Featured GalleryDriver Exhibits

Jeff Soto
Storm Clouds

Gallery I
Solo Exhibition

Jonathan LeVine Gallery

September 8, 2007 through October 6, 2007

NEW YORK, NY September 2007 – Jonathan LeVine Gallery is proud to announce Storm Clouds, a solo exhibit of new works by Jeff Soto and the artist’s second major show at the gallery. Storm Clouds features over thirty new works on wood panel and paper, as well as large-scale installations that will focus on the theme of politics, fear, and fatherhood. Storm Clouds is Jeff Soto’s most politically charged exhibition to date. For Storm Clouds, Jeff Soto explores his predominant fears and anxieties over his daughter’s future, the civil war in Iraq, and the United States policies on environmental conservation. Soto’s concern for the American population’s indifference and a general disconnection to global affairs are motivating factors behind his overtly mature subject matter. Storm Clouds is ripe with metaphors that allude to the fate of the planet should neglect and indifference prevail. Soto’s expressive narratives evoke inherent contradictions, crossing between notions of a precarious and fragile natural world on the brink of extinction with one that is an indestructible, organic mass. Executed with a sophisticated mélange of graffiti and mixed media techniques, Jeff Soto’s paintings permeate with influences of popular culture, science fiction, and memories of nuclear war. Illustrating these notions, Soto creates a futuristic world where ominous clouds dominate, exotic plants struggle to survive, and colored prisms symbolize hope amidst desolate landscapes. Soto’s creatures, floating gardens, and religious symbols exist in entangled masses, revealing a civilization’s decline, destruction, and efforts to regenerate. In this surreal universe, an inevitable ice age has befallen, humans are extinct and fantastic robotic creatures flourish. Swarms of oil-like cloud formations expand on themes of death and decay, while subtle and bold use of text emphasizes the artist’s most intense trepidations and desires. “I wish more Americans would take a stand, get educated and try to make a difference,” states Soto. “I know making paintings is like preaching to the choir, most fans of my art are aware of what’s going on a global level. But I might be able to reach a few open minds here and there. That's why there's always a hint of optimism in my paintings. I think we can make things better somehow.” ABOUT THE ARTIST In 2002, Soto graduated with Distinction from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. Jeff Soto has illustrated for record companies, skateboard magazines, book publishers and advertisers. His client list includes Sony Music, Warner Bros., Wired, Entertainment Weekly, Disney Adventures and Outside Magazine. Recent exhibitions include Supernova, Jonathan LeVine Gallery, New York, NY and We’ll Make A Lover of You, ArtCenter of South Florida, Miami, FL. He has been featured in fine art and popular culture publications including, Artweek, Juxtapoz, American Illustration, Communication Arts, Beautiful Decay, and Lodown Magazine. In 2002, Soto graduated with Distinction from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. He currently lives in Riverside, California, with his wife Jennifer and daughter Shannon.

Featured Artist

Jeff Soto

See the Jeff Soto
Storm Clouds Exhibit

Jim Houser
asobviousasaskull

Gallery II
Solo Exhibition

Jonathan LeVine Gallery

September 8, 2007 through October 6, 2007

NEW YORK, NY September 2007 – Jonathan LeVine Gallery is please to present asobviousasaskull, a solo exhibit of new works by Jim Houser. This is the artist’s second major solo show at the gallery and will feature an installation of paintings, sculptures, and a large-scale mural featuring a collection of painted wooden panels. For this exhibition, the artist will debut original composed music to create a visceral experience for the viewer. For asobviousasaskull, Houser continues to translate an acute awareness of words and sensitivity to his surroundings through his art. Working in a style of free-association, Houser creates profound and uplifting poetry, which renders his art carefree and innocent. Houser’s fascination with word association parlays to a distinct aesthetic and mode of communication — a new visual language. Choosing words that interest him, either for their visual or aural properties, Houser is concerned with transcribing subjective elements through a basic vocabulary of images. Each work is related through theme, color, and text, forming a deep-coded composition, where the viewer activates a dialogue and participates in a seemingly complex narrative. Structured compositions and harmonious color palette enhance the curious nature of meticulous and refined renderings in Houser’s paintings. Houser’s controlled line, flat color and sectioned narratives reveal a heightened precision, yet are distinctly handmade. Comprised of a system of ideas and methods, Houser’s work is a catalogue of his active observations and experiences transferred to multiple forms of tangible surfaces and objects, including painted sculptures on wood, clay and cast stone. These recognizable objects, removed from their everyday use and reworked into a playful narrative, adopt new meaning. The result is a body of work that is extremely personal and accessible, rich with iconography of word, phrase, and symbol fused seamlessly together to illustrate the human condition. “That’s how I wanted to present my work,” explains Houser, “in the context of the world that I occupy. All my influences are present there.” ABOUT THE ARTIST Jim Houser lives and works in Philadelphia, PA. Recent exhibitions include, The Beating Heart Acts as a Time, Painted Bride Art Center, Philadelphia, PA, We’ll Make A Lover of You, ArtCenter of South Florida, Miami, FL, and systemsanderrors, Jonathan LeVine gallery, New York, NY. Houser's work is in the permanent collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Houser’s work has been published in Rolling Stone, Los Angeles Times Magazine, Anthem, Flaunt, Modern Painters, Paper, Los Angeles Times, and Juxtapoz magazine He has created design work for Toy Machine, Designarium, and Nike. In 2005, Ginko Press published Babel, a book cataloging Jim Houser's life in the arts. For F

Featured Artist

Jim Houser

See the Jim Houser
asobviousasaskull Exhibit

Cobble

Featuring work by Scott Dolan and Mildred Beltre

NY Studio Gallery

September 6, 2007 through September 29, 2007

NY Studio Gallery is pleased to present Cobble, a two-person exhibit with New York based artists Scott Dolan and Mildred Beltré. The large abstract works of Ms. Beltré and the figurative works of Mr. Dolan are like individual jigsaw pieces from different ends of the puzzle, or life seen through micro and macro lenses, each illustrating a different view of the same scene. Scott Dolan’s narrative images depict characters engaged in intimate if somewhat unusual daily activities in situations that are at once unlikely, humorous and compelling. His awkwardly domestic scenes painted in oil or egg tempera or drawn in washy inks evoke moments of uncertainty tinged with unsolved mystery, romantic longing, loss and regret. Mildred Beltré works within abstraction and repetition creating larger pieces using predetermined shapes as the building blocks to create self-organizing systems. Ms. Beltré’s drawings develop lush, complicated rhythms using a few simple forms subjected to a few simple rules. Artists’ Reception: Thursday, September 13, 2007.