural world. The marriage of rock, bone, tree and flesh attempt to bridge the impossible divide between life and death, becoming an ageless witness to the passing of geological time, in the form of fossils.
Laurie Hassold: “RatBee” 
Laurie Hassold: “Medusa”
Karikatura solo show
Karikatura is a Mexican post-war and contemporary artist. For Copro Gallery’s December exhibition, Karikatura has created an array of Krampus pottery wall sculptures. Krampus is a horned, anthropomorphic figure from Central and Eastern Alpine folklore who is the partner in crime to Saint Nicholas. During the Christmas season, Krampus punishes children who have misbehaved, while Saint Nicholas rewards those who have been good. Karikatura’s creations are the perfect gift for those who like a little mischief in their festive celebrations!
Karikatura: “Marto Krampus” 
Karikatura: “Dante Krampus”
About the gallery:
The gallery, located at Bergamot Arts, is divided into two exhibition spaces, sometimes featuring a single artist but often two or three. Large group exhibitions are also featured often in conjunction with outside curators. In following with its original mission, Copro participates in International Art Fairs and curates outside exhibits to help promote their artists.
Focusing on museum quality installations showcasing emerging artists, Copro Gallery also exhibits many established and master painters. Placing works in private collections throughout the world, Copro strives to assist collectors new and experienced in building the most exciting collections possible.
