Welcomed are the days of 2024 – let them rush in like wind and linger with new inspiration. To kickstart things, Thinkspace Projects is thrilled to extend a warm invitation to you for the opening of exciting new exhibitions showcasing the remarkable works of SUPER A, HUMBLY, GUSTAVO RIMADA, ANTHONY SOLANO, and L. CROSKEY.
With vibrant pops of color, movement and storytelling, explore the individual voice of the artist as elements of nature and nostalgia seamlessly infuse a compositional elegance that us pedal through each collection inquisitively.
If you’re still looking to be inspired, Thinkspace Projects also offers a full schedule of events, interviews, and much more to keep you and your creative needs fully immersed. Be sure to follow their blog Sour Harvest to stay updated on all the artsy things you love! With just a few clicks, you can browse through an extensive selection of art. Take a moment and visit Thinkspace Projects’ online store to view all available inventory, created by talented artists from around the world!
Thinkspace Projects Presents
SUPER A | HUMBLY | GUSTAVO RIMADA | ANTHONY SOLANO | L. CROSKEY
Opening Reception: January 13, 2024 | 6-10pm
with DJ, refreshments, live painting, video projections and more
Exhibition Dates: January 13, 2024 – February 3, 2024
Thinkspace Projects
4217 W. Jefferson Blvd. |
4207 W. Jefferson Blvd. | 4217 W. Jefferson Blvd. | Los Angeles, CA 90016
#310.558.3375 | Tues. – Sat. Noon to 6PM
thinkspaceprojects.com
For all inquiries please contact the gallery via email at contact@thinkspaceprojects.com
Search their hashtags: #thinkspaceprojects #thinkspacegallery #thinkspacefamily
About the Thinkspace Projects //
Thinkspace Projects was founded in 2005; now in LA’s burgeoning West Adams District, the gallery has garnered an international reputation as one of the most active and productive exponents of the New Contemporary Art Movement. Maintaining its founding commitment to the promotion and support of its artists, Thinkspace Projects has steadily expanded its roster and diversified its projects, creating collaborative and institutional opportunities all over the world. Founded in the spirit of forging recognition for young, emerging, and lesser-known talents, the gallery is now home to artists from all over the world, ranging from the emerging, mid-career, and established.
The New Contemporary Art Movement, not unlike its earlier 20th Century counterparts like Surrealism, Dada, or Fauvism, ultimately materialized in search of new forms, content, and expressions that cited rather than disavowed the individual and the social. The earliest incarnations of the Movement, refusing the paradigmatic disinterest of “Art” as an inaccessible garrison of ‘high culture’, championed figuration, surrealism, representation, pop culture, and the subcultural.
By incorporating the ‘lowbrow,’ accessible, and even profane, an exciting and irreverent art movement grew in defiance of the mandated renunciations of “high” art. Emerging on the West Coast in the 90’s partly as a response to the rabid ‘conceptual-turn’ then championed on the East Coasts, the Movement steadily created its own platforms, publications, and spaces for the dissemination of its imagery and ideas.
SUPER A (aka Stefan Thelen)
Atypical (Gallery I)
Dutch artist Stefan Thelen, better known by his moniker Super A, creates hyperreal murals and studio paintings that explore the world of human contradiction. Through the combination of realistic and surreal imagery, Super A is often dealing in visual metaphor and social messaging, questioning the ideologies and cultural myths we’ve become too complacent at accepting without critique. Interested in the interrogation of objectivity and its ultimate exposure as a construct, Super A combines elements of realism with the free reign of fiction to produce unexpected results.
‘Atypical’ is Thinkspace’s fourth solo presentation of Super A’s work. His well-established alias is a creative alter identity created to explore more contentious and difficult subject matter as a muralist in the public sphere. His most recent body of works in the ‘Trapped’ series sees the artist stripping cartoon, fairytale, or pop cultural archetypes of their fantasy and veneer, revealing the realistic or historical counterparts beneath them. An apt commentary on the dissimulation of popular cultural mythology, Super A deconstructs its theater.
‘Atypical’ is an important next step in the artist’s evolution as this new series of works see’s Super A introducing two new ongoing series to his oeuvre. With the sculpture series ‘Two Weeks’, the Netherlands based creative unveils new three dimensional works inspired by the iconic TSA type security scene in the original ‘Total Recall’ film from 1990.
Along with ‘Two Weeks’, Thelen has also set out to create an entirely new director for his works on canvas. With his new ‘Twisted’ series, he aims to showcase how everyday house hold pets / animals have worked their way into popular culture as a whole and the zeitgeist of the last several decades of the human experience.
Super A is a mystery that leans on the art doing most of the talking for Stefan Thelen, taking the viewer into a wonderland walking down a yellow brick road in which Thelen’s figurative and modern surrealist compositions are providing playful puzzles to decipher.
Artist Bio:
Stefan Thelen’s anti-superhero identity Super A is a Dutch artist who uses traditional painting technique and a knack for design to create compositions that manipulate familiar iconography into mind-bending and inquisitive pieces.
His alter-ego, Super A is the filter with which the life and observations of Stefan Thelen are distilled down and turn into inspiration. All of his work evolves out of personal experiences or thoughts that grow into concepts which tightrope between fiction and nonfiction. Super A is a mystery that leans on the art doing most of the talking for Stefan Thelen, taking the viewer into a wonderland walking down a yellow brick road in which Thelen’s figurative and modern surrealist compositions are providing playful puzzles to decipher.
HUMBLY
Make Them Real (Gallery II)
Artist Bio / Statement:
Bryan Reynald Antonio, better known by his artistic alias “Humbly,” is a self-taught illustrator and toy maker hailing from Rizal, Philippines, born in 1987. His imaginative creations have gained him recognition in the art world. Humbly’s work is characterized by children donning extravagant costumes, embarking on adventurous journeys, which serve as recurring motifs.
At the heart of his artistic repertoire lies a primary character—an enigmatic young boy adorned with a box on his head. This character embarks on captivating expeditions, traversing portals and exploring otherworldly realms. This protagonist, donning the box, serves as a self-referential symbol within Humbly’s art.
Drawing inspiration from both his past and present childhood experiences, Humbly crafts a blend of elements from 90s pop culture, science fiction, fantasy, comics, and toys. The mishmash of these influences creates a unique visual language that resonates with viewers.
Humbly’s exceptional talent has garnered international attention, with his works being featured in exhibitions across the United States, Tokyo, and Paris. As his reputation continues to grow, he has upcoming solo shows scheduled in prominent art destinations such as Shanghai, London, and Singapore in 2023.
Through his art, Humbly invites viewers to embark on whimsical and thought-provoking journeys. His imaginative creations not only reflect his personal artistic evolution but also serve as a bridge between his childhood nostalgia and contemporary artistic expression. With each brushstroke, Humbly continues to captivate audiences and leave an indelible mark on the art world.
GUSTAVO RIMADA
Campo Santo (Gallery III)
Artist Bio / Statement:
“I was born in Torreon, Mexico in 1981, I am the youngest of four. My memories of Mexico are few, but of those I do remember I was constantly drawing. Whenever, wherever. My mother reminded me of my gift all the time as I grew up. Always encouraging me. She knew before I did what my true passion would become.
By the age of seven my parents decided to move to California. In Mexico, my father was a lawyer, my mother a doctor. Upon arriving, their employment changed drastically. Now they were washing dishes and housekeeping. Our lives had been flipped upside down. They were tough times, but with that I saw the strength my parents put up and it is something I keep close to me.
I was raised in Indio, California. Throughout school I took art classes, it came easy. After graduating from high school, I decided (with the encouragement of family) to move to Santa Monica and attend The Art Institute where I chose to study Computer Animation. While in school, the tragedy of September 11th hit and after that happened it left me feeling inadequate in my life. I needed something more, my heart wasn’t in animation nor school anymore. While walking passed an Army Recruitment office I went in and sat down. A few hours later I was signed up and to be leaving for boot camp within weeks.
I spent three years in the Army. Within that time art took a backseat. Dabbling here and there but nothing serious. It really wasn’t until about two years after the Army that I was given two huge pieces of MDO board to paint on. It was truly the beginning of my journey back into art.
My heart and hand took over. I sketched, I painted till late in the night. Painting on everything from shoes to bags, to just about anything. In less than a month I filled a sketchbook full of Elvgren pinups and Olivia paintings. Soon after all that, I started working at a tattoo shop. The tattoo world inspired my artwork with a whole new life and passion. The knowledge and history of the industry was incredible to me.
It has now been well over a decade in this profession. Art has given me so much knowledge of maturity and growth, and I will continue to pursue it with my whole being. It is my air and my life. I would say that in every piece I create I learn something new in what ever the context of the painting brings. Each detail, each decision of color, it has become an education all in its own.
I am definitely a workaholic with painting, and honestly, I love what I do. Wouldn’t trade it for anything. I truly eat, breath and sleep art. I work hard and will continue to do so whatever it may be.
Last but not least I am a devoted father, husband and family man, but non the less a truly passionate artist.
Thank you for being here and reading my story.”
ANTHONY SOLANO
Alive & Well (Gallery IV)
Artist Statement:
‘Alive & Well’ is the fourth chapter within an on-going story told through Solano’s vibrant and now recognizable style of painting. Starting in 2021 with his series ‘Once We Are Gone’, in which Anthony began to explore a reawakening and thriving world without humans.
Followed by ‘Fun & Games’, which opened at Thinkspace Projects in 2022, and ‘Dazed & Confused’ in 2023, ‘Alive & Well’ is a continuation of a story, in which nature’s tenacious will to live is highlighted in scenarios surrounded by a juxtaposition of emotions, beauty and sadness, humor and anger, strength and tenderness, sparking thoughts of self-reflection in the viewers of his work. Within his evolving story, a theme that remains consistent in Solano’s work is nature’s strength and ability to thrive under the pressure of living surrounded by all the human stuff that, for the most part, does not decompose quickly.
Different from the previous stories told, in ‘Alive & Well’, hints of recent human existence become louder, and the artist asks himself “who is Alive & Well? The thriving life that so strongly existed before, or could it be humans, that this body of work refers to?”
Artist Bio:
Having spent his childhood years between California and Guadalajara, Mexico, artist Anthony Solano turned to art at a young age, seeing it as both a source of escape and comfort. In high school he was exposed to painting for the first time, sparking what would become his life’s passion. Anthony, a self-taught painter, now resides in Portland, Oregon and credits the local landscape for a major creative shift, from abstract painting to the surreal genre that he currently practices.
Solano’s work explores today’s environmental conflicts, communicated with vibrant hyper-realistic imagery and thought-provoking storytelling.
L. CROSKEY
Cutting It Close (The Doghouse Gallery)
Artist Bio / Statement:
One wouldn’t think that a collage artist, working with glue and paper would have once been bombing the streets of LA. But back in the 80’s Leonard Croskey known to everyone as LC, used to go by the name King Kaoski and ran with Pasadena graffiti crew, IBM: Images Beyond Mentality. This once strictly street art man then stretched his creative palate and turned to fashion and studied design for two years. This love for design is how the graffiti artist and fashion designer turned into a collage artist. LC’s art combines graffiti’s movement and color with the design and pattern making of fashion.
Collage is the creative outlet that brings his two different talents together and produces a new kind of image. An image with clean tight lines that reflect those of the modern digital arts with a graffiti bounce, except LC leaves the computer behind. And lets paper, glue and scissors be the means to an artistic end. Inspired by vintage pin up art, design, and advertising, LC creates a world of imagination, a very distinct world of his own, an image that reflects a metaphor or fantasy or delusion, a false paradise.
By using magazines and books ranging from vintage pin up to children’s books and numerous others, he takes these classic beauties and other collected images and places them in a modern design setting. Years of collected wrapping paper, wallpaper, scrap booking paper and magazines are the materials LC uses to build this girl inspired world, luring you in to find out that the story might actually be saying more than what it may have initially alluded to. LC’s art is a diary of emotions from his past and the lessons he has learned from these various, funny, sometimes dark relationships, and sometimes just good old fashioned sex.
