eri king is an interdisciplinary artist working across various mediums, including installation, sculpture, textiles, painting, drawing, video, sound, and performance. She draws inspiration from the overlooked and repetitive aspects and rituals in our daily lives, aiming to amplify their visibility and perceived significance. Her work explores the intricate connections between disparate subjects and cultural narratives, unpacking the associations and perspectives linked to established American traditions.
king employs symbols and cultural references to delve into the contradictions and connections between binary oppositions and non-duality. Everyday materials such as plastic, manufactured products, food, discarded clothing, trash, household items, and traditional media serve as her tools to examine their symbolic and cultural power. She transforms her pieces using meticulous analog processes that simulate machines, often produced by hand, to explore concepts of value, energy, and desire. Her compositions investigate the communication strategies of mass media and capitalism, along with their global implications for everyday life, with the aim of illuminating the familiar and the bizarre through deconstruction, imagination, fabrication, and stylization to reach a poetic and ecstatic truth.
king received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art and Art History at the University of Las Vegas, Nevada, in 2011 and her Master of Fine Arts in Painting at Hunter College in 2018. She currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. She is half of the collaborative art duo, eridan with NY-based artist Daniel Greer.
December/January 2024: Queer Pop: Perspectives on 21st Century Pop Art:
Leilu Hernandez and Davey Parks are proud to present Queer Pop - Perspectives on 21st Century Pop Art, an exhibition displaying a queer approach to Pop Art in the contemporary. The works in this show contribute to the long and colorful history of Pop Culture as a means of expression, resistance, and connection within queer communities. Reflecting on both contemporary popular culture and popular culture from their childhoods, the featured artists break away from the traditional perspectives on Pop Art which have long been restricted to the artistic criticisms of the mid-century straight white male.
Queer Pop will feature pieces that toy with traditional conceptions of Pop Art, as well as those that take more conceptual approaches to the movement. After six decades, the Pop Art in this show makes up for lost time by embracing the culture and obsessions of a new generation of artists, eager to capture the essence of a new zeitgeist.
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Leilu Hernandez is a Las Vegas based fiber artist. They began crocheting in 2023, which led to them applying crocheting to artistic means, experimenting with other mediums in the process. They draw their work from personal experiences relating to their identity as a queer femme nonbinary person. Also, playing with ideas of feminism, religion, and trauma. Their art has been exhibited in several group shows across Nevada. They are currently attending UNLV pursuing a BA in Creative Practice.
Davey Parks is a Honduran-American artist currently based in Las Vegas. Originally hailing from the Bay Area, Davey relocated to Las Vegas to pursue a bachelor’s degree in film. During his studies at UNLV, he discovered the pivotal role of Production Design—a discipline focused on shaping the visual aesthetics of a film through meticulous set design, decor, and construction. After designing and building sets for various student and independent films, Davey transitioned to the gallery space, applying his film school insights to his art. Within a conceptual framework, he delves into the dynamics of our interaction with physical environments by reconstructing scenes, rooms, and settings that invite viewers to step inside and engage with them. He often includes touches from his life growing up in a multi racial household as well as his experiences living as a gay man.
His work on sets have won multiple awards including an Outstanding Individual Achievement in Production Design from the Southwest Shorts Festival, Best Production Design for the 2024 49 Hour Film Festival, and more.
WET ON WET
Phil King
Gig Depio
Darren Johnson
Jon Ashcraft
Alexa Tapia
What is Wet on Wet?
There’s been a bunch of cultural changes happening not just here in Vegas, but in the world over. It seems that painting has become a kind of “meming of yesterday’s art”, in a good way, teasing one to follow new developments, reinventions, hinting at the evolutional direction of the tradition, yet at the same time attempting to break away from absolute boredom.
Together with the folks of the ASAP gallery, my friends and I present to you the playful side of our studio work, the process of “feeling” for what lies ahead — the attempt to grab that fleeting “thing” right before it turns into just another idea. Those “in the know” get to follow and appreciate what it’s like early in the game.