RUSUDAN KHIZANISHVILI & KC ORTIZ
ANTHROPOMORPHISM
23 June to 14 July 2018
RUSUDAN KHIZANISHVILI & KC ORTIZ
ANTHROPOMORPHISM
SOLO EXHIBITION (PROJECT ROOM)
OPENING RECEPTION: JUNE 23, 2018 // 7PM - 10PM
EXHIBITION DATES: JUNE 23 - JULY 14, 2018
GALLERY HOURS: TUES - SAT / 1PM - 6PM
NEW IMAGE ART, 7920 SANTA MONICA BLVD LOS ANGELES CA 90046
New Image Art Gallery presents, “Anthropomorphism,” a two-person exhibition premiering figurative paintings by international artists, KC Ortiz and Rusudan Khizanishvili.
KC Ortiz and Rusudan Khizanishvili transform animals and the wild into a mystical and primal medium. Rusudan’s multi-color pallet and abstract elements emphasize the unruly nature produced by the metaphysical world. Ortiz’s limited color use and spatially lawless environment act as the primeval grounds for his subject matter to reveal their inner rage. Both artists create otherworldly scenes as a means of examining the boundaries of nature and humanity.
Rusudan Khizanishvili is an abstract and figurative painter based in Tbilsi, Georgia. Most recently, she was the artist in residence at the Mark Rothko Art Center in Latvia. She participated in the 56th Venice Biennale at the Georgian Pavilion in 2015.
Her multi-layered paintings explore mysticism through an alternate reality where humans, animals, and afterlife merge. Khizanishvili’s vibrant, tangled dreamscapes invite the viewer into a parallel world full of fantastical beasts, bright fauna, primal masks, and abstract patterns. Her narrative-based paintings delve into a colorful mania where a new species of humans emerge from nature.
“I invite onlookers into multilayer portals through my imagery animals as symbolic door handles between cultures, nations, times and identities. They are also the door handles that give me a way to an unknown world, full of stories.”
KC Ortiz, b 1978 Chicago, Il, USA, is an artist living and working in Copenhagen, Denmark.
KC began his path in art at the age of 12 as a graffiti writer on the streets, roof tops, and CTA trains of his home town, eventually being recognized as one of the graffiti “kings” of 1990’s Chicago.
His youth was often interrupted by short stints in the juvenile justice system for graffiti related crimes. At 21 years old KC was incarcerated for 5 years in federal prison for drug smuggling. While incarcerated his political consciousness expanded and he developed an interest in photojournalism and philosophy.
He followed stories across the globe, fearlessly documenting under reported issues and hidden conflicts from a secret CIA war in Laos to indigenous uprisings in Peru. For a decade KC spent weeks and months living among rebel groups in deep jungles and refugees fleeing chaos. From the streets of Chicago to the mountains of Burma he has witnessed and experienced human nature’s many varied extremes.
Driven by a desire to explore larger concepts and questions than he felt could be addressed with his camera, KC made the decision to leave photojournalism behind him in order to dedicate his time to painting in 2015.
KC’s current work explores inner and outer conflict between individuals and society as they play out on the infinite stage of time and space. He examines the constant quest for freedom by the individual, both consciously and physically, in a landscape occupied by borders, obstacles, and distractions.
