Can you tell us a bit about the history of your gallery?
Thinkspace was established in November of 2005. The gallery is a joint venture between Cannibal Flower and Sour Harvest. We came together after a mutual friend proposed the idea of the two of us joining forces, and taking Cannibal Flower's existing gallery space named Art Annex to the next level. We're fast approaching our 2nd anniversary and are already booked well into spring '09 and our exhibition schedule for 2008 promises to be our best yet, with several solos shows featuring artists we've worked with since day one.

How do you find new artists?
Everywhere really. One new artist who we're working with that we're really excited about is from Vancouver. She was actually brought to our attention by one of our collectors, who just happened to be up in the Vancouver area on business. He was in a mall walking along and saw this artist's graphics on a snowboard. He wrote down the name of the snowboard company, got in touch with them to find out her name, and then shot us the info. Now we've got a couple amazing shows lined up with her. Go figure ya' know?

What is the current big trend you see happening in the art world?
As far as our lil' corner of the art world is concerned, a current trend is the theme show. Hot on the heels would have to be custom toy shows, where artists are asked to paint on existing toy figures and such. Both are just getting a bit played out. There are still some theme shows that ring true, but there are just so many lately, that it's hard for the good ones to really rise above. As for the art world at large, there seems to be a real move towards focusing attention on figurative/narrative works, and away from the art school imposed thinking of the '80s and '90s that pushed conceptual driven works and such.

What is your favorite piece in the gallery right now, and why?
I'd have to say "Heartbeats" from New York artist Stella Im Hultberg. We've worked with Stella since almost day one, and we've watched her work grow by leaps and bounds in the past year, and this new work was the focus of her recent contribution to our recent "Smitten" exhibition. We have received more compliments on this piece and requests for prints than almost any other work we've shown to date. She'll be doing a featured installation with us this December and will return next August for her debut Los Angeles solo show. Seeing how strong the new series was, and how well it was received, we are all very eager to see where her new works take her!

Thinkspace Art Gallery, 4210 Santa Monica Blvd., (323) 913-3375

RANDOM TANGENT:

Similar Topics:art, Gallery Talk

comments (0) : Send to a Friend : Subscribe

:  digg this :  del.icio.us! :