Grand Opening
Opening
Friday, February 22, 6-10 PM
Skylark Fine Art
Gallery
8576-A
Melrose Avenue, West Hollywood, CA 90069
(Between La Cienega Blvd and the Pacific Design Center)
310-657-0324, fax, 310-657-0371
Email,
info@skylarkfineartgallery.com
Web site,
http://www.skylarkfineartgallery.com
Hours, Daily,
10am-6pm; or by appointment
Luc Leestemaker,
"Untitled Landscape # 5" , mixed media on canvas 39 x 39”.
Skylark Fine Art Gallery announces its grand opening on Friday, February
22, 2008 with an inaugural exhibition of selected paintings by Luc
Leestemaker, sculptures by Richard Erdman and Patrick
Marold, and photography by Ted VanCleave. (For more
information about the artists, visit the gallery’s website at
http://www.skylarkfineartgallery.com).
Skylark Fine Art Gallery is a combination of retail bookstore and art
gallery featuring Skylark Press’ books and documentaries along with the
original work of Skylark’s partnered artists. The space will also host
special workshops and events.
Skylark Fine Art Gallery is the latest brainchild of Chris Davies and
Luc Leestemaker. The two expats, (Davies grew up in Sydney, Australia
and Leestemaker in Amsterdam, The Netherlands) arrived in Los Angeles in
the early nineties.
Over the next seventeen years, Davies worked in music and graphic
design, and was among the West Coast's cadre of Internet pioneers, which
in 1993 led to launching Mad Macs, an interactive agency for
Internet-related solutions. Davies then founded and continues to helm
Shout!, the successful, award-winning graphic design agency
located in Los Angeles. Applying his entrepreneurial vision to LA's
heart of entertainment, Davies helped found the ION International
Film, Animation and Games Festival, manifesting the convergence of
film, animation and video game mediums for the very first time.
Meanwhile, Leestemaker, who left a successful art consulting and
publishing business behind in Amsterdam, followed his dream and returned
to an earlier career and passion for painting. His paintings are now
exhibited by some 25 galleries around the world, are parts of major
private and corporate collections and have been featured in extensive
museum exhibitions in 2004 and 2005. His work is also part of a group
show titled “Plein Air Abstraction” curated by Peter Frank at the
Riverside Art Museum in 2008.
As Chris Davies and Luc Leestemaker witnessed the successes in their own
creative careers, they realized that they could offer other artists a
unique combination of tools they had developed for themselves over the
years. In 2005, Leestemaker and Davies started Skylark Media Group, Inc.
“Skylark is part lab, studio, stage and marketplace,” said Davies. “It
is a publishing and consulting company that actively works with artists
to create a promotional campaign around their work with the aim of
making their creative careers more successful.”
In the short period that the company has been in business, an impressive
number of projects have gone into production. Their first project was a
250-page hardcover volume overview of Leestemaker’s work. “We decided to
experiment the concept with my work first. If it was successful, then we
could really lead by example,” said Leestemaker.
The book was a success and since its publication in 2007, new projects
such as a comprehensive retrospective book for the renowned sculptor
Richard Erdman, a music CD for the award-winning composer Vincent Ho,
and a book of drawings and pastels by famed artist Anne Packard in
association with Claude Villani Enterprises are in production. For each
project, writer/producer Emily Lau, known for her work for The History
Channel and the Discovery Network, is producing accompanying
documentaries.
“Looking back, it now seems inevitable our journey would lead us to
creating a physical stage for the artists whom we are working with as
well,” said Davies.
Leestemaker sees Skylark Fine Art Gallery as a place from the heart,
where vision and dreams can meet. “For us,” said Leestemaker, “There is
no greater inspiration than showing artists that success is attainable;
that is, if you’re courageous enough to stay loyal to your dreams and
have the will to work it.”
Davies and Leestemaker invite inspired art lovers and artists into their
dream–a dream, which now has a physical address in the heart of the
design district of West Hollywood.
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