Thank you all for attending the Spirit Animal opening this past Saturday! We had such a great turnout with a fantastic group of people. David Ellis and Kevin Earl Taylor put together a wonderful selection of animal inspired paintings that highlights the power and tenderness seen in the wild.  If you didn’t get a chance to see the show, then you’ll have until October 11 to check it out. Our opening hours are Wednesdays through Saturdays, 12 – 6 pm.

all photos by Sam Graham Photography

SUBLIMINAL PROJECTS is pleased to present Spirit Animal, an exhibition of work by NY based artist David Ellis and SF based artist Kevin Earl Taylor.
Exhibition Dates:
September 13 – October 11, 2014
1331 W. Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90026
subliminalprojects.com

Taylor’s paintings depict stark, surreal landscapes that seem like moments frozen in time.
Animals and animal parts confront the viewer and each other, forms tied together by a
common visual thread or somehow fused into one another and their surroundings. Some
portrayals are lighter and incorporate abstract geometric stratospheres within the natural
landscape, bringing to question the nature of animals and whether or not our perception
of them as being so different from us is valid. The larger, earlier works are tense, forcing
the viewer to consider where or how the human exists within this scene and using the
absence of a human subject to question whether or not human presence would have a
positive or negative effect.

Ellis’ paintings also incorporate natural landscapes and makes use of animals as the main
protagonists. However his work conveys a sense of movement, energy and flow that is a
direct contrast to Taylor’s arrested, anthropomorphic figures. Ellis draws from his
surroundings, using what he knows and what is familiar and then incorporating what he
feels, what he sees, and what he hears. He is heavily influenced by music and is swept up
in the dynamics and constantly changing beat of life. Growing up in rural North Carolina
and currently living in Woodstock, NY, Ellis intertwines the landscape and its animals
with his own internal ebb and flow. The loudness of a free and natural rhythm and the
looseness of a fluid stream of consciousness is depicted through gestural and graphic
renditions of smoke clouds or undulating waves weaving their way in an out of wooded
scenery and the mouths of predators.