When Jason Gogo invited me to “the paintings of an emotional terrorist,” I thought he was talking about an art show. When I arrived, I wasn’t so sure. The place looked like a showroom for that Army Surplus store in Inglewood.
Then my eyes moved past the camo, where Jason’s paintings were hiding in plain sight.
Jason is far from an emotional terrorist. In fact, the precious metals he mixes into his media — 24 karat gold, platinum, copper — kind of give me a warm, fuzzy feeling. But he’s got a hate-on for doomsday words on the news. Words like Ebola, Threat and Terrorism. “We live in a constant state of fear,” he tells me. “I wanted to make a point.”
Collector Neil Martin doesn’t exactly take the threat level down a notch with his best Hands Off My Painting look. As the proud owner of six Gogos, he was able to spare one for the show. “I love the way you can hang a Gogo painting on the wall and it completely takes over the whole space,” he says. “Forget about the Ming vase in the corner.”
However, for a few minutes, Gogo’s work took a back seat to Oscar Lopez’s guitar, during a short set of ferocious Latin groove. He’ll be en fuego for a few nights at the Ironwood in early December.
Opera addict and Gogo painting owner Jerilyn Wright made a red carpet appearance to lend her support. Nice Prada bag, Jerilyn!
As Jason’s process has evolved, so has the shellacking, although that is probably not an official art term. UV inhibitor in the coating lets you see his art without light reflection getting in the way. It’s also used in aero space carpet fibre. Which sounds weird and makes me think my iPhone autocorrected that particular factoid.
Beautiful show, Jason! Pow! Bam! Kaboom!
