Four at Corey Helford Gallery

Melissa Forman


This weekend is your last chance to check out four intriguing emerging artists at the wonderful Corey Helford Gallery in Culver City, CA. "Four" showcases work from Melissa Forman, Jason Shawn Alexander, Karen Hsiao, and Sarah Folkman. The only connection I can find amongst these four is that they are all frighteningly talented.


Sarah Folkman


Mr. Alexander is an award-winning illustrator and Eisner-Award-nominated comic artist whose dark and brooding images can produce fear and awe simultaneously. Karen Hsiao is a commercial and fine art photography whose work is... did we mention dark and brooding? Why not add sinister and sensual to the mix? Painter Karen Folkman's detailed work on wood skip effortlessly between idyllic portraits of birds in their habitat and unsettling images of bizarre, malformed creatures or mysterious, possibly troubled women.


Karen Hsiao


I've saved Melissa Forman's for last because she somehow moves me the most. Her faux portraits of women in period dress are done in a classical, almost photo-realistic style and framed in gorgeous ornate frames, giving the impression that they are Victorian portraits somehow rescued from the storeroom of a manor plagued by tragedy and insanity. (The horror writer in me rears it's hideous head). The titles alone are worth the price of the pieces (for example -- "She Who Was Engulfed By God's Wrath").

Many of the pieces in this show are gone, but go here to see the show online and you can find what might still be available. Good luck -- these artists are all on their way up, including in price, I bet.


Jason Shawn Alexander


Four at the Corey Helford Gallery