They say that variety is the spice of life. If so, Copro Gallery in Santa Monica are cooking up a zingy special! Perfect for those of you who enjoy a cornucopia of artwork to peruse, this weekend Copro Gallery celebrate the unveiling of SEVEN individual mini solo shows! Entering the limelight are Stephanie Inagaki, Karla Pereira, Benz & Chang, Mark Covell, Tas Limur, Stefanie Vega, and Babs Webb.
Read below for more details and to enjoy some sneak peeks of their upcoming works! Many artists will also be present at the opening reception this Saturday.
Copro Gallery
2525 Michigan Ave, T5, Santa Monica, CA 90404, United States
Phone: 310 829 2156
Opening Reception: Saturday, May 7, 2022 | 5:00-9:00PM
Exhibition Dates: May 7 – May 28, 2022
For more information, email Gallery Director, Gary Pressman at coprogallery@live.com or call 310-829-2156.
Stephanie Inagaki ‘Hidden Realms’
“The Hidden Realm is where creatures and magical beings reside in Japanese myth and folklore, where they can rest away from the human gaze. In my version of this visual narrative, it is a place of reflection, the unconscious, and the masks we put up, told through the lens of the anthropomorphic and creatures that are familiars. This veil of the fantastical distills and re-imagines how the self is communicated, how we wish we were in our dreams and fantasies. It reveals our inner truths or keeps a part of us hidden.”
Karla Pereira: ‘The Beauty of the Soul’
Copro Gallery presents Karla Pereira’s ‘The Beauty of the Soul’. Karla’s new series reflects the beauty and power of the soul, with women being the main characters of her paintings. They are depicted as independent, powerful, free and ready to face the adversities of the world. Each painting has a poem that goes along with it. Additionally, for the first time Karla has included a sculpture in the exhibit!
Head to Karla’s exhibition page (link above) to read all of her accompanying poems.
Benz & Chang ‘Thresholds and Corridors’
BENZ AND CHANG believe that the arts make the world a better place through shared experience and mutual understanding. The Benz and Chang paintings are “fake vintage photos” rendered with watercolour and/or walnut ink. They are dreamlike and figurative. Most of the paintings appear to be photos from the early 20th century, and they reward a second or third look with details that can be easy to miss. Figures appear with twins, crowns, wings, ghost limbs, halos, odd lights and shadows.
Using this imagery, Benz and Chang explore transformative life experiences such as facing fear, making life-changing decisions, grieving losses, having mystical experiences, or confronting mortality. Says Benz, “I see myself as a channel. My job is to align myself with a larger creative impulse, and also with the painting itself. I must add that I rarely do this perfectly. During the various steps of making a painting, I will “see” something that belongs in the painting, and so I will add it. If the decision-making process breaks down, I consult a Magic 8-Ball for direction. The resulting paintings are dreamlike.”
Mark Covell
Mark Covell’s latest work for Copro Gallery focuses on bringing his bizarre robotic visions to life. Mark has the attitude that shiny new mechanics have no story to tell until they’ve tarnished over time. He has been creating a haunted world where the abandoned factory and empty shell of machines becomes an eerie thing of beauty.
Tas Limur: Indulgent Companions
“My new series of fine art photography, ‘Indulgent Companions’, is inspired by the paintings of the Renaissance period.” shares Tas Limur.
“I have always been fascinated by the way that artists from that era were able to capture the grace and beauty of their subjects. In my own work, I strive to create photographs that are similarly evocative. In this series, I focus on animals that are often considered to be ‘companion animals’, such as dogs and cats. I wanted to capture them in a way that highlights their individual personalities and special relationships with their human companions. To do this, I focused on two key elements: food and table manners.”
Babs Webb
Babs Webb is a Colorado-based dark fantasy artist with an affinity for the occult. Through strongly symbolic visuals, she strives to convey the visceral emotions that push the boundaries of our humanity; a shrewd clash of psychology and fantasy.
Stefanie Vega
“I hope to give new voice to an age-old doll tradition that insists on singing its own song.” explains Stefanie Vega.
“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. I was serenaded by haunting lullabies from long ago. So, drawing on an enormous pool of archetypes and folklore, 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.”
The Musings
The dreams that I keep,
both awake and asleep,
are the roadmaps
to places concealed…
and the path before me,
in the landscape I see
inspires choice
as the future’s revealed.
– Stefanie Vega
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.
