The private opening of STUDIO 8558 located in the Arts District of Culver City, CA and exhibition featuring the artworks of diverse celebrated artists - John Paul Fauves and Chad Muska.
We’ve all watched that movie that spoke to us personally. Maybe it made you laugh, cry or it totally scared the shit of you. No matter how it made you feel, it did what great films do best, it made you feel something powerful. Shane Valdez started REALM FILMS to not just tell a story but make damn sure that story makes you feel something. Enter Jake Maymudes, a seasoned VFX artist, who moved in to join forces and Jake didn’t come alone. He came armed with the most talented VFX artists from around the globe.
Together they create masterpieces.
As artists in their respective fields it made sense to surround themselves with traditional art and in doing so get inspired. The two decided to add an art gallery to the office, STUDIO 8558. Now open, STUDIO 8558 is participating and giving back to the already rich artistic community of Culver City.
Pablo Picasso said it best, “Everything you can imagine is real.” The dream Shane and Jake shared has come true and is alive and well at 8558 Washington Blvd.
Chad Muska
For Chad Muska, an American multi-talented individual, art isn’t just a part of life. Known primarily as a skateboarder, he has come a long way and managed to establish himself as one of the most popular contemporary artists. Using various materials such as steel, concrete, and resin, Muska creates art that can be described as minimalist, where influences of industrialism and conceptualism are visible.
Muska uses the visual language of abstraction to bring the sensibility of his urban experience to his artwork. He does so with a raw modern conceptual aesthetic and media such as cement, steel, screen and wood panel. Muska’s work fuses these mediums to create a textured, linear, modern field in a variety of scale.
John Paul Fauves
John Paul Fauves is the masked contemporary artist who lives and works in San José, Costa Rica. Greatly inspired by modernist masters as well as pop-artists, Fauves mixes fragments of different iconic images in vivid and colorful compositions. Of his experimental and high eclectic style, he says, “art is an expression from the soul, and the soul is something limitless. This is why I am always searching for different elements to bring into the work.”
Recognized internationally for his Neo-Pop Expressionism, Fauves paintings deal with identity through art, mainstream culture and social media. About this series, Fauves says “I have personally lost it all and what I’ve learned is when you lose it all you can win it all again and create a new beginning!”
Photography by Brandon Shindler