My dear friend Joshuah and I met up on the big bad streets of downtown Los Angeles and stumbled into the reception…it was goin off in there!  Most people there didn’t realize we were making our blonde debut…

Make sure that you visit Samantha’s website!  It continually blows my mind.  She’s clearly from another planet…or maybe just her own evocative, ornate, and frighteningly luxurious…fashion island.

http://samanthamagowan.com/

Samantha Magowan’s Uncommon Vision from LA Canvas

by Shana Nys Dambrot for http://lacanvas.com/

Samantha Magowan paints, draws, sculpts, photographs, art directs, and sometimes appears in her own art — generally doing whatever is necessary to fully express her complex, obsessive, seductive, and unapologetically beautiful visions. The catch? Despite their delightful and enigmatic mix of borrowed glyphs and small detail, and the finely-finished, decorative-arts influenced optical frisson she achieves; amid the Rococo elegance of her compositions, these pictures are not really about beautiful things. Her hyperbolic cavalcades of abstract and symbolic imagery are constructed of floral motifs, constellations, patterns of nature, industry, urbanity, and pop culture — incorporating organic and artificial color and form into layered walls that both evoke, express, and subvert their own story-lines.

And about those story-lines. These confections are high-caloric intake, referencing the extreme end-game of this culture’s obsession with celebrity and material luxury. Magowan has been thinking about fashion (a result of her work in the industry); or, more precisely, she’s been thinking about it from a different, deeper, darker angle. These images are in no small part inspired by a profound curiosity about the circumstances of the 1994 murder of fashion-design icon Gianni Versace at the hands of Andrew Cunanan. Rather than the grisly details, Magowan is intrigued by the interweaving narratives of ambition, celebrity, desire, and style that motivated the killing spree — and the salient metaphorical implications for our broader culture. Knowing this does nothing to diminish the visceral impact of the work, which commits its own share of Art Historical transgression in embracing decorative arts, textile design, and balls-out prettiness in a fine-art context, as Magowan creates a Versace-esque love of visual intensity imprinted with her own unique style.

THURSDAY  OCTOBER 15th

MADAME ROYALE 

6423 YUCCA STREET (Between Wilcox and Cahuenga)

DJS:

SCOTTY COATS (DFA, RONG)

CASUAL TOUCH

POSSO

SEE YOU ON THE DANCE FLOOR!

xo

Of course we couldn’t miss the showing of Jules new collection during NY fashion week… The jewelry mastermind always has something fresh up her sleeve and wrapped around her finger! Check out more here as well as a fantastic write up by the Six Six Sick Girls…

Check out all of BIJULES inspired work.

xo