The art world ‘conversation,’ in many ways, can be a small one. In the post-modern, post-conceptual landscape, anything goes. Yet (Juxtapoz to one side) we’re not typically privy to the kinds of conversations Corey Helford Gallery artists might ignite. Once upon a time, we would have called a lot of this art commercial illustration, fairy tale or sci-fi/fantasy. There’s a bit of that – not that it’s going to stop us from enjoying Eric Joyner’s Perry Mason in a curiously peopled courtroom. There’s plenty of sex and sexual fetish – though Colin Christian’s slightly bizarre and superbly executed objects belong in a category all their own. Mark Ryden’s pernicious ‘pop-surreal’ influence is here (e.g., Marion Peck), but the variations are novel (e.g., Michael Mararian’s Chinese baby gliding past the Mattherhorn on an airborne steak). Rackham-inflected gothic-romantic styles flourish in Asian hands; while most of the kawaii anime-derivative styles were straight out of L.A. or New York (e.g., Kukula). Then what to make of Scott Hove’s horned fetish or Rikka Hyvönen’s hyper-realistic bruised “Bum”? These are above all intimate confessions rendered with an authenticity increasingly rare in L.A.’s convulsively capricious art world.

Corey Helford Gallery
571 S. Anderson Street
Los Angeles, CA 90033
Show runs thru September 24, 2016