Inle Video

Our friend, Daniel Ybarra, just sent us some GREAT footage from the Inle opening. If you weren't able to see the show in person, this is the next best thing. The artwork looks amazing and there's also an interview with the show curator, Greg 'Craola' Simkins. And if you were at the opening definitely check out this video cause you might be in it!



Big thanks to Daniel for putting this video together!

Katie
G1988

Saturday Night With Ken

UPDATE: We've added prints to the INLE online store.

Daniel Danger - CLICK HERE.

Mike Mitchell - CLICK HERE or CLICK HERE.

Greg Simkins - CLICK HERE.

What a show last night! Not even for Crazy 4 Cult do we have a line that goes down the block even at 10 PM! This really was the first exhibit ever where we had to extend the show, and cut the line off. Thank you to everyone who came out and the insane amount of artists who both attended and participated. This is a show that won't be forgotten for quite some time. Proof? iPhone trivia app "Qrank," ran this today!



PRETTY AWESOME. We're open all weekend at Melrose, 11-6 PM, come by and see it now without so many people blocking your view.

After last night's crazy INLE ride, we're at it again. And we would be tired, EXCEPT Ken Keirn's solo exhibit, "Alone With Ghosts," is hard not to be excited about. It opens tonight at our Venice location and it's already off to quite a good start with sales. You can see, and purchase, the artwork from both Ken's show opening tonight and last night's INLE explosion, by CLICKING HERE.

And here's some previews in case your fingers are too tired to click there.





Oh, AND ALSO, we'll be back at the Saban Theater tonight, for the SOLD OUT Freaks & Geeks/Undeclared Reunion panel/Q & A, selling the amazing Phantom City Creative poster for the event.



This is our second to last night at Paley, with the last one being Glee on the 16th.

SEE YOU TONIGHT AT VENICE? (We don't stop).

Jensen
G1988

InWait

We are just hours away from what will be a classic Los Angeles group show - "INLE," curated by Greg "Craola" Simkins. I like Twitter a lot (too much if we're being technical), so I'll let it speak for itself. (NSFW)









I have some lightbulbs to replace, so I'll make this quick.

There is a canvas print of Greg's piece, and it will be made available at the opening, starting at 7 PM. Then tomorrow, they will go online. It's AWESOME.

And here are your final looks in...



One of my fav artists in the world...Jeff Soto...



Fred Harper continues to amaze me.



I'll be honest, Carrie Ann Baade is new to me, but this piece is stunning that I'm in the know now.

Anyway, lightbulbs. Bye and see you tonight!

Jensen
G1988 (Melrose)

Ley

We're only a few days away from the what will be the epic grand opening of Greg Simkins' curated show, "INLE" on March 11th. The show is unbelievable! The reception will run 7-10 PM, is free to the public and will have a ton of the artists in attendance.

So why not give you 3 more peeks into INLE????



Kris Lewis's piece is astonishingly good. To be honest, I don't think I've even seen Kris's work in person, and now that I have, I am a HUGE fan. I know it's a term painfully overused in our field, but it is surreal. I can't wait for people to see this in person.



Bob Dob returns to the walls of G1988 with a really fun piece, mashing up Watership Down and the vibe of everyone's favorite mouse.



G1988 favorite Roland Tamayo delivers another stunner. He can say so much, by depicting so little. Truly one of a kind. He recently did the artwork for singer Patrick Stump's new EP, but we;ll talk about that next week.

We better see you Friday at this point.

Jensen
G1988 (Melrose)

More INLE blog debuts...

It's the week of Greg Simkins' INLE group show and I'm not sure we've ever had this vast amount of incredible pieces in our gallery before. It's epic.

The show opens March 11th, with an opening reception from 7-10 PM, at our Melrose location. A LOT of the artists, including Greg, will be in attendance. We will also be releasing a limited edition canvas print of Greg's beautiful Watership Down inspired piece, but more on that this week, cause they are SUPER limited.

Let's parade out some gems...



Gris Grimly has shown at G1988 once before and we're stoked to have the legend back on the wall.



Here's the debut of a piece A LOT of people have been emailing us about: a beauty from Chet Zar. It's a big one too. Can not wait for you guys to see this in person.



I really won't go into a long explanation about this Daniel Danger print created specifically for the INLE show, because I know what it will mean: more emails from people asking if they can buy it before the show opens. Which you can't. It will be released at the opening reception and then we can talk more about it one-on-one. But for now, I'm hiding about this one.



Awesome art team, and close friend of Greg's, DabsMyla take on Watership Down in their signature style. Love seeing new pieces from DabsMyla and am happy they'll be hanging out at the opening reception.

So, see you on March 11th?

Jensen
G1988 (Melrose)

Pardee and Audrey and Robert

2 new sneak peeks into March 11's "INLE" show...

Audrey Kawasaki...



Alex Pardee...



and Robert Bowen...



This is going to be that good.

Jensen
G1988 (Melrose)

In LA

We're so close to the opening of the Greg Simkins curated epic art show, "INLE," where 100 artists will reinterpret Greg's favorite book/cartoon, and a major source of inspiration for his own career, Watership Down. It opens March 11th and has one of the most impressive lineups we've ever seen. Figured today was as good as ever to show some previews, especially a few that have been blazing through the Internet the last few days...



Josh Keyes is one of those universally loved artists, and for good reason. I remember maybe 5 years ago, when LA Weekly had Josh do an illustration for their cover (CONGRATS to them, because they were EARLY!), and it absolutely stunned me. He was about to show at Fecal Face in SF, and it was obvious this guy's talent was going to end up on some serious walls. And it has. Words aren't going to help explain how beautiful this piece is, the picture above does that perfectly well for itself already. But here are some words directly from Josh Keyes about the acrylic on board piece -

"This was influenced partly by Richard Adams Plague Dogs as well as the Inle character from Watership Down.

The products depicted in the painting are made by companies that continue to test on laboratory animals including rabbits.

The crows are in the shape of Inle and I though Black Angels was fitting in that though the act and natural behavior of carrion birds and other scavenger animals is disturbing (to us) it is part of the natural cycle of life. I see the crows as an active agent of liberation, freeing the lab animals bodies from a life of torment and by consuming and breaking down the body the animal is absorbed into the energy of the life cycle."

Again, I won't be able to say something better than the piece does, or Josh did himself. Just wanted you to see it.



I'm not giving you a second to catch your breath. Up next is Amy Sol, an artist who has graced our walls before, and we're so happy to have her back. This piece follows the tradition of Amy knocking it out of the park and takes a very emotional, soft look at the pages of Watership Down.



LA artist Scott Belcastro is a great example of how varied and different everyone's pieces are. Although they used the same pages for inspiration, hardly anyone was on the same page. Scott gives us a panoramic view of the countryside, the calm before the storm one might say, and it stands out as one of my favorites so far.



Martin Wittfooth is known at Gallery1988 for making one of the most memorable pieces from our LOST art show, and we couldn't be happier to be exhibiting a painting from him again. This time he gives us a portrait of the Watership Down character that seems to speak thousands of words. Such an innocent glare in the eyes.



Jason Limon's piece is might be my favorite yet from him (and that says a lot, as I had two of his pieces hanging in my place). This one makes me smile, which is ironic, cause I can;t keep a dry eye when I watch the Watership Down cartoon.

Hope you dug our 1st look at the show, and we'll have more previews in the next 2 weeks!

Jensen
G1988 (Melrose)

Here Comes The Fuzz

And here come the sneak peeks into INLE...

1st up....artist Dan May's incredible contribution....



Jensen
G1988 (Melrose)

Interview with Greg Simkins about INLE

In anticipation of the upcoming INLE show here at the Melrose location, artist, and curator of the show, Greg Simkins and I sat down at computers and talked over this new upstart Internet company called Skype. This thing is gonna be huge.

Anyway, here's the transcripts from that chat.

----

Jensen Karp
Hey man. I think we may live too close to each other to actually use Skype for its intended purposes...

Greg Simkins
by intended purposes you don't mean you are going to ask me to undress right?

JK
FOILED!

GS
not going to do it man, not for any amount of cookies

JK
fair. so your first curated show ever is right around the corner and my first question is super important....ISN'T IT HARD CURATING ART SHOWS????

GS
YES! thanks man, you didn't say that I was going to actually have to do work... I've got a whole new respect for what galleries have to go through and I am not even responsible for half of it this time around. I mean my involvement is still just a fraction of what y'all have to do

JK
Now you're just being sweet. So explain to me the concept of this show and what it means to you

GS
Well as you know the show is called Inle,´which is a character from my favorite childhood story "Watership Down" by Richard Adam's, which I believe was published in 1972. As a kid my mom rented me the movie on BETA, yup beta. I was abbout 5 or so and as she left the room with her little boy entertained by the movie about bunnies, then something weird happened. There were pools of blood, rabbits tearing each other to bits and it was a lot more gruesome than she probably inteded to let me watch. Years later, when I was about 12, my grandparents took us on a road trip and my Grandpa purchased me Watership Down to read along the way. It made sense of all those images and became a real important book to me. It was about heroes escaping oppression and good versus evil and all that good stuff that can leave an impression on a young kid. It was at that age that I began drawing rabbits.... a lot.. I even raised a bunch of them and gave them the names of the ones in the book.

JK
And that was always kinda of the slippery slope for me as a curator and gallery owner, when people would ask what some of the references in your paintings were referring to. It wasn't a secret per se, but it also isn't something you just come out and say in regards to "Watership Down." Was that intentional? Because once you told me about the show's idea, my initial reaction was to tell you "I don't know what you're talking about."

GS
Yeah, I have always snuck tiny references to my favorite story in my pieces, be it "INLE" scribed in a wall or a tree or the number 280 which is the page which references the Black Rabbit of Inle in the edition of the book my grandfather bought for me. I was always fascinated with the dual idea I had gotten of this charachter from the movie and the book. Since he is Death per se´, at least to rabbits, they feared him, but what they really were afraid of was the unknown. In the movie, Inle leads Fiver to a wounded Hazel which ultimately saves him from death. It is Inle who appears for a fraction of a second again to Hazel at the end of his life and takes him to a future of unknown adventures on the other side. I just found him mysterious and created my own stories for him since he isn't mentioned a whole lot throughout the book. He is more of an under tone, or a shadow present throughout much of the book

JK
What was it like telling artists about the using this point of reference to create new paintings for the show? Did any of them know exactly what you were talking about?

GS
I was surprised by how many of the artsists had similar occurance as kids seeing the movie. I also found that a lot of them were just as taken with the story as I was. Especially Josh Keyes who enjoys listening to the sound track at times while painting, which I found fascinating being that I had a suspicion he was a fan of Richard Adams before I had even thought of doing this show. A bunch of the artists went out and bought a copy of the book and read it and enjoyed it which I was super stoked about. Part of me wanted to do the show just for the purpose of inspiring our collective audience to read the book. So much of our world is focused on entertainmant via movies and television and the internet these days, it is my way of saying, don't forget about the millions of great stories out there just pages away

JK
I don't want you to pick favorites, but tell us about some of the artists you're excited to see contribute to the show, especially when imagining them reimagining your favorite character and book ever.

GS
Wow... there are too many and they were all selected because of my respect and admiration for their work. But to answer your question - Josh Keyes of course, Alex Pardee, Gris Grimley, Martin Whitfooth, and Ron English definitely stand out. I am super stoked to see Matthew Bones and Colin Christians work especially since he works in 3D. Gosh I am looking down the list ight now and don't feel it is right to choose favorites, too many man. They are all going to be dope

JK
It has to be considered one of the best line-ups in our scene's history, let alone just at the gallery. It feels like everyone is going to bring their A game. Tell us about your contribution to the show.



GS
I had to take this piece serious since it is one I have been wanting to do for a while. I haven't ever fully tackeled a straight up "Watership Down" piece more than hinting at it and hiding various portions of it through my work. I'm looking at it right now and it is one of my favorite pieces I have painted to date. I toned down my color pallette using only black grey and red. I based it upon all the creatures that "The Lord Frith" which is the God charachter in the book, made to hunt and kill rabbits. Inle sits on a clouded mound of these creatures almost the king over death. He sits among the gravestones of our favorite heroes from the book who inevitably will have to pass on. Their ghosts are seen flying upwards to the moon in the background and onto other adventures and life after death. It's almost as if the dangers in life be it the fox, owl ,cat and weasles are no longer a threat to them in Death and Inle has just ushered them on.

JK
I've only seen the pictures and it's stunning. The opening is March 11th, 7-10 PM, and we're just excited to see the who's who of artists walking around the gallery to be honest. And to see the debut of Greg Simkins' curating (which by the way is a "hard job" said by Greg Simkins). Thanks for doing this interview!

GS
I'm excited too, man, it should be a good time, I am surprised by the emails of artsists who are flying out for the show! it should be a real good time. Thanks Jensen for the opportunity!

announced...

More details have emerged regarding "INLE," Greg Simkin's curated G1988 (Melrose) show...



Read DailyDuJour's preview which includes much of the line-up (!!!!!) and some sneak peeks...

CLICK HERE FOR THE COVERAGE.

CAN. NOT. WAIT.

Jensen
G1988 (Melrose)

Drake and Shake

A new print release here at G1988! This time it's a favorite from 2010's Crazy 4 Cult from artist Drake Brodahl inspired by the classic film "The Princess Bride."



Drake Brodahl
"There Was A MIghty Duel"
14 x 11 inches
hand signed and numbered edition of 25
$55.00

You can purchase this print, it's just as easy as CLICKING HERE for more details. There are only 25, so move quick!

AND, there's no better time to tease our next show at Melrose opening March 11th.



The Greg Simkins' curated "INLE" show, featuring 100 artists interpreting the understated hero of Richard Adam's Watership Down. YOU WON'T BELIEVE THE LINE-UP. I hardly do. More info soon...

Jensen
G1988 (Melrose)