LA Neighborhoods

On a rainy morning last week, a favorite LA postcard, a little corner market.

On Temple... The 'Lofts' are coming!

I've been watching this little market for a year, certain that it was a colorful dusk shot, but in the end, it was a very wet 6:00am moment. T55 positive / Speedgraphic 270mm

LA Art Show 2017 - Special Exhibit

A special exhibit for LA Art Show 2017 / VIP Lounge - "Los - Radio Tower on Mulholland " 40"x 32" Innova Fabriano rag & "Washington and Cimarron / Aftermath" 44" x 106" Innova matte canvas

"Not to be missed this year are the photographs by Jim McHugh working with two LA graffiti artists. Selected for the LA ART SHOW 2017 as a special exhibition these exceptional images are quite appropriately installed in the art fair's newest VIP Lounge in situ environment.  McHugh titles them fusion prints because of the multiple skills employed.

Photographer McHugh has joined with two legendary artists, real LA street lettering masters,  Joe “Prime” Reza and David Cavazos aka "Big Sleeps," to create these raw, authentic representations of a secret, hidden LA.  This unique display of fresh work combining LA urban landscape and graffiti hand-styles is curated by Timothy Yarger of Timothy Yarger Fine Art for the newly designed Art Show VIP Lounge. FYI, the lounge by Paul Lester of The Agency is a welcome oasis for pause amidst a very busy 2017 art fair, "

                                                                                                      Downtown Art District News

"Portrait of Prime" - 55" x 44"  Innova matte canvas - Impossible Project

Opening night with my friends, artists David Cavazo "Big Sleeps" and Joe Reza "Prime"

"The Orpheum Theatre"  43" x 32" ed.of 10 - archival pigment -Innova fiba cotton- T79 Polaroid capture

"Mulholland Drive Radio Tower - LOS"  this is the original 42" x 32" image with Prime's beautiful LA lettering.

It was great to see "Washington Blvd" up and so perfect on the red wall. I am now photographing a series of these LA neighborhood landscapes with input from Sleeps and Prime who are then adding their individual hand-styles. There are a limited number of versions of each, a series of unique mono prints.

"Washington Blvd," was photographed over a period of several days, either very early in the morning or at night. The result is a Polaroid, Fuji instant film collage, after which there is a week of post time, like drawing really, and much time back and forth test printing. It's quite an elaborate process. Then Sleeps and Prime apply their lettering.

For the Washington image there are a number of smaller 15" x 44" versions on paper, with different tones and hand lettering. This is the largest version, on Innova matte canvas mounted on Dibond. Tim and Paul included one of my most favorite LA pictures, "The Orpheum Theatre" a "LA LA Land" like image I photographed in 2006. The "Portrait of Prime" was made at the The Container Yard last year for the Robert Graham Foundation's "AFTERMATH" exhibit in 2016.

                                                                                                                                            JM

LA Neighborhoods - Street legends

Left: " Los- Mulholland Radio Tower " Joe Prime Reza/Jim McHugh 24" x 20" signed and numbered- edition of 150 unframed.  Right:  "213- Washington and Crenshaw" David Cavazo Big Sleeps / Jim McHugh 24" x 20" signed and numbered- edition of 150 - Each print $150 + shipping

As shown above, Courtyard Editions is issuing two high quality, archival photographic prints, priced with the desire to make art works from the "LA Neighborhoods" project available to everyone. So many so people have asked about acquiring prints from the work that we have been doing together over the past few years. These are two very beautiful images that represent our unique look at LA.

A single section of the panorama used as the supporting layer of the collage for "213 - Washington Blvd."  Polaroid T55

A 9 ft. canvas of Washington Blvd. - hand styles by Sleeps and Prime - INNOVA Digital

Artists Joe "Prime" Reza and David Cavazo, aka "Big Sleeps," are such legends, born of this disappearing LA era. These prints are a true fusion of photographic imagery and territorial street hand-styles. The imagery investigates LA and the secret, hidden sub-culture of graffiti writing, hand styles. "213 Washington Blvd. and Crenshaw " reflects a neighborhood abandoned to immigrants and people of color in post WWII Los Angeles that is now rapidly gentrifying. For those unaware, 213 was the original and for a long time, only area code in LA.  

 

Prime at work in his downtown LA studio- ©2015 Jim McHugh

An early legend among street writers, now Joe "Prime" Reza is a painter who's works are held in the permanent collection of the Getty Museum and are exhibited in galleries world wide, Prime's newest works can be seen through Jan. 17, 2017 at the LA Louver Gallery, Venice, CA. in the exhibition "ROLLCALL" curated by Gajin Fujita.

 

Shooting in Prime's studio for the exhibition AFTERMATH - 2016 - photo: Patrick House

Big Sleeps signing "Washington and Crenshaw"

  Big Sleeps  is truly a survivor of the streets that nearly swallowed him whole, streets that remain bound by intricate, spray-painted letter styles which act as a true code of survival called "the placa."  Cavazo's paintings can also be viewed thru January 17 at LA Louver Gallery, Venice, CA. in their "Rollcall" exhibition.

Studio van near Central Ave. in South Central LA on the very rainy night when we signed our prints

Big Sleeps - Prime - Jim McHugh at Prime's studio, Dec. 14, 2016

 Purchase "213- Washington Blvd"  

 Purchase "LOS - Mulholland Drive- Radio Tower"

 The McHugh Studio  323 466 2890 - jim@jimmchugh.com

The LA Neighborhoods project has been developed with the support of INNOVA Digital Art, supplying the newest archival technologies and digital surfaces for maximum image integrity. 

Wagon Wheel Bowling Alley

 Where Highway 1 and the 101 once intersected in Oxnard, CA there was this vintage Wagon Wheel Bowling. A relic of the post-war California car culture, neon sign signaling drivers on the highway, a huge, land is cheap parking lot. For me an old  high school memory, my first car, driving up the coast.

The Wagon Wheel was a roadside pit-stop, a half way point on the way to Santa Barbara, Ojai or the first stop of several on the longer drive to San Francisco. Now a much larger 10 lane super highway replaces the old black and white road that dated back to the 1920s or 30s. The last time driving to Santa Barbara, I saw that the bowling alley was gone.

Photographs: Type 79 Polaroids with a Speed Graphic camera.

all photos © 2014 Jim McHugh  www.jimmchughphotographs.com

collaborations

Section of the collaboration "Washington and Cimarron" © 2016 Big Sleeps, Prime, Jim McHugh

                

                                                                    AFTERMATH
             an exhibition at the Robert Graham Foundation, Los Angeles

Radio Tower on Mulholand Drive. 40" x 30" mono-print edition of 5 - archival pigment print © 2016 Jim McHugh, Joe PRIME Reza 

Sleeps working on "Washington and Cimarron" Oct. 2016

Printed on the new INNOVA matte canvas, the image is  44" x 92" mounted on aluminum. Photograph, ink and paint on canvas.