Not Your Traditional Body of Art
LOS ANGELES, CA – March 31, 2016 – The SOHO Design House on Melrose presents a unique pop up exhibition featuring live body art paintings, photography, and video by award winning artists Paul Roustan and David Gilmore on March 31, 2016 One Night Only!
The human body is an elemental canvas, something which has been decorated for a variety of aesthetic and ceremonial purposes for millennia. Combining fine art, pop culture, and performance with human skin, Gilmore and Roustan create living artworks that transcend traditional boundaries of painting. The process includes detailed painting and skilled technique, the performance and presentation, and carefully staged photography. This work is experiential, collaborative, and time-based, elevating the art of body painting to a conceptual realm.
Gilmore has a paint on everything approach to art-making and that “everything” includes: canvas, paper, panels, walls, furniture, surfboards, cutout heads, and bodies. With a focus on figures and faces, my work explores identity and growth. Pop culture: the good, the bad, and the ridiculous all influence my work……. celebrating and deconstructing the odd and quirky. The process of body paint has greatly influenced his work on canvas and panels which in turn influences his body paints…. pushing forward and expanding…… a creative cycle which grows and evolves. Gilmore’s most current work would be on large wooden cutout heads. On those, he explores patterns, ornamentation, and pushing forward– combining body paint with those heads. A true fusion of both his worlds.
For Roustan, body painting becomes a method of storytelling. He often develops the concept as a reflection of the model’s personality, a collaboration between his/her spirit and the artist’s aesthetic. Each model is wrapped in a story, written on skin, which creates multiple layers of narrative through the balance of vulnerability with strength and power.
The photography serves as documentation, an evocative fixed image, capturing the ephemeral moment of collaboration between model, location, and photographer. These images, elaborate constructions and scenes, are often conceived before or in conjunction with the body painting itself. Each painted figure becomes an element of a larger work, the photographic image that tells its own story.
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David Gilmore’s mural work has spanned from coast to coast for clients: Mariah Carey in her LA and NYC homes, Tamera Mowery for her Style Network show “Tia and Tamera”, The Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana, CA, The McGarryBowen Ad Agency in NYC, THCG Venture Capitalists in their NYC Offices, and countless private residences. His paintings and illustrations have been appeared on: Bravo TV, The Huffington Post, Gawker.com, Defamer.com, Towleroad, Oh La La Blog, DListed, Perez Hilton, TMZ.com, NPR blog, LA Times, and dozens of entertainment blogs.
His body paint clients include: MAC Cosmetics, Selena Gomez, Instagram (yes Instagram itself), Mariah Carey, Beyonce, Bravo TV, AT&T, Mr Turk, Tennis Star Jan-Michael Gambill, Jai Brookes of The Janoskians, Todrick Hall, Numero Magazine, On Makeup magazine, Next Magazine, TED2, SYFY Network, GSN, Showtime, Comedy Central, BET Awards, VMAs, Teen Choice Awards, and served as a mentor at the 2013 Makeup Show in LA for the Powder Group.
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Paul Roustan is an award-winning artist based in Los Angeles, known for his work in body painting, photography, and conceptual performance. Roustan is recognized as one of the world’s leading body painters, whose style combines traditional fine art, pop culture, and reflections of the contemporary world to create conceptually-based body painting.
Roustan earned a Master’s Degree from Rhode Island School of Design and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has since returned to both schools as faculty, as well as teaching workshops at a wide variety of locations around Los Angeles and nationally.
Roustan’s career spans both the fine art and commercial worlds, as his work has been commissioned for corporate, private, television and nightclub events worldwide, including work for Playboy, Bacardi, Tupperware and Absolut. His body painting has garnered numerous awards, including being named the 1st Place North American Body Paint Champion at the North American Body Paint Championships. It has also been featured in a wide variety of fashion shows, community events, parades and workshops. His work has been covered by media including, Spike TV, Sabado Gigante, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Providence Journal, Playboy Magazine, Airbrush Action Magazine, Univision, DIG Boston, and more.
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The Soho Design House juxtaposes contemporary art designed by world renowned artists and high-end design through its beautiful utilitarian art rugs. With a firm grasp of formal design and a visceral love for the arts, Soho Design House offers the most stunning and luxurious art rugs in the world. The Soho Design House space will be temporarily opened to display the body artwork of Paul Roustan and David Gilmore for a one night only experience in a traditional gallery setting.
The Pop-Up show is One Night Only March 31, 2016 from 6-10pm at the SOHO Design House in Los Angeles. Admission is free, wine and hors d’oeuvres will be served.
Contact Information:
SOHO DESIGN HOUSE
6912 MELROSE AVENUE
LOS ANGELES, CA 90038
www.sohodh.com