On Saturday, July 15th, downtown Los Angeles’ Corey Helford Gallery (CHG) will proudly unveil a five-artist show in Gallery 2 featuring new works from Japanese artist aica, UK-based mixed-media artist Annie Montgomerie, Los Angeles painter and illustrator Bob Dob, New Orleans-born artist, sculptor, and toymaker Sean O’Meallie, and Japanese oil painter Tada Koiichiro.
Regarding her new series, titled Our Fairies of the Scents, aica shares: “Welcome to Our Fairies of the Scents: a show about the invisible magic of scent. I paint the unseen things that touch our hearts. I hope to empathize with you through my art. Scent stirs my imagination more than any other sense. It flutters around us like fairies, sharing their pixie dust.” Adding, “In this show, you will see some of the scents that inspire my paintings. The gentle scent of flowers comforted me when I was sad. The smell of my cats’ tummies filled me with nostalgia and peace. The fragrance of cherry blossoms reminded me of my first love. The whisper of the wind in the forest caressed me with the fresh scent of trees. And I recalled the aroma of a Hiba tree onsen in Japan, where I traveled with my mother. We remember these scents, not only from the present but also from the past. A scent can make us feel like we are with someone or somewhere. I’m sure you have a scent that you cherish. These fairies are metaphors for the scents in my paintings. I hope you will find your fairies of the scents in my art and let them touch your heart.”
aica’s work reflects purity and serenity in stark contrast to the fast-paced urban landscape of Manhattan. Her fantastical creations perfectly capture a magical inner place of creativity and whimsy. aica shares, “The subject in my paintings is a sanctuary for girls who look innocent on the outside while, underneath, already carry emotional scars on their hearts. The sanctuary where they can be free and be themselves. In their ethereal world, everything has a soul or a spirit. A flower has a soul, even a drop of a tear has a spirit, and they keep girls’ hearts warm. Like witnessing a girl’s isolated emotions being released into the air, I hope through my work to inspire someone who may hold sadness within to start loving someone or something around them.” Born and raised in Japan, aica currently resides in New York City.
Annie Montgomerie creates individual and unique sculptures from “upcycled” children’s dolls, bits of velvet and leather, vintage buttons, and charms ‒ whatever she can find that speaks to her love of styles, from horror to twee. The result is a world of animals that sits somewhere between Frankenstein and Peter Rabbit. She says, “I don’t mind admirers of my work saying it’s cute, but I hope my art has more to say. I like to skirt around the outside of dark with a hint of sorrow or regret that goes with the passing of time.”
Combining her love of vintage and textiles, Montgomerie started making textiles animal sculptures in 2013. The artist shares, “My inspiration comes from many places ‒ vintage toys, music, American and African folk-art dolls, and old school photography. Artists that have influenced me include Paul Klee (especially the hand puppets he made for his son) and Julie Arkell, as well as the Victorian taxidermist Walter Potter. In the last ten years I have built up an impressive online following and have collectors from all over the world, including some well-known faces such as actor Demi Moore and musician Gerard Way. I strive to make my work magnify the emotions of childhood from sadness to joy through their expressions and stance.”
Regarding his new series, titled Complementary Colored, Bob Dob shares: “On August 6, 1970, the war began when the radical Youth International Party (aka Yippies) invaded Disneyland, as a way to rebel and protest against the establishment. They were successful in taking over Tom Sawyer Island for a ‘smoke in,’ taunted guests with their chants of anarchy, and attempted to raise their flag at city hall. Mickey Mouse and friends were under attack. But from this event arose the Mouseketeer Army. They battled back to defeat the oppressive ideologies of the Yippies, whose only objective was for Disneyland to cease to exist. The Mouseketeer Army is the last hope to preserve the Magic Kingdom.” Adding, “The Mouseketeer Army is back for battle with a new look. Inspired by the designs and color palettes of early Disneyland signage and the Mad Hatters Tea Party ride.”
Dob creates worlds where the dark side of human nature is present. He explains, “Life isn’t always good times. While in our youth, we experience many things we would rather forget, but this is what defines us. That’s why my characters have an adolescent quality to them. I’ve been very fortunate in experiencing and hearing many great stories in my life, which now find their way into my paintings.” The surf, skate, and punk cultures of his once hometown, Hermosa Beach, CA, provide the backdrop amidst which his youthful protagonists run amok. Whether or not our own experiences have revolved around these subcultures, we can undoubtedly relate to the all-important and largely universal personality-forming encounters which Dob’s characters are living through, while carving out their own individual paths in life. Since 2004, the artist has been a frequent participant in group and museum shows in the U.S. and Europe, along with a dozen solo exhibitions. His work has been featured worldwide in advertising campaigns by Kraft Foods, AFLAC, Intel, and Hurley where Dob lent his most iconic characters to an artist series line of apparel.
Regarding his new series, titled Jar of Candy Poppers, Sean O’Meallie shares: “These are 25 unique handmade wood gun sculptures, each with a spring-loaded bullet and all crammed in a cookie jar with a ten-cent price sticker. The bullet can be pushed back into the gun, but it pops back out. The bullet never leaves the gun. Its non-lethal gun play at a very attractive price. I wanted to comment on Gun Mania in the USA.”
O’Meallie studied art at the University of New Orleans and while there, he assisted noted artist Ida Kohlmeyer, which was the catalyst for him going onto to teach studio art at the University of Colorado for nine years. After teaching, O’Meallie moved to New York, NY and embarked on his career as a toy inventor, creating toy concepts for the international marketplace, which led to him designing his own fanciful painted wood sculptures. They are noted for their visual and tactile allure, and multi-layered content. O’Meallie’s work has been exhibited throughout the U.S. and Europe. His work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Art and Design in New York, NY, The Decorative Arts Museum in Little Rock, AR, The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, and The Sangre de Cristo Arts Center in Pueblo, CO.
Tada Koiichiro studied at Tokyo University of the Arts, where he was awarded the Prize of The Metro Cultural Foundation and later, also received his MFA in 2018. Employing a soft and delicate technique of oil on canvas, the artist mainly paints large monochromatic close-up portraits. The most noticeable detail in Koiichiro’s compositions is his characters’ eyes which, like water pools filled with lilies, work as the gates to their inner worlds, secrets, and fears. With his minimal representations, one cannot look past the strong reference to Yoshitomo Nara’s characters and the world of Xiaogang, while Koiichiro reinterprets through a psychoanalytical lens, guiding the viewer into the abyss of human existence.
Koiichiro’s portraits don’t have a specific model. The image, titled “Kimi,“ which was born little-by-little while layering the oil paint, is an imaginary existence that spontaneously arises in the friction between the canvas and the paint. Regarding his new series, titled Phantom Message, the artist shares: “You’re one person but you’re not alone. There’s an infinite number of expressions you can show. You exist not only in me, but in the minds of many people. I, myself, am only guided by the materials and the power of the times, and I don’t know anything until the moment the painting is completed. In this exhibition, in addition to the masterpiece ‘Kimi Series,’ I will also present the ‘Stage Series,’ which depicts the traces of ‘Kimi’ in order to emphasize the presence of ‘Kimi.’ Please enjoy the moment of meeting these phantom-like girls, who feel like they are there even though they shouldn’t be there.”
Open to the public and free of charge, the five-artist show is set to debut on Saturday, July 15th from 7:00 pm – 11:00 pm in CHG’s Gallery 2, alongside a four-artist show, titled The Fourth Wall, featuring new works from Irish oil painter Chloe Early, UK-based mixed-media artist HUSH, UK-based mixed-media artist Ian Francis, and Indonesian artist RYOL in the Main Gallery. Both shows will be on view through August 19th.
Corey Helford Gallery
571 S Anderson St #1, Los Angeles, CA 90033, United States
