Wacko is La Luz de Jesus's home in LA's Los Feliz hood, right near Hollywood. The alternative gallery space in the back of the store is known for showing mostly illustrators' art on its walls, having launched successful careers over the years. Some interesting examples of this include past solo shows of Rob Clayton (1995 and ‘97), Eric White (1996), Joe Coleman (1991 and 93), Matt Groening (1987 and ‘88) and Gary Panter (1987).

I happened to be in town last week when La Luz had its second opening (the first one was last October) for its 25th anniversary retrospective exhibition featuring over 250 artists. I was actually somewhat dragged there by my dear friend (and partner in crime) Gary Baseman, who had to show his face and sign dozens of his books for his fans. I was promptly left on my own to wander around the two crowded rooms where over 200 pieces of art especially made for the occasion were on view. It included everything from oil, acrylic and watercolor paintings to installations, furniture, toys and even musical instruments covered by shapes and colors of all sorts. The quality of the work was consistently high, with a couple of unforgettable exceptions, and I was happy to see—and  double-check—that absolutely everything in the room was 100% illustrative.

But it was the crowd that first caught my eye. As an east coaster, I'm very used to the Society of Illustrators of New York's usual suspect: mellow, low-profile and seemingly harmless. “It's gotta be the 72-and-sunny weather,” I figured, because otherwise I couldn't make any sense out of all the piercing, the tattoos, the colored hair and the gothic outfits proudly paraded by most of the people at the opening. The work on the walls wasn't that different from what is usually shown in New York though, and there were plenty of familiar west coast illustrators' art in the room, like Martha Rich, Mark Todd, Eric White, Bob Dob, Tim Biskup and Jeff Soto too. However, the second thing that caught my eye—from a quite more sensitive angle—was the fact that I didn't see a single classic east coast illustrator on display—and I couldn't help wondering why?!     

Billy Shire, founder of La Luz and an art collector himself, describes the gallery on his Web site as "[…] post-pop with content ranging from folk to outsider to religious to sexually deviant. The gallery's objective is to bring underground art and counter-culture to the masses." Now, I've always had this theory about the noticeable influence weather seems to have on illustrators' styles: the sun can be a very powerful thing after all, I guess. Terms like underground, counter-culture and outsider tend to define pretty accurately what happens in cities with no harsh winters, art-wise at least. I'm convinced there is something about the heat-all-year-round phenomenon that brings that inner child out of all artists, who then usually express it through both their own bodies and art.

I asked Gary about my theory, since he's lived in New York and Los Angeles and his art style is clearly influenced by the LA touch. He explained to me that "La Luz de Jesus is a gallery that was showing non-traditional underground art work for dozens of years before this type of art was being exhibited in New York.”—which clarifies the where and when, but not the why. I guess we'll have to have an open debate about it one day—but definitely somewhere on the east coast! 

La Luz de Jesus 25 continues through November 27^th at La Luz de Jesus, 4633 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, CA. The exhibition is documented by the book La Luz de Jesus 25 (La Luz de Jesus Press/Last Gasp), including essays by all the artists in the show, and is available online. Photos courtesy Daily du Jour.

Fernanda Cohen is an award-winning illustrator who splits her time between New York & Buenos Aires as she teaches at the School of Visual Arts and University of Palermo, produces a lecture series at the Society of Illustrators of New York and writes for 90+10 magazine and DART. She's illustrated the cover of The New York Times Magazine, a line of designer tees for The Gap, campaigns for Coca-Cola, Target, MTV, DDB and BBDO and editorial work for Time, The New Yorker, Harvard Business Review and The Guardian.

11102011