50mm Los Angeles

Betting On Our Muses - juried, graffiti-drawing invitational

For Immediate Release

November 4, 2005

Contact: Kim Leerdam

(323) 363-1012

Gallery Domingoâ€™s Kim Leerdam and critic Shana Nys Dambrot are the muses behind Betting On Our Muses, a juried, graffiti-drawing invitational.

Gallery Domingo invites more than 100 graffiti artists to draw for a juried invitational entitled, Betting On Our Muses. The two-day event will run on December 10th (6-10pm) and December 11th (12-4pm). Works will be on display in the historic former dance studio located at 5828 Wilshire Boulevard, 3rd Floor, Los Angeles CA 90027.

Betting On Our Muses is an exhibition demonstrating the artistic mastery to be found within the style known as graffiti. The show will feature a large number of artists â€“ which is both strategic and critical to impress upon those attending the show of the continued strength and vitality and innovation of the graffiti movement and form. The high-caliber of these renderings, the depth of skill and color and execution, and the strength of subject, will awaken even the most cynical viewer to the level of pure talent found within the graffiti community. After the exhibition, drawings will continue to be available for purchase online at www.gallerydomingo.com.

Betting On Our Muses brings together artists far and near, and includes respected members of the graffiti community such as Jher, Emit, King 157, Shandu, Natoe, Man, Make, Retna, and many more. The critic, Shana Nys Dambrot, was selected as the juror for her impartial, outsider status relative to the artists and their movement. She has been instructed to assess the drawings as she would any work of art. The exhibition is sponsored in part by All City League, All Nation Magazine, Crewest Gallery, Elevated Magazine, Hollywood Arts Council, Myspace.com, The Seventh Letter and Strathmore Paper.

Kim Leerdam is the director and curator of the gallery. The combination of business training and the experience of managing artists in addition to selling art, lends to a unique perspective of art, artists and the marketplace. She also pursues her own artist interests which can range anywhere from drawing and painting, to taking digital photographs of Hollywood for Discover Hollywood Magazine. Leerdam has also penned two graffiti-related articles recently published in Geared Out Magazine (Sacramento). She graduated in May 2003 with a degree in Business Administration from the University of LaVerne near Los Angeles, CA. In 2004, she accepted an invitation to join the board of trustees for the Hollywood Arts Council.

Shana Nys Dambrot is an art critic, independent curator and author based in Los Angeles. She has worked at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Leo Castelli/Larry Gagosian Gallery at 65 Thompson Street; was the Art Editor of Hot LAVA Magazine and the visual art curator of the Lollapalooza Festival and has produced dozens of art events, performances and exhibitions. Her fine art & design reviews, essays and features have appeared in several exhibition catalogs and more than twenty publications including Modern Painters, ARTnews, tema celeste, Artweek, Angeleno, Art Asia Pacific, One World, Set Decor Magazine, Juxtapoz, Untold Magazine UK, Venice Magazine, dâ€™Art International, and Coagula Art Journal. She is currently the Managing Editor at Flavorpill.net (Los Angeles) and a Contributing Editor at Artkrush.com and Artweek.

Gallery Domingo is an event-based gallery and resource for visual art (paintings, drawings, sculpture, aerosol murals). For more information about this event or the gallery, please contact Kim Leerdam, Director of Gallery Domingo (323.363.1012, info@gallerydomingo.com) or visit the website at www.gallerydomingo.com/graffitidrawinginvitational.