L.A. Louver Shows New Paintings by Gajin Fujita

Written by Stuart Andrews Monday, 10 October 2011 01:10

Venice, California.- L.A. Louver is pleased to present twelve new paintings by Gajin Fujita. "Made in L.A." is Fujita’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles in five years and is on view at the gallery from October 13th through November 12th. In his paintings, Fujita blends a rich diversity of cultural influences that range from traditional Japanese ukiyo-e to contemporary manga; from American pop culture, to East L.A. street-life iconography and graffiti. Fujita also combines a variety of process techniques and media. He begins with wood panels that he covers with platinum, white and yellow gold leaf in graphic patterns. Fujita then tags the panels, sometimes inviting members of his longtime graffiti crew, K2S (“Kill to Succeed”) to tag larger-scale paintings. (These invited hands are identifiable by their tags as well as their signatures on the verso of the paintings.)

Over the tagged panels, using his own paper stencils that are unique to each painting, Fujita creates intricate compositions, which feature samurais, geishas, dragons, tigers and fish, using spraypaint, paint marker and Mean Streak, in striking colors. This series of new paintings is remarkable for its broad diversity of scale, from the intimate 8 x10 inch single panel “Feel Cool” to the mural-size “East vs. West” which, comprised of a dozen wood panels measuring 7 x 22 feet overall, is Fujita’s largest painting to date. Several works, including “High Voltage” and “Rising Sun,” feature a more painterly touch with water conveyed in rich layers of paint that add dimension to the surface. Los Angeles, the artist’s birthplace, home, and the site of the paintings’ creation, is nearly ubiquitously represented: whether symbolized by the charging warrior of “East vs. West” dressed in L.A. Dodgers baseball attire, or discreetly referenced in the L.A. headband of the samurai in “Fearless” or with a nod to Hollywood, through the cartoon characters depicted in “Rabbit Season” and “Year of the Rabbit (Bugs Bunny).”

In his article MOCA’s ‘Art in the Street’ Gets the Big Picture Wrong, Los Angeles Times, May 29, 2011, critic Christopher Knight describes Fujita’s paintings as “the most important 21st century iteration of graffiti’s influence on art.” In these new paintings Fujita backgrounds the graffiti, while giving it compositional force: such as the throw-up in “Bewitched” and the dense conflation of tags in “High Voltage.” The influence of wood block prints is also brought to the fore, and is especially evident in the structure of “Roof Top.”


Born in 1972 in Los Angeles to Japanese immigrant parents, Fujita has been a member of two graffiti crews, first KGB (“Kings of Grafitti Bombing”) and then K2S (“Kill to Succeed”), making art in the streets of Hollywood, downtown L.A., and East Los Angeles in the early and mid-1990s. In 1997, Fujita received a B.F.A. from Otis College of Art and Design, followed by a M.F.A. from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 2000. Prominent museum exhibitions include "Zephyr: Paintings by Gajin Fujita", Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO, 2006; "Contemporary Projects 9: Gajin Fujita and Pablo Vargas Lugo", Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2005; and "Floating World Redux: Gajin Fujita and Yasumasa Morimura" at the Weatherspoon Art Museum, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, 2002. Fujita’s work has also been featured in Beyond Bling: The Influence of Hip Hop Culture in Contemporary Art.

Also at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida, 2011; Invisible City, Instituto Cervantes, Madrid, Spain, 2010; Plastic Culture: Legacies of Pop, 1986-2008, Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Lancashire, UK (traveled), 2009; Prospect.1, New Orleans, 2008, curated by Dan Cameron; POPulence, Blaffer Gallery, University of Houston, TX (traveled), 2005, curated by David Pagel; Outlook International Art Exhibition, Athens, Greece, 2003, curated by Christos M. Joachimides; Talking Pieces: Text and Image in Contemporary Art, Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen, Germany, 2002; and Beau Monde: Toward a Redeemed Cosmopolitanism, Site Santa Fe’s 4th  International Biennial, Santa Fe, NM, 2001, curated by Dave Hickey.


Founded in Venice, California in 1975, L.A. Louver gallery is committed to contemporary art through a distinguished exhibition program of Los Angeles based and international artists.  The 8,000-square-foot (740 m2) building that houses the gallery was designed by architect Frederick Fisher. The gallery is a member of the Art Dealers Association of America. Visit the gallery's website at ... http://www.lalouver.com

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