Prographica / Koplin Del Rio Gallery is pleased to announce a collaborative exhibition of work by two LA artists, on view beginning February 14th in Seattle: Dark Room, by Shay Bredimus and Sarah Elise Abramson. Having shown regularly with Koplin Del Rio at its former location in Los Angeles since 2009, this marks the first solo exhibition in Seattle for Shay Bredimus and it is the first time that the gallery is showing the photographs of Sarah Elise Abramson.
Shay Bredimus is a figurative painter and well known tattoo artist, who lives and works in Los Angeles. In his paintings, Bredimus employs languid, loose and gestural marks using tattoo ink on drafting film contrasted with a realist technique formed through his classical training in portraiture. This latest body of work is a blend of the intuitive brush drawings for which he has become recognized, influenced by a deep interest in Japanese tattoo art, which the artist has studied in depth over the course of many visits to Japan, as well as Ukio-e prints and the refined, graphic style of his tattoo expertise.
The Dark Room paintings shift between intense contrasts of light and shadow, thus existing in a space between abstraction and definition. The works, which reference the figurative photography of LA based artist and collaborator Sarah Elise Abramson, are intended to highlight a space between reality and perception. Sarah Elise Abramson's photographs reside at the intersection of unsettling, veering on creepy, and classically beautiful imagery. She builds scenes focusing on mysterious, often sensual figures, situated in ethereal landscapes. Taking great interest in the power of the subconscious, Abramson explores the space between dreams and reality, and where they overlap, offering it as a mirror for the viewer.
Bio | Shay Bredimus
Shay Bredimus earned an MFA in 2008 from the Laguna College of Art and Design in Laguna, California and a BFA in painting from Emily Carr University in Vancouver, Canada in 2004. He has studied under mentors F. Scott Hess, Stephen Douglas and Wes Christensen, among others. In recent years, Bredimus' work was has been in solo exhibitions at Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, CA (2018); San Luis Obispo Art Center, CA and Fresno City College, CA and numerous group shows in Hong Kong, Seattle, Las Vegas and Carlsbad, CA. Bredimus has earned critical praise with feature articles in the Huffington Post, Culture Magazine, Evolved, Prophets & Poets, Arts Journal and Inked. A survivor of a traumatic brain injury that occurred at age ten, Bredimus uses this catalyst event to make visual language as his primary mode of expression. Bredimus is a renowned tattoo artist, tattooing in Long Beach, California at Outer Limits Tattoo.
Bio | Sarah Elise Abramson
California native Sarah Elise Abramson (b.1986) studied at Parsons School of Design in New York, Brooks Institute of Photography, California and under mentor David LaChapelle. After a three year residency at Angel Gates Cultural Center (San Pedro, CA), her work has been featured in publications including the Huffington Post, HyperAllergic, Ignant, Polaroid Originals, Artillery, Juxtapoz, and Beautiful Bizarre magazine. Abramson writes a monthly column piece for American Art Collector magazine. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally. Abramson is additionally the creator and editor-in-chief of Slow Toast, an annual independent art publication.
