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Pakistani-born artist Asma Ahmed Shikoh grew up in Karachi, Pakistan, in a society constrained by tradition that was later subjected to rapid changes because of the impact of globalization. The artist uses mixed media to combine popular icons, cityscapes and social issues. When American fast food had just arrived in Pakistan, McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken became icons in the imagery of her artwork, taxing the otherwise helpless ideals of nationalism in Pakistan. She now lives in New York City where her work includes Arabic metro maps, iPods, Dora the Explorer characters and yellow police tape. To highlight the role of individual practices in the shaping of a unique national identity, her solo show "Liberated" at Ceres Gallery in Chelsea included personal contributions of more than 100 Muslim women across America who contributed by mailing one of their hijabs (the head scarf adorned by Muslim women). Shikoh attended Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture in Karachi and has shown at Queens Museum of Art in Queens and Exit Art in New York City.






Opening today at the Heaven Gallery in Chicago is the fourth-annual Scion Installation Art Tour exhibition titled "It's A Beautiful World." This year includes new works based around the show's theme from more than 30 featured artists nationally, such as James Jean, Dalek and Jeff Soto, whose image is above. The exhibition, which will be featured countrywide in nine cities, kicks off this weekend and travels through next March. The show will have work completed in the mediums of painting, photography, sculpture and collage, an element of the show that Scion changes each year. Hosting galleries include RHYS Gallery in Boston, Mass., Gallery Lombardi in Austin, Texas, and Andenken Gallery in Denver, Colo. The final tour stop and auction will be in Los Angeles at the new Scion Installation L.A. Space in the Culver City Arts District. All of the artwork will be auctioned off to the public, and 100 percent of the proceeds will go toward art-related charities.





Dysfunctional Americana that uses familiar imagery to tell stories is how Michael Paige Glover describes his new body of work. Glover uses adults and children that are placed against backgrounds of anarchy, destruction and uncertain imagery that he relates to past memories and self-awareness. Pulling inspiration from '20s to '50s photos, films, magazines and personal photographs, the artist spends months combining, arranging and decoding metaphors that unravel a specific feeling contained within each piece. In the end, Glover creates personal symbols using iconic imagery that aid in the discovery of his process. After traveling to Vance, France, to apprenticeship alongside Nall Hollis at the N.A.L.L. Art Association and then to Florence, Italy, to study with Andrea Spinelli, Glover received his M.F.A. from the New York Academy of Art. The artist also received a one-month fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center and was recognized by the Queen Museum of Art for the Queen Artist Registry.




The landscape photography of artist Kevin Cooley often examines two types of environments: the frozen and the suburban. Many of Cooley's frozen landscapes are captured in Longyearbyen, Svalbard, an archipelago of Norway. The artist also completed a series of photographs near airports such as Los Angeles (LAX), which illustrate glowing streaks cast in the dark night sky, created by planes taking off and landing. The artist earned his M.F.A. in photography from the School of the Visual Arts in New York City in 2000. Cooley has exhibited nationally in shows such as "Night Shift" at the Massimo Audiello Gallery in NYC (2007) and "Bateaux Mouches" at Ambrosino Gallery in Miami (2005). In addition to Cooley's fine art, he has also developed an extensive body of work as a commercial and editorial photographer, shooting for clients such as The Los Angeles Times, New York Art World and the Miami Herald.




The photographic process employed by California-based artist Noah Wilson includes traditional gelatin mono-print photography with direct applications of charcoal. The artist's main interest lies in the process of development and the possibility and interpretation of uncertainty. Wilson illustrates feelings of tension, isolation and the unknown by rendering portions of a scene, while allowing the remaining sections to be ambiguous and undetermined. The work provides questions rather than solutions, allowing the viewer to connect to the image from popular symbols while remaining free of direct conclusions. Wilson graduated from San Jose State University with his M.F.A. in 2005 and received his undergraduate degree from Humboldt University in 2001. Since, the artist has completed residencies with at the San Francisco Recycling & Disposal. Inc and has exhibited with Manoux Gallery in Berkeley, Calif., Callisto Press Editions Gallery in Yountville, Calif., and in 2005 produced his M.F.A. thesis exhibition in Gallery 2 of San Jose State University.



The recent silk-screened wallpaper works of artist Shannon Wright depict a healthy human urinary tract. The series was inspired by a comment made by one of the artist's friends: "You should really make art about your hypochondria. You've got a gold mine there." The artist has been exploring systems, diagrams and the phenomena that they attempt to represent through a range of media during the past 15 years, using sculpture, video and vector-based drawing. Consistent throughout all of Wright's projects is a biting dry humor that helps to offset the scientific tendencies in the work that is inspired in part by the 18th century Utopian architect Etienne-Louis Boullee, the Scientific Management movement and the "Cabinets of Curiosities" museum display. Wright received her M.F.A. in the time arts department of The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her B.F.A. in sculpture from the Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va. The artist has exhibited nationally with shows this year at the ADA Gallery in Richmond and Scope New York and is currently an assistant professor in the spatial arts program at San Jose State University.







Chris Dent is a 22-year-old British illustrator and artist who explores the energy of urban street culture through densely informative drawings of cityscapes. Dent often captures his imagery with pen directly on paper, preventing any reworking and allowing the first mark-making instinct to dominate. The artist recently graduated from Camberwell College of Arts in London with a degree in illustration. Since his graduation, the young artist has been busy working on commissioned illustrations for Zoo York, Capitol Records and Swindle Magazine, among many others, and has also co-founded HYBRID BUNNY, a collective group of illustrators and designers. Dent has exhibited his work with the Subway Gallery and Notting Hill Arts Club, both in London.





Artist Alison Elizabeth Taylor is known for creating biting social critiques executed through the exquisite craft of marquetry, or wood veneer inlay. Taylor, who is a recent MFA graduate of Columbia University School of Art, creates narratives that offer insight into America by investigating the distractions of contemporary culture such as sex, video games and luxury SUVs. The artist's combination of marquetry, often associated with luxury and the reign of Louis XIV, and the ideologies of American life, further underscores the opulence of our time. This year the artist presented "The Powder Room," an exhibition with Track 16 Gallery in Los Angeles, and last year she exhibited with the James Cohan Gallery in New York City. Taylor has received awards from the Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation Space Program and the Herbert S. Germaise Fellowship for painting and drawing.





Gerwald Rockenschaub has been placed as one of the most internationally known Austrian artists working today. Since the early 1980s, the artist has created a complex array of works from computer animation to sculptural objects and painting. Continuity is found in the artist's work through his reductive imagery and mix of architecture, discourse and design. The artist is also a well-known techno DJ, allowing his experience with club culture to emerge and influence his works. Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in Salzburg, Austria, is currently presenting "My Machines," which features new works by Rockenschaub. Recently, the artist had a comprehensive retrospective at the Vienna Museum of Modern Art, which helped to fully launch his career. Just a few weeks ago, Rockenschaub received the Fred Thieler Award for painting at the Berlinische Galerie, and, last month, the artist presented a site-specific installation at documenta 12 in Kassel, Germany.





The artwork and writings of David Batchelor investigate the properties of color and how it operates outside of the functional realm, becoming a unique phenomenon all on its own. The artist is also interested in the symbolic meaning attached to color and how it affects those in its presence. Batchelor's work often takes form as sculpture, using brilliant colors with fluorescent light, neon and plastics shown through light boxes and shelving but is also known to exist in drawings, photographic series and even large-scale public works. The Scottland-born artist has exhibited recently with the Wilkinson Gallery, Gloucester Road Underground Station in London and Ikon Gallery in Birmingham, UK. Batchelor is listed as a Saatchi Gallery artist and has participated in group shows at Galerie Leme in Sao Paulo, curated by Jacopo Crivelli Visconti, and "Extreme Abstraction" at the Albright Knox in Buffalo, N.Y.




The opening reception of "Scion Presents: To The Masses" is curated by Giant Robot Magazine publisher/co-editor and owner, Eric Nakamura. The exhibition opens tomorrow tonight at 7 p.m. and is on view through Sept. 8 at the Scion Installation LA Gallery in Culver City, Calif. Artists from the U.S. include Caroline Hwang, Ben Woodward, Feric, Dan-ah Kim and Brian Ralph. From Japan: Eishi Takaoka and Kohei Yamashita. From Spain: Olaf Ladousse. Together this diverse group of artists delves into different mediums (including silk-screen printing, carved wood and pen-and-ink drawings) and styles. The new Scion Installation Gallery holds art shows and art-related events for cutting-edge artists from across the globe. Giant Robot Magazine began in 1994 as a small zine and has grown into a full-fledged bi-monthly magazine available at most stores and newsstands in the U.S. Giant Robot opened its first store in 2001 and formulated a combination of pop-culture goods, ranging from Japanese import toys, graphic design and art books, and monthly art exhibitions. Giant Robot has since opened stores and galleries in San Francisco and NYC and also operates a restaurant called gr/eats in West Los Angeles.






Opening next week at the Richard Goodall Gallery in Manchester, U.K., is "ipso facto," the digital prints of artist Ray Caesar. The show will correspond with the artist's first printed publication of collected works titled "Art Volume One." Caesar now lives and works in Toronto, though he was born in the U.K. Before becoming a visual artist, he worked as an architect and then as a special-effects artist for TV and film. All of the artist's works are produced digitally from conception to print and often contain figurative and characteristically surreal elements. Caesar has exhibited internationally with recent exhibitions "Hidden Doors and Secret Rooms" with Jonathan LeVine Gallery in New York City and with The Londsdale Gallery in Toronto. The artist has also been featured in the publications Glamour Italia (March 2005) and Juxtapoz Magazine (July/Aug. 2004).





GEISAI Artists at Giant Robot is an exhibition presented by Scion, Giant Robot, and Kaikai Kiki which features work by aspiring artists in Japan. The show which opens next week at GR2 was developed and organized by internationally renowned artist and curator Takashi Murakami and Eric Nakamura, publisher of Giant Robot Magazine. The two hand picked the artists to have their work presented in Los Angeles during this exhibition. GEISAI will feature the work of Yasushi Ebihara, Hisashi Kondo, Sashie Masakatsu and Rie Kawashima, Jaga Ichiro, Rieko Sakurai, Miki Taira and Erika Yamashiro through painting, sculpture and installation.




"UNEASY ANGEL / IMAGINE LOS ANGELES, Artists from Los Angeles Addressing Intersections Between Reality and Fiction" is an exhibition opening tonight in at Monika Spruth Philomene Magers and Spruth Magers Projekte both in Munich, Germany. Artists such as Doug Aitken, John Baldessari and Barbara Kruger and shown along side the writers and filmmakers that are all living and working in L.A. The culture of L.A. as a city where the boundaries between reality and fiction are often blurred is explored in a variety of ways by each creator. As an artist in a city that is by hyperreal and to some degree post-historical, L.A has become a place of myth, where the entertainment and media industry can willingly shape and construct the city's own reality. The exhibitions are curated by Los Angeles-based Johannes Fricke-Waldthausen, and will be on view into the start of November.



The paintings and drawings of artist Kelly McLane are rooted in images of nature. McLane lives and works in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and draws much of her inspiration from the landscape, people and animals of that area. Interrupting the imagery are references to the media culture via telephone and cable lines, internet search engines, and bizarre CNN news tales. The artist's previous work depicted post-apocalyptic events, while her current work takes place in the present, investigating concepts of supremacy and social development through metaphors. McLane was born in 1968 and now lives and works in Los Angeles, Calif. Currently, the artist has an exhibition on view with CRG Gallery in New York. The artist is also represented by the Angles Gallery in Santa Monica, CA.




The photographic works of young Korean Artist Myoung Ho Lee have gained international acclaim for their simple concept and potent outcome. The artist has been developing an ongoing series that take trees in their natural environment and isolates them by placing a white ground behind the tree elegantly altering the viewer's perception. The subject begins to appear in graphic terms much as photograph would on an immense billboard, inspiring questions of reality, existence, and identity in relation to the surrounding environment. The artist's work has been featured in several magazines and online publications such as Juxtapoz, Design Boom, Lens and Culture, and Everyoneforever.com.




The culturally infused sculptures and paintings of artist BAST are deeply rooted in the elements of hip-hop. The artist explores the energy of graffiti and the surfaces of dilapidated and weathered signage, often depicting devious cartoon characters parading around with guns. Some of the artist's personified characters are exaggerated to humorously reflect the stereotypes associated with hip-hop culture. Bast's work is gritty, ghetto, and fit with a twisted humor. In a recent exhibition with New Image Art Gallery in Hollywood, California the artist presented a collection of "hunting monsters," which mixed Hollywood monster characters like the Wolfman and Creature from the Black Lagoon with modern urban characters like Flava Flav and Biz Markie.





The work of artist Marti Cormand is rooted in traditional landscape painting, while simultaneously referencing the digital age. Cormand's tightly rendered paintings seem to pay homage to Dutch School of Painting, yet the artist reaches to the present and states his placement in the history of painting by utilizing the computer and the internet as new tools for creation. The artist manipulates the appropriated photographs by adding and removing elements to fabricate images that otherwise wouldn't exist. Cormand recently received The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum's 2007 Emerging Artist Award and a selection of works will be on view at the Museum until February of 2008. The artist was born in Spain in 1971, is an MFA graduate of the University of Barcelona, and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. The artist has completed a recent series of exhibition with the Josee Bienvenu Gallery in NYC between 2003 and 2006. Other exhibitions include "Focus" at the Gregory Lind Gallery in San Francisco and a self-titled exhibition with Galeria Alejandro Sales in Barcelona, Spain.





Blowing up on the rock-poster scene, Leia Bell is bringing a new show of posters and original paintings titled "The Business of Ferrets" to the Richard Goodall Gallery in London Sept. 29 - Oct. 25. After only seven years Bell has created 250 limited edition hand-printed silk-screened music posters for bands such as Echo and The Bunnymen, The Darkness, My Chemical Romance, and The Decemberists. Bell uses a camera to document people she knows at parties and shows. She later uses the photos as references simplifying the scene to something universal that anyone can relate to. The artist was recently featured in Print magazine's "20 Best Under 30" annual issue and Art of Modern Rock. Bell received her BFA in Print Making from University of Utah.



Opening at P.P.O.W. in late October, Judy Fox will be showing "Snow White and the Seven Sins". Playing on the classic Disney storyline Fox uses Pride, Envy, Anger, Avarice, Sloth, Gluttony and Lust as surreal objects to surround a beautiful nude adolescent girl who is seemingly unconscious. Known for her sculptures of children rendered with refinement; exploration of the child's body in life-size naturalistically-painted clay, the artist explores contemporary sociological issues by creating vulnerable, naked and exposed individuals. Fox received her Masters from the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU and has received two NEA grants, and an award from the "Anonymous Was a Woman" foundation. She is a fellow of Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony, and is a 2006 fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. The P.P.O.W gallery in NYC and Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in Paris both currently represent Fox.





Parisian artist Prune Nourry's work investigates elements of many current social and scientific issues such as genetic modification, stem cell research, fetishes and the commodification of the human form. The artist conducted a project of celebrity led fetishes with dogs and other pets as well as pet-baby substitution piece. For her latest work "Adoption Day," the artist will conduct a performance piece scheduled for today in Regents Park / Central London presented by Jaguar Shoes. For this performance the artist has created five figurative silicone sculptures that are designed to be a hypothetical genetic hybrid baby. These sculptures will each be accompanied by a nanny and will travel from different parts of London, the performance will end with a series of family photo sessions including the newly created family addition.





Hauser & Wirth Colnaghi in London is opening a new exhibition today for the acclaimed artist Louise Bourgeois. Bourgeois, who is currently 95 years old, is highly regarded as one of the most important artists working today. For the exhibition "LOUISE BOURGEOIS: New Work", the artist will feature a major new body of cast sculptures, gouaches and two complete portfolios of hand-colored prints. The exhibition coincides with a major retrospective of the artist's work at Tate Modern also opening this month. Bourgeois draws much of her inspiration from her childhood and from a deep examination of feminine sexuality, stating "My work is not an illustration of anything, but rather it expresses an emotional state, good or bad." The artist is known for the diverse materials that make up her work, often using multiple forms and materials to express reoccurring symbolism and themes in her work. Bourgeois was born in France; she studied art at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and has worked in the US since 1938. Her current exhibition at the Tate will travel from 2008 and 2009 to Centre Pompidou, Paris, the Guggenheim Museum, New York, LAMoCA, Los Angeles and the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.





On view at the Whitney Museum of American Art through Feb 2008, artist Kara Walker will be showing "My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love". The artist explores racism in the American psyche through large-scale silhouettes that tell a story as they spread from one end of a room to the other. Walker has created a repertoire of narratives in which she conflates fact and fiction to uncover the roots of racial and gender bias. Her imagery is haunted by sexuality, violence, and subjugation while depicting historical narratives of injury caused by the legacy of slavery. She's been featured in Art21 and was in Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The World, Artists and Entertainers in 2007. Walker received her BFA from the Atlanta College of Art and an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. She now lives in New York and is on the faculty of the MFA program at Columbia University.