Copro Gallery have curated a mega finale for their final opening of the year! Featuring five strange and wonderful artists spanning painting and 3D art, get ready for:
JASON FREENY ‘HAPPY PILLS’
XUE WANG ‘UNTOLD STORIES’
CRAWW ‘FROM FIRST TO LAST’
JIM MCKENZIE ‘POTATO FACE’
CRAIG LAROTONDA ‘WILD CREATURES OF OBLIVION’
Copro Gallery
Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Ave, #T5, Santa Monica, CA 90404, United States
Phone: 310 829 2156
Opening Reception: Saturday December 02 , 2023, 6:00 – 10:00pm Jim McKenzie’s screening of ‘Potato Face’ starts at 6:00pm sharp!
Exhibition Dates: December 2 – December 30, 2023
For more information, email Copro Gallery Director, Gary Pressman at coprogallery@live.com or call 310-829-2156.
Jason Freeny: ”HAPPY PILLS’
Jason Freeny presents ‘HAPPY PILLS’, a sculptural solo exhibition on show for the first time at Copro Gallery. Jason is an Internationally award-winning artist celebrated for captivating audiences worldwide with his thought-provoking works. With a unique blend of sculpture and illustration, Freeny’s artistry revolves around dissecting and revealing the workings of pop culture characters and iconography, offering a whimsical and insightful perspective.
Jason began his creative journey by studying industrial design at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. This background shines through in his meticulous attention to detail and his ability to seamlessly merge art with what appears to be machine-like precision. By utilizing his industrial design prototyping techniques, he creates hyper-polished, hand-made sculptures that are often confused with actual mass-produced reproductions.
Through his signature style, Freeny explores themes of juxtaposition, biology, and the elements of irony. Freeny’s artistic process often involves meticulously deconstructing popular characters, exposing their inner anatomy, and exploring the mechanisms that make them come alive. His works range from sculptures, illustrations, and toy modification, each intricately designed and meticulously executed to provoke thought and spark the imagination.
With a growing fan base, Freeny’s art has gained widespread recognition and has been featured in galleries, museums, and International exhibitions. His unique talent and innovative approach have garnered attention from both art enthusiasts and pop culture aficionados alike. With hundreds of produced toys based on his sculptures, Jason also has amassed a significant fan base amongst Designer Toy collectors worldwide. Through his art, Freeny continues to push boundaries, influence designers, and challenge perceptions, leaving a lasting impact on the art world and popular culture, as a whole.
XUE Wang ‘Untold Stories’
Xue Wang was born in northern China in 1980. After a BA degree in fashion design at Lu Xun Academy of Fine Art in China. She relocated to London aged 22 and finished her MA in fashion at the University of Westminster. Painting and drawing, playing around with ideas, juxtaposing images and allowing her imagination free rein have all helped guide her development. The self-reflective intimacy of art, which has always been latent in her, forced Xue’s transition from fashion to painting. She has exhibited worldwide in many countries since 2010 and her paintings are coveted among international art collectors.
Craww ‘From First To Last’
CRAWW ‘FROM FIRST TO LAST’ is a series of new paintings and drawings connected by a theme of stories, both written and spoken, recorded to mark our place in the world and the events that surround us. Created in a style inspired by classical paintings and with imagery that hints at a world steeped in history, the new work asks questions and invites involvement rather than providing answers, leaving space for the viewer to create their own conclusions and narratives.
Living on the edge of the Peak District and surrounded by hills, woods and open moorland, Craww’s work reflects an ongoing fascination with the natural world, and the relationships we have with it. Drawing and painting, he creates narratives that are drawn from the beauty to be found in contradictions and ambiguity – life and death, beauty and decay, strength, and fragility. He enjoys exploring the conflicting and complementing forces of nature, natural forms and the constructs that mark our passing.
Each piece is a story, or an aspect of an unfolding story that writes itself as he works on it. As his muses pass through time and place, they are accompanied in their journey by birds and animals. Often framed by classical and historical reference points and surrounded by flowing lines and natural forms, his work uncovers their ambiguous connections and hidden narratives, exploring how the passage of time shapes the relationship between ourselves and nature. Painting mainly in oils, Craww also enjoys exploring ideas in graphite and charcoal. Discovery is a large part of his work, ideas and themes developing over time, often as a “stream of consciousness” rather than clearly defined concepts and objectives.
Jim McKenzie ‘Potato Face’
In this exhibition, Copro Gallery presents a showcase for artist Jim McKenzie featuring some of the props from the film, sets, original potato, carrot sculptures and other props for his short film “Potato Face”. Directed by Jim McKenzie, it’s an eleven-minute art process film detailing one toy maker’s obsessive journey of sculpting and manufacturing what he considers to be the perfect toy.
This will be the premiere screening so be the first to watch the film, meet the artist and get a free signed postcard.
There will also be a Photo Op with the new, never-before-seen GIANT 6.5′ Potato Face. The smaller Potato Face toy will be available to be signed by Jim as well as other stickers and toys.
Craig LaRotonda ‘WILD CREATURES OF OBLIVION’
Born and raised in Buffalo, New York, Craig LaRotonda received his BFA in 1992 at the State University of New York at Buffalo, where he studied with the internationally renowned illustrator Alan Cober. Currently working as a professional painter, illustrator, and sculptor, Craig divides his time between each endeavour. LaRotonda’s richly layered paintings are provocative; his signature iconic style is reminiscent of Renaissance and Byzantine art while remaining boldly contemporary. His work possesses a dark narrative and grotesque elegance. These distorted creatures are captured in a timeless space — surviving the brutality and beauty of existence. Craig’s ability to make deformities and oddities become aesthetically magnificent is what makes his art so unique.
His paintings and sculptures incorporate mixed media and aging techniques, ultimately creating surreal figurative works.
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 Gallery 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.
