Jeff Soto's Blog

The holidays are finally over (not that I’m complaining about em’, they just can take a toll). Back to business as usual. Here's what I've been up to.

A couple friends and I went out to see some L.A. shows last week. Aaron Mason, Jason Gallo and I ventured into Los Angeles on the hunt for art.


First we went out to Lucius Hudson in Gardena. These are the guys I get my canvases and panels from. If you order anything from them, make sure to mention my name. It was pretty cool, Horacio the owner gave us a tour of the facilities. (I forgot my camera and wish I had of taken some pictures).

After that we went to go check out the Chris Mars show over at Billy Shire Gallery in Culver City. I’d actually somehow never been to Billy Shire since it opened (last year??) and it turned out to be a really nice open space. They had some good books there too (I picked up a nice Ron Mueck catalog, the guys work is insane).








Chris’s work is scary and fascinating, and I haven’t had a lot of chances to see it in person. It was a strong show, tons of pieces to look at, he must paint everyday which is awesome. There’s always a special place in my heart for the Mars familia. Chris and his wife Sally were the first people to buy one of my paintings. This was back in 2001 and they bought it through La Luz de Jesus Gallery (owned by Billy Shire).

After that we swung by BLK/MRKT to see if any of my work was still up (Jason didn’t make the opening). We got to see a few things but it was sorta sad for me seeing the paintings being wrapped up and shipped out. I’m always like, damn, that’s the last time I’m going to see these pieces in the flesh.

Our last stop was at the Forum Gallery to see the Odd Nerdrum show. I’ve never seen his work in person and it’s beautiful. He paints in the techniques of the old masters, layering transparent oils to get luminous flesh tones. The photos don’t do these paintings justice at all. They have to be seen by the naked eye. I particularly like how he loses the edge on his paintings and then finds them again. Awesome stuff.





There were a couple more shows we wanted to check out (Camille Rose Garcia, etc.) but we ran out of time and got stuck in L.A. holiday shopping traffic. Not fun. Took us almost 3 hours to get back to the I.E.

And as for Xmas, here is proof that tattoos have become waaay mainstream. A toy tattoo gun. As if Miami Ink wasn’t enough. It was fun though, nothing wrong with drawing on everyone. I even got a "Shannon" tattoo from my nephew.