Animal West

ANIMAL CREATES THE ANIMAL ART FUND

Fund Embodies Animal's Legacy of Philanthropic Endowments to Arts Education and Animal Welfare

Venice, California – January 5, 2011 – Bicoastal commercial visual effects studio Animal has announced the creation of The Animal Art Fund, a charitable function of the company to benefit arts education and animal welfare, areas which reflect Animal's strongly held company values.

Animal has organized a series of fundraising art exhibits that will be shown at its Venice studio. The Animal Art Fund will be formally inaugurated on Thursday, January 13, with an invitation only exhibit featuring the work of artists Yarrow Earth Hock and Thuy Le. New shows will continue throughout the year and proceeds will be directed to local animal shelters.

The first Animal Art Fund Series will feature the work of Yarrow Earth Hock and Thuy Le. Hock, a graduate of Manhattan's School of Visual Arts, has been described as a plein air painter for the post-modern age. His work has been shown at galleries in New York and California and his large-scale commissions are found in many major Southern California collections. Le was born in Vietnam and later relocated to Los Angeles, where he graduated from California State Polytechnic University of Pomona with a B.F.A. in Painting. His work has been shown at the Downey Museum of Art, Red House Gallery and Eagle Rock Brewery.

Animal has a long history of philanthropy stemming from its Pittsburgh headquarters. Animal has endowed for many years two education scholarships at Carnegie Mellon University: the Animal Legacy Scholarship, awarded to students within the College of Fine Arts and the School of Design. Animal also supports The Art Institute of Pittsburgh with its sponsorship of cash prizes to students in the illustration class.

Animal's most significant pro bono project to date has been "Peace for Dogs," a spot the studio produced, animated and self funded. Animal, which has animated the Taco Bell Chihuahua, the Taco Bell Lions and the California Cheese Happy Cows, created a poignant and compelling PSA about dog fighting, told from the perspective of the dogs themselves. The spot was designed to be used by multiple animal welfare and rescue organizations.

http://web.mac.com/animalsite/

Animal co-founder Michael Killen stated, "We are a global integrated society, from nations to cultures to species. We feel strongly that we have to be responsible participants in this vast community. Acting on behalf of causes we believe in has become an important expression of our culture at Animal."

Leslie Sorrentino, Animal's executive producer said, "The Animal Art Fund forges a connection with the Venice community that has so strongly embraced us. It is the perfect way to start the New Year."

About Animal

Founded in 2001 by director and visual effects artist Michael Killen, visual effects artist Jim Kreitzburg and executive producer Kathy Dziubek, Animal operates as a lean, multidisciplinary bicoastal studio. Animal's East and West Coast studios have partnered with national and international brands and advertising agencies to deliver world-class visual effects and transmedia for the broadcast, broadband and feature film worlds.

Animal's Venice studio opened in June of this year to expand the company's home base in Pittsburgh to the West Coast. Animal's next-generation business model interweaves post production and production, providing creative and technical involvement at the conceptual stage, as well as on set supervision and custom-tailored services across the range of offerings from both studios, including motion graphics, visual effects and CGI, color grading, finishing and compositing.

Animal recently delivered "Love What You Do," a massive worldwide campaign for BlackBerry Torch, and has been awarded feature film visual effects production on the dramatic comedy "Earthbound."

December 8th, 2010

ANIMAL WEST
1212A Abbot Kinney Blvd
Venice, CA 90291
(310) 396-8022

animalwest.com
yarrowearthhock.com

New Hat

On display at New Hat, the 13th completed piece in the ongoing series, ORIGIN OF ABSENCE, "The Devil Has A Wicked Smile", is a diptych painting portraying fragmented images of violence -- its means, of pride -- its creation, and the outcome of such union.

New Hat is a non-linear style Telecine boutique operating out of a state-of-the-art facility in Santa Monica. Launched in 2008, New Hat is home to colorists Bob Festa, Beau Leon, and Michael Mintz and offers the absolute best in digital color correction for commercial, television and music video.

August 4th, 2010

NEW HAT
1819 Colorado Avenue
Santa Monica CA 90404
(310) 401-2220

newhat.tv

ART+BEER Artist Reception

Join the search for Truth and Fun in ART+BEER with artist Thuy Le at Eagle Rock Brewery.

On display are selected works from his ORIGIN OF ABSENCE SERIES. Using imageries to reference a myriad of cultural and sub-cultural sources and methodologies of thinking, philosophy, and historical events, Thuy constructs a visual language seductively simple to grab ones attention and complex in allegory as to require further investigation toward a resolution of arbitrariness.

March 26th thru May 2nd

Updated: Extended thru November 9th

Artist Reception
Saturday
April 3rd, 2010
7:00pm - 10:00pm

EAGLE ROCK BREWERY
3056 Roswell Street
Los Angeles, Ca 90065
(323) 257-7866

eaglerockbrewery.ning.com

Can We Riot Now?

Details

Can We Riot Now?
2007
Gesso and Medium on Canvas
36 x 48 inches
91.44 x 121.92 cm

Collection

Luke McDonald

The Ballad of the Broken

Details

The Ballad of the Broken
2006
Gesso and Medium on Canvas (triptych)
84 x 171 inches
213.36 x 434.34 cm

773H

Details

773H
2006
Gesso and Medium on Canvas
84 x 57 inches
213.36 x 144.78 cm

Current Showing

Animal West (Venice, CA)

Murder In A Small Town

Details

Murder In A Small Town
2006
Gesso and Medium on Canvas (diptych)
57 x 168 inches
144.78 x 426.72 cm

Current Showing

Animal West (Venice, CA)

Shinobi

Details

Shinobi
2006
Gesso and Medium on Canvas
57 x 84 inches
144.78 x 213.36 cm

Current Showing

Animal West (Venice, CA)

Cartoon Network Artists Reception

The word 'cartoon' initially described a full-sized preliminary drawing. It later mutated to mean a graphic satire and then to mean a drawing simplified for a comic. Eventually 'comix' developed, and the graphic novel was born. Since Frank Miller's 'Dark Knight' versions of the Batman saga, graphic novels have been pushing visual narrative to the extreme. In addition to influencing the world of illustration with their bold innovations, graphic novelists, cartoonists and animators have also had a profound impact on the contemporary fine arts. In particular, their experimental graphic strategies and mechanisms have been extensively adopted by fine artists to interrogate more traditional modes of visual representation and communication.

Having grown out of an avowedly 'high art' practice, how are the modes and mores of the contemporary 'cartoon' currently feeding their influences back into the arena of the 'high-brow'? Rather than examing the terrain of the 'low-brow', as it is sometimes called, Cartoon Networks considers the ways in which three young painters fuse their own concerns with innovative graphic and representational strategies, and asks how the co-option of these strategies impacts what the paintings concerned say, and how they say it.

The works of these artists disrupt and reinvent the conventions of the 'comic' - whether this be the conventions of the graphic novel, of the most recent anime developments, of Mad Magazine style cartooning, or of Marvel-esque monthly instalments. In the process 'comic' styles, tropes, and visual conventions are re-aligned within a fine art context. The references to the cartoon and its many relatives are explicit. But the 'welds' of what may be termed 'high' and 'low' that these artists' perform suggest that it is not so much explicit narrative communication that is intended here, as it is a play of hermetic discourse and cultural signifiers.

Featuring Thuy Le, Mark Mulroney and Andrew Schoultz. David French in the North Gallery

February 4th thru February 25th, 2006

Artists' Reception
Saturday
February 4th, 2006
7:00pm - 10:00pm

RAID Projects
602 Moulton Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90031
(323) 441-9593

raidprojects.com

Sex Sells Artists Reception

In conjunction with ArtLA 2006, Raid Projects presents: "Sex Sells", and Frey Norris Gallery offers an on site studio visit with artist Trek Thunder Kelly.

Recent developments in contemporary practices have leaned heavily towards the candid and often explicit representation of sexual acts and human sexuality in general. The artists in this exhibition take a more subtle and humorous approach to explore this area while contextualizing themselves alongside the influences from a broad spectrum of cultural sources, from advertising, comics and film, which accost us daily. It is the everyday encounters with this proliferating urban overload of sexualized commodity that these artists intersect themselves with, winking and nudging as they go, enjoying every minute of it.

Featuring Alfredo Mercado, David Levinthal, Emily Wagner, Martin Durazo, Max Presneill, Thuy Le, Laura Lark, Chris Tallon, and Christoph Schmidberger

January 13th thru February 5th, 2006

Artists' Reception
Friday
January 13th, 2006
7:00pm - 10:00pm

Red House Gallery
1224 Abbot Kinney Blvd
Venice, CA 90291
(310) 452-3264

www.redhousegallery.com