Los Angeles-based painter Deirdre Sullivan-Beeman is among more than 80 artists from across the country to be featured in “Crime On Canvas,” an all-star group exhibition spotlighting Pop Surrealism and Lowbrow Art. Presented by the Life Is Beautiful Music & Art Festival as a new component of that three-day event, the show is curated by the husband and wife team of Jay Nailor and MiShell Modern (from M Modern Gallery and CUR8L8) – with co-curator Jessicka Addams – and takes place at The Western Hotel in Downtown Las Vegas, NV, September 23 – 25, 2016. There will be an artists’ reception on Saturday, September 24, 4-6PM.
“Crime On Canvas” will feature original paintings, rare prints, sculptures and other creative mediums. All of the works will be for sale, and many of the artists will be in attendance. The show is open to anyone with access to Life Is Beautfiful, which brings together music, art, food, and learning programming in a festival whose founders call it a movement, uniting “dreamers and doers, challengers and compassionates, optimists and outliers” – and more.
Sullivan-Beeman has two pieces in “Crime On Canvas”: the oil and egg tempera painting “Tiger Girl” and the limited edition print “Black Swan” (both pictured above, details at end of release). Among the many other artists featured are: Jessicka Addams, Ron English, Shepard Fairey, Camille Rose Garcia, Eric Joyner, Buff Monster, Scott Musgrove, Nouar, Shag, Greg “Craola” Simkins, Amy Sol, Adam Wallacavage, Martin Wittfooth, and more…and more.
The curators mention that viewers can expect to see a variety of subject categories within the Pop-Surrealist and Lowbrow genres, noting that many of the artists cross over into more than one of the following themes: Expertly Illustrated; The Dark Side of Beautiful; Sculptural Tendencies; Painters of Seemingly Wild Women; Animalistic Instincts; The Quadruple G’s (Graffiti Gone Gallery Guys); Hometown Heroes; The Music Connection; and What about the Kids?.
Deirdre Sullivan-Beeman is a self-taught figurative and contemporary surrealist painter who integrates modified oil and egg tempera techniques of the 14th century Old Masters and the genre of magic realism. Celebrating the hard-earned wisdom of childhood, Sullivan-Beeman depicts subjects who are often young, hauntingly innocent, and teetering on the edge of naïveté. She uses her personal dream journal to inspire her artwork, exploring Jung’s collective unconscious with an overt curiosity for the bizarre and the esoteric, especially alchemy and the tarot.
Currently, she is among seven Southern California-based women artists featured in “Fantastic Feminist Figuration,” a group exhibition at Groundspace Project curated by art historian and writer Betty Ann Brown and independent curator Wendy Sherman. Eight of Sullivan-Beeman’s works are on exhibit, including six paintings and two drawings. The show runs through October 8 (https://groundspaceproject.com/).
Upcoming, Sullivan-Beeman will also be featured in “New-Mexi-Low-Down,” the fifth annual invitational Lowbrow/Pop Surrealism show at Greg Moon Art in Taos, New Mexico, opening October 1 (https://www.facebook.com/events/1272181312800368/).
L: Tiger Girl (2016)
Oil and egg tempera on wood
16” x 11” (17” x 17” framed)
R: Black Swan
Limited edition archival Giclee print
16” x 20”, unframed
