HIGH ENERGY CONSTRUCTS »

Shamanwise, 2008, acrylic, glitter, marijuana on canvas, 40 x 30 in.

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THIS IS IT!
Eddie Ruscha
March 15th – April 26th, 2008

HIGH ENERGY CONSTRUCTS is pleased to present THIS IS IT! an exhibition of new works by Eddie Ruscha. In his debut solo-exhibition Ruscha follows a zeitgeistian impulse to address the age-old notion of the apocalypse, offering paintings on canvas, works on paper, and a sound installation. The exhibition features a large-scale apocalyptic landscape painting of bleakness and grandeur, as well as a variety of small prismatic portraits of skulls that together form a large pyramid. The work teeters on the verge of installation, as rainbow colors of yarn shoot out of an all seeing eye. The works on paper illustrate a 1960s Roll Royce as the symbolically decadent, yet grim chariot of Armageddon rendered with romance and innuendo. The sculptural quality of sound, as a final, and conceptual component to the exhibition bridges the artist’s engagements with different disciplines, as an accomplished visual artist, musician and DJ. The presence of sound functions as a physical and sensuous enabler for Ruscha’s melding cosmic environment. Drawing inspiration from doomsday cults, science fiction, psychedelic counterculture and stoner fantasies, Ruscha’s hallucinatory and idiosyncratic layering and panoptical colors of enthusiasm hint at a deep resonance to embrace and transcend western civilization’s concerns and crises regarding the psychology of today’s ever-growing endtime industry. Echoed in the expressive nature of his work, Ruscha projects a magnificent transformation (positive, negative, and ambiguous) onto the mythical and intuitive end of the world.

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About the artist:
Eddie Ruscha is a Los Angeles-based artist and musician. He has exhibited his work at China Art Objects, Los Angeles, CA, Galerie Loevenbruck, Paris, The London Institute Gallery, London, New Image Art, Los Angeles, CA, and most recently in ONE FOOT HIGH AND RISING, a group show curated by Pentti Monkkonen, at The Balmoral, Venice, CA. Ruscha has performed musically in many Los Angeles bands such as Medicine, Maids Of Gravity, Future Pigeon, Sneeze Mist and Dada Munchamonkey.

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For more information on this exhibition please call 323.227.7920 or email: info@highenergyconstructs.com
Gallery hours: Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, 11 AM – 6 PM.

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THIS IS IT! exhibition view (photo: Joshua White)