The Art of Tiki
Josh Agle showed two new paintings at The Art of Tiki Exhibition in addition to one of his first ever Tiki pictures. This post examines these three original paintings in a little more detail.
Figure 1: The Art of Tiki Exhibition at the La Luz De Jesus Gallery
The Art of Tiki is a two-part exhibition held at the La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles, California from 6-29 October 2017. The first part focuses on contemporary Tiki interpretations and the second honours the past with original vintage forms. On Friday 6th October, the awesome author, living Tiki, and personification of Polynesian pop Sven Kirsten presented on the content of the show with contributions from show curator and Tiki News owner Otto Von Stroheim, and the very talented artist Shag.
In 1996 La Luz de Jesus Gallery hosted 21st Century Tiki, a Polynesian-Pop group exhibition. The Art of Tiki 21st Anniversary Show celebrates with a reunion of the original artists along with work from the next generation.
The first original painting by Shag is Maleko Ka Mea Lahaʻole (The Exotica of Mark), an acrylic on panel, sized 26” by 16”. The piece is listed for sale on the La Luz de Jesus Gallery website at $15,000 USD. This painting is a homage to popular artist Mark Ryden’s painting Exotica (which is available as a print).
Figure 2: Mark Ryden’s Exotica (left) & Josh Agle’s Maleko Ka Mea Lahaʻole (right)
The second Shag original painting at the exhibition is Ka Pele O Maleko (The Pele of Mark), an acrylic on panel, sized 26” by 16”. The piece is listed for sale on the La Luz de Jesus Gallery website at $15,000 USD. This painting is a homage to popular artist Mark Ryden’s painting Pele (also available as a print).
Figure 3: Mark Ryden’s Pele (left) & Josh Agle’s Ka Pele O Maleko (right)
The original Mark Ryden paintings were used for the 1996 album covers of 1950’s exotica music collections from Capital Records. The painting Exotica was used for the album The Exotic Sounds of Martin Denny and the painting Pele appeared on the cover of album The Exotic Moods of Les Baxter.
Figure 4: Captial Records 1996 exotica albums
The third and last Shag painting at The Art of Tiki exhibition is Interstellar Tiki from the original 1996 exhibition. The picture is acrylic on panel, sized 20” by 16”, and for sale at $10,000 USD. This painting is being sold by owner Sven Kirsten who included it in the Tiki Pop book.
Figure 5: Intersteller Tiki with owner Sven Kirsten
Figure 6: Sven Kirsten and Otto Von Stroheim signing books
I have included a few pictures from The Art of Tiki Exhibition below to show Shag’s art in situ.
Figure 7: The Art of Tiki Exhibition gallery photographs
And to end, larger pictures of the three original Shag paintings at The Art of Tiki exhibition.
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