WE Labs has announced the artists to be featured in their second community art show, WE Show Two, “an ongoing, curated exhibition of Long Beach’s finest artists in Long Beach’s creative co-working space.” Curator and WE Labs CEO Robbie Brown and Guest Curator Ina Parker Hicks selected artists that describe Long Beach’s art scene as a whole, bringing together local artists whose work investigates different media, from collage to oils to photography.
The opening reception will take place on May 2 at WE Labs from 6:30PM to 9:00PM and will feature works by McKenzie Stribich, Steve Stein, Lewis Francis, Iga Supernak, Eric Perez, Virginia Broersma, Jon Hodges and Ben Bambauer. WE Show Two follows the inaugural WE Show, which opened in December last year and featured over 20 local artists and emphasized the need to support local art by buying local art. While WE Show Two is certainly a bit smaller, as far as the number of artists showing, it certainly won’t disappoint the curious mind.
Viewers can look forward to McKenzie Stribich’s inquiring photographs, who is currently pursuing a BFA in photography at CSULB, focuses primarily on the “poetic possibilities inherent to the photographic medium,” according to her artist’s profile. She recently completed a body of work entitled “Directed Gaze,” a study of the relationship between museum patrons and the artwork they’re seeing.
Virginia Broersma’s ethereal paint descriptions of flesh, “its postures, moods and dispositions,” give the viewer a truly visceral experience. Aside from her 2012 portrait series, her most recent works are unrecognizable as anything in real life, yet seem to maintain a fleshy, bulbous, beautiful existence of their own on paper.
Eric Perez has been working on a collage series entitled Queendom, a collection of idol-like portraits that explore female identity, appearance, space and roles. In his artist’s profile, he describes himself as simply the conduit between these beings and the paper he arranges his colorful, mysterious collages upon.
The event is free but space is limited, please RSVP by clicking here. WE Labs is located at 235 E. Broadway on the 8th floor.
Photos courtesy of the Long Beach Artist Registry.