Carlos Luna: El Gran Mambo

Carlos Luna is a Cuban born painter and story teller. He often uses deep jewel tones and organic shapes in his paintings, to quote Jesus Rosado, "Luna's work is the polished convergence he achieves between aesthetic erudition -implicit in his visual expression- and the appearance of a spontaneity born either from the naive in popular culture, or from the intuition of a talented amateur. "

Carlos Luna's latest exhibit is showing at The Katzen Art Center. The exhibit runs through March 17, 2008

The Painted Lady Project

Close your eyes and imagine being surrounded by beautiful fairy princesses, adorned in glitter and various colors of body paint, sound surreal?

Well, The Painted Lady Project is brining fantasy to reality while making you question politics, sexuality and maybe even your own morals.

The Painted Lady Project is a group of women that dress up, rock body pain, and perform at various venues and private parties. The live sculptures that they become send messages of power and resistance to their audiences and the community. The Painted Lady Project was started in 2005 by two women, one a performance artist (Ayo Ngozi), and the other a holistic healer (Tazima Davis).

This art movement is so powerful for many reasons, but the main one being that for many years and still today women (especially brown women) are often over looked and objectified. The Painted Ladies take control of their bodies through performance art and change the way the audience sees themselves and the world around them.

I was fortunate enough to see them perform in an opera at the Fringe Festival and trust me, they are amazingly beautiful.

For more information please visit their Myspace page here

Or

To book them for your next event email them here: paintedladyperformanceproject@gmail.com

What it's all about

Washington DC is a political hot bed of politicians, congressmen, and senators. In spite of all that, there are tons of cultural and creative out post here. Washington DC is about as multi-cultural as one city can be, but within the DC art scene that always isn’t the case. There are tons of artist that don’t get enough shine, due to racial, cultural, and linguistic barriers.

I plan to show you, dear reader, all those avant grade, amazing artist you have been overlooking, and believe me there a lot of them. I’ll also tell you about events, openings, and other things to keep you in the know.

Consider this blog to be like that “up and coming” neighborhood in DC, a place not yet sprinkled with Starbucks and Gap subsidiaries, a place where true urban culture is still appreciated.

Parallel Visions is where you will be able to read about people and places that aren’t on everyone’s radar, yet.

As I am sure you’ve guessed, I am only one person so if you hear of an event or an artist that you think I should write about, please shoot me an email: Candace@urbancodemag.com