Hamilton-Selway Fine Art is honoured to open “Hello :)” the first LA solo exhibition of artist and curator Fernando Romero, better known under his street moniker “Ski”. Though based in New York City, Ski has been a constant visitor of LA over the last twenty years and is a frequent collaborator in high-profile public works here including recent mural work with Shepard Fairey. Given the influence the vibrancy, light, culture, and architecture of Los Angeles has had on his bi-coastal practice, we felt it overdue for his formal solo debut here in his second home, and are thrilled to introduce him to the Hamiltoin-Selway family of creatives and collectors.
Photo – courtesy of HAMILTON-SELWAY FINE ART ©
Embracing this moment of community and celebration, Ski produced a new body of work equally employing anachronism and anatopism to build a world in which New York And LA become the same imagined city that spans time and place — a moving condensed archive of personal memory stiffened by a scaffold of the shared visual language of graffiti, tag, street art and stencil that shape the urban experience. In these works, one can find the Hollywood sign now covered by the names peeled off of a New York subway, or a black and white profile of a corner in LA given a treatment which makes it indiscernible from a Brooklyn brownstone. Icons of each city blur into one another amidst a haze of spray paint in a joy-driven palette of vivacious acid and jewel tones, buoyant bubble letters shouting an S, K, or I behind a cityscape both alien and familiar.
Join us for “Hello :)” this March 30th 2023 6 – 9pm and take in Ski’s flow and gesture for yourself. Celebrate with us in this homecoming for our favourite honorary Angeleno, Fernando Romero.
