The Beverly Hills artSHOW, held Oct. 15 and 16, brought art and festival lovers from all over, to enjoy the work of 250 artists in categories including Ceramics, Digital Media, Drawing and Printmaking, Glass, Jewelry, Mixed Media, Painting, Photography, Sculpture and Watercolor. Festival goers also had a wide variety of beverages and food to choose from with a Beer & Brat Garden, Wine & Dine Garden, two coffee trucks, four dessert trucks and fifteen gourmet food trucks. And for the children, activities were provided by the show’s charitable partner, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, and its sister organization, Healing Art with Kids.
Artist Stephen Palladino from Los Angeles placed First in Painting at show. Although Palladino has studios and areas of residence in different parts of the U.S., he spends most of his time in Los Angeles. His murals are located in Terroni’s Restaurant, Culver Studios and on Lincoln Boulevard in Santa Monica.
Palladino creates work that combines loose, raw, and expressive mark making with tight and clean line work. Jumping between two predominantly linear styles, the painter can create a portrait with one single line or carefully craft a character made up of precise detail work, either style being very recognizable of the artist at just a glance. This style stems from Stephen’s childhood obsession with cartoons and graffiti which shows clearly in his present work.
Palladino’s characters personify slick, gritty, vintage, gangster-esque gentleman as well as wild, weird, dark, demented, and lowbrow mash-ups with hidden layers of popular imagery and clever dialogue.
Formally trained in grade school, Palladino eventually dropped out of high school to work and continue painting. He began working full time doing commercial artwork until gaining success for his personal work in 2011.
He has been commissioned by Lady Gaga, Absolut Vodka, The Culver Studios, The Miami Ad School, Tres Carnes, Clear Channel, Fox, Reebok, Hilton, and privately throughout the World. In recent years, Palladino has showed works in group exhibitions and had his first solo show in Los Angeles, where he currently resides.
Entire list of October 2016 art show winners are: Best of Show (Painting), Brian Blackham of Salt Lake City, Utah; Gil Borgos Award for Originality (Sculpture), Nancy Cervenka of Mountainair, New Mexico; Best Display of Art, Karchi Perlmann ( Photography) and David Greenhalgh (Mixed media 3D), both from Los Angeles, California; First Place Winners – Ceramics, Nancy Creech from San Diego, California; Drawing and Prinkmaking, Varuzhan Hovakimyan from Burbank, California; Jewelry, Adam Neeley from Laguna Beach, California; Mixed Media – Three-Dimensional, Kenna Doeringer from Sacramento, California; Mixed Media Two-Dimensional, Minas Halaj from Glendale, California; Photography – Michael Gordon from Long Beach, California; Watercolor, Bannon Fu from Gardena, California; Digital Media, Tanya Dobova from Phoenix, Arizona; Glass, Paul Harrie from Hawthorne, California; Painting, Stephen Palladino from Los Angeles, California; Sculpture, Theodore Gall from Ojai, California.
The spring Beverly Hills artSHOW will be held May 20 and 21, 2017 at Beverly Gardens Park from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission to both days is always free. Artists are encouraged to apply for a juried spot when application process opens November 15, 2016. For more information go to: beverlyhills.org/artshow.
