A) Video Game Meat, 8" x 6", oil acrylic and gel medium
B) Yellow Slumber, 16" x 16", acrylic and mixed media
C) Red Cross, Acylic and Mixed Media on Canvas, 5' x 4'
Sunset & St. Marks
The finest upcoming artists from Los Angeles and New York City.
July 14 - August 7
Opening night with the artists: Friday, July 14th 6:00 - 9:00 pm
Capla Kesting Fine Art
121 Roebling St, 7-8 - Brooklyn, NY 11211
phone: 917-650-3760
Bedford Ave L Train at the corner of North 5th and Roebling.
East Village Painter, Brian Leo, has been creating an ongoing series of paintings in a style best typified as Garage Pop Surrealism. The series has been exhibited as a deluge of up to 500 paintings .
Garage refers to a grungy warehouse of stored poetic language addressing raw emotion. In Leo's work, mundane imagery resonates against solid backgrounds of vibrant color, evoking Pop Art commercialism. Cartoon-like, whimsical subject matter, referencing individual identity, pop culture and current events, are juxtaposed and re-contextualized to form surrealistic icons of disposal. The psychological tug of these paintings reveals the Surrealist underpinnings of Leo's endeavor.
Working within the
paradigm of contradiction, the artist contrasts the bright and festive
colors of his palette with images of modern day despair and quirks from
everyday life.
Leo's setting is an imaginary place where a sense of wonder and innocence
prevails. We see the inhabitants of this magical realm as if though through
the eyes of a child; poetically imagined, yet charged with symbolic meaning.
Brian holds a B.F.A. from Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University, where he studied under Martha Rosler and Fluxus artist Geoff Hendrix. In 2005, Leo was included in an exhibit curated by Ronnie Cutrone, (Andy Warhol's Asst.) which featured 80's East Village Artists: Crash (John Matos), Rick Prol, and Keily Jenkins.
