“The Viewing Room offers the Art Thug readership an opportunity to collect and support emerging, mid-career and established contemporary artists. This exhibition space has a curatorial focus. The artist featured in this section are important and relevant.”

More importantly you remove the middle man from the equation. My advice is to collect art that you like. Art that you can live with everyday. Even if the piece makes you uncomfortable, stating some hard truths or asking some difficult questions. This is the work that will challenge you and complement your collection.

*Artists retain 100% of all sales.

NIMAI KESTEN

A self-taught multidisciplinary conceptual artist my work explores the relationship between art, politics, religion and institutional corruption. My mixed-media installations and sculptures include recognizable symbols of power, religion, nations and violence to express the corrupt reality of good intentions. As a result, I have developed my own pictorial language through these symbols to comment on society, injustice, and political issues.

Revealing corruption by religious and political groups is a common undercurrent. My work confronts the viewers on a variety of levels from subtle messages With a personal history with the Hare Krishna movement. My portrait paintings offer a painfully honest and soulful glimpse into individuals victimized by these religious organizations.

**NIMAI KESTEN**
***‘ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT GOLD’***
2014, Canvas, Oil, Acrylic and Polyester Resin, 33 x 55 in.
Edition: 4 of 5
**CONTACT ARTIST TO INQUIRE:** www.nimaikesten.com / nimai51splitter@yahoo.com

CITIZEN X

Citizen X is a collaboration between four contemporary Los Angeles artists, each using a unique voice to initiate a public based dialog.

**CITIZEN X**
***‘I’M NOT HUMAN LIKE YOU’***
2011, Acrylic on Canvas, 16 x 20 in.
Edition: 3 of 11
**CONTACT ARTIST TO INQUIRE:** **xcitizenx@gmail.com**

JAMESON STOKES

...with right hand to god and eyes to man.’ I created this series of hand and face portraits to emulate the symbolic gesture of telling the truth before God. Many are convinced that the eyes are the windows of the soul. I believe the hands are the true windows to the soul. I ask the subject to face their palms toward the camera to gather information about their life expectancy, health, wealth and love. I consulted a New Orleanian clairvoyant to document the subject’s character and nature. ‘People I Know’ is a series of self-actualization and honesty. My goal is to translate the vernacular of the subconscious that is seldom seen and heard in one’s public life.

**JAMESON STOKES**
***‘HILL HARPER’***
2011, Archival Color Print, 17 x 14.625 inches (Framed)
Edition: 3 of 11
**CONTACT ARTIST TO INQUIRE:** **xcitizenx@gmail.com**

TERRENCE SANDERS-SMITH

I feel a strong responsibility to provide the viewer with stimulating visuals that speak in an equally distinct language. These tableaux initiate a vibrant dialogue between subject and viewer. Collecting reference and materials from photo archives, the internet, academic papers and mass culture periodicals, I transform the data collected to create works that reflect the world’s turbulent, terrible and beautiful past. Examining the human condition, the exploration breaks social and cultural barriers. The resulting pieces ask the viewer to synthesize many threads of thought and provoke critical thinking. The viewer draws new conclusions atop already layered narratives. I will continue to expose systemic corruption and abuses inherent in contemporary structures.

**TERRENCE SANDERS-SMITH**
***‘I AM GREATNESS’***
2011, Acrylic on Canvas, 48 x 72 in.
**CONTACT ARTIST TO INQUIRE:** **artvoices@gmail.com**

LOU PATROU

“I have been interested in creating faces since I can remember first drawing when I was a teenager in the 1960s. Over the years I began making distilled versions of them and also started adding decorative elements into them. Some concepts have intentional meaning to me, some have very little and might be just design and form. I don’t like to do the same thing over and over and I don’t follow a familiar path and process each time. I love careful design and also spontaneous work so I sometimes split the difference and pull from each approach. I also like to mix things up within that approach by adding new twists and turns that become pleasant discoveries. I think it is good to grow as you go and look for new doorways and levels in order to keep myself challenged.”

**LOU PATROU**
***‘SUNSET’***
**2001, Pencil on Paper, 14" X 17" inches.**
**CONTACT ARTIST TO INQUIRE:** **www.patrou.com** **lou@patrou.com**

GREGORY DE LA HABA

Gregory de la Haba is an American interdisciplinary artist, writer, curator, and cultural producer. A skilled painter with a pedagogical lineage that stretches back to Jacques Louis Davide, he is an exemplary practitioner of fine art whose conceptual practice resists categorization. De la Haba’s work explores themes of addiction, contemporary notions of masculinity, and Duende, a heightened state of emotion, expression, and authenticity derived from pure artistic expression. It is from this place that the artist unlocks his true self—both in art and in life.

**GREGORY DE LA HABA**
***“THE VELVET ROPE SOCIETY”***
**2020, Oil on Fiberglass & Foam Panel with Krink Marker and Spray PaintWidth: 96" x 96” inches.**
**CONTACT ARTIST TO INQUIRE:** **https://delahaba.com/**

ETHAN RIDDLE

To be encapsulated in the process of collage-making is a joy which I often fail to consider but savor in times of great motivation. Collage art is daunting because of its ability to wring out the hours in the cloth of time. My relationship to art: I am thankful for my career and the support it has attracted. Whether it is a positive or negative realization. I cannot imagine a world where I am not an artist. I take comfort in knowing that it continues to provide with a sense of purpose and meaning which I am drawn to. I am a moth that hovers around a desk lamp, and that lamp illuminates the path I walk in life.

**ETHAN RIDDLE**
***“100% HUMAN”***
**2023, Photo Montage on Paper: 11" x 15” inches.**
**CONTACT ARTIST TO INQUIRE:** ethanriddle94@gmail.com

ANDREW K. THOMPSON

Symbol and Meaning: I use palm trees and power lines as contemporary cultural symbols for Southern California. This region, once inhabited by the indigenous tribes of Tongva, Cahuilla, Kumeyaay, and Serrano, with their rich cultural heritage and history, is now mythologized for its non-native plants and a littered skyline. My photographs are not about the location of a specific palm tree or power line but that they are everywhere, ruling the California horizon from Malibu to Joshua Tree, Lancaster to San Diego, Chula Vista to Imperial Valley, and back to Victorville. Power lines, of course, are not native anywhere. Civil engineers plant them to expand the electric and information grid to power our daily lives. The ubiquity of palms and power lines is why I photograph them. They are at the center of our altered and irreversible landscape. They are the myth of nature, not native flora and fauna, but Disneyfied tropes of Hollywood’s lens. They are a facade against which I pick at with my camera.

Hands and Machines: The association between hands and machines is a recurring theme in my photographs. Hands appear as shadows on the print, through cutting the paper and the sewn marks. I emphasize the correlation between hand-made and machine-made because hands create and wield tools. Machines do not autonomously mine the planet, build and connect power lines, or document the landscape without the intention of the human user. Just as I am responsible for my photographs, we too, are responsible for destroying our environment through irresponsible environmental interference and misuse of science and chemicals.

Toxic Photos: I feel most connected to the pictorialist because I’m not interested in documenting reality with “straight photography.” I aim to use development metaphorically by bringing photo chemical processing methods to the foreground rather than masking them behind the notion that they are somehow separate from the image. We should examine this relationship, reframe the idea that a camera is an impartial witness to nature, and recognize that the camera and photographic processes are tied to the environment.

**ANDREW K. THOMPSON**
***“BLEEDING RED PALM TREE”***
**2018, Hand-cut, bleached C-print, thread, 27 x 19 in. (68.58 x 48.26 cm)**
**EDITION: 1/1**
**CONTACT ARTIST TO INQUIRE:** www.AndrewKThompson.art AndrewKThompsonArt@gmail.com

TODD SERLIN

A childhood fascination with monsters and myths evolved into the body of enigmatic faces and primitive subjects featured in Todd Serlin’s current work. Often presented alongside elements of danger and turmoil, his toothy characters exhibit unique personalities, underlying tension, and colorful boldness. Serlin’s art often projects a false sense of youthful simplicity that, upon closer look, reveals facets of self-perception and a critical worldview. Whether in the more recent series of close-ups or his full figurative characters, Serlin’s paintings and drawings suggest that our experiences can be distilled into a momentary figment, bound by real consequence.

**TODD SERLIN**
***“THE BIG HEAD”***
**2018, Acrylic on Canvas, 16 x 20 in.**
**EDITION: 1/1**
**CONTACT ARTIST TO INQUIRE:** toddserlin@gmail.com

ETERI CHKADUA

“Eteri Chkadua, with great spirit and independence, blends the traditional with the contemporary, the Georgian with the global and represents a younger generation of artists who navigate with style and a sturdy optimism the complications and expanded fields of our brave, sometimes terrifying, new world.”

- Excerpt By Art Critic Lilly Wei.

**ETERI CHKADUA**
***“I MIGHT AS WELL BE INVISIBLE”***
**2018, Oil on Canvas, 12 x 16 in.**
**EDITION: 1/1**
**CONTACT ARTIST TO INQUIRE:** **https://www.eterichkadua.com/**

LISA LEVY

I have an exaggerated need to emotionally connect with people in a direct way, which drives my work.

**LISA LEVY**
***“THE THOUGHTS IN MY HEAD”***
**2022, Acrylic on Canvas, 11 x 14 in.**
**CONTACT ARTIST TO INQUIRE:** **https://www.lisalevyindustries.com/**

m.sass

“I use images to tell stories about the experiences that are both universal and deeply personal. The ache of love, the fear of loss, the wonder of the mysterious. These stories are open to any interpretation that invites observation, investigation, or dialogue. With every viewing, the work is created anew.” - m.sass

**m.sass**
***“SALARY MAN”***
**2023, Vintage Magazine Collage , 24 x 18 in.**
**CONTACT ARTIST TO INQUIRE:** michellemsass@gmail.com

JACK BALAS

Jack Balas works in painting and drawing, cross-referenced with storytelling. He is represented in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum (New York), the Denver Art Museum, the Tucson Museum of Art, and the Logan Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among others.

**Jack Balas**
***“ImPOSSIBLE”***
**2020, India ink on paper , 30 x 22 in.**
**CONTACT ARTIST TO INQUIRE:** **jackbalasart@gmail.com**

ERIN CURRIER

What compels my artistic practice is the desire to convey that which I have found to be true in all the countries I have traveled to: that our commonalities as human beings far outweigh our differences. The bond between brothers, the love between mother and child, the kinship shared through creative endeavors; these run like threads in the great fabric of generations.