Anthony Samaniego

Ah, Los Angeles. Covered in concrete, butting up to hot mountains spread over with tinder brush. Chaotic with millions of people under pastel smog sunsets. Ridiculous traffic, art deco building-lined streets, 100 ft high advertisements for BCBG, cement next to white sand beach. 

Anthony Samaniego's "dreamscapes" evoke the feeling of existing in this hot, frantic, fantastic place.  Like his photos, Los Angeles feels restless, colorful, changeable, sprawling, hot with steam. 

Apparently, Samaniego wanders the byways of LA -- particularly at night, at dusk -- looking for the perfect shot. He takes photos with his old, film Mamiya camera. To get the layered effect of his images, he takes multiple exposures on the same negative. To get the nice white splotches, he exposes the negatives to light multiple times. Afterward, he works with the colors until they're neon-perfect.

Don't you love 'em? Doesn't it make you want to wander into the hot hills looking for graffiti-ed rocks and lizards and the line of brown smog hazing over the streets and sprawl?

To see more of his groovy visions of Los Angeles, visit his website, or his Instagram. 

Bryan Sheffield - Lord God

FatherSons zine released its first book, Lord God, by Bryan Sheffield. The book has photos that are big camera flashes on trees at night. Light creates spots on the images like light fairy (devils?).

I love the one of palm trees blowing in the Santa Anas. I grew up in Orange County, CA, surrounded by those skinny, ridiculous Seuss trees that freeze in temps below 55 degrees Fahrenheit and struggle to stand up straight. Those trees leaning under the street lamp at one am when I was 16 and sober and The Used squealed through the bad car speakers. 

I wonder why he named the series Lord God?

Go see more emotive tree pictures photos at fathersons.net.

Albert Reyes

Albert Reyes lives in El Sereno, a suburb of Los Angeles. I've been following him on Instagram for a while now. If he truly creates as many pieces as he posts, he's pretty much a machine. He pumps out striking drawings and paintings of working-class (and working-girl) LA-ers at a dizzying speed. It seems as well that he's been on quite the booty train: white girl booty, black girl booty, Hispanic girl booty. Booty upside down and sideways and from da back. Booties to make you laugh, make you cry. Booties to inspire. 

My anaconda don't! //

I gathered some booties below. And threw in an Elvis, for good measure.

Check out more booties and more black/white/dynamic/graffiti-tinged/absurd/anaconda-don't pieces at thealbertreyes.com or on his Instagram @thealbertreyes. 

Stacy Rozich

Seattle-born, but LA-based artist and illustrator Stacey Rozich paints these fantastic and surreal cultural and religious mishmashes that I friggin luv. 

In the paintings below, it's as if Christmas demon, Krampus, and his Schnappviecher escaped from the Wudel Hunt, rounded up some skeleton amigos from the Día de Muertos fiesta, broke into an Urban Outfitters to don some coachella-style rompers then stumbled -- high on Meow Meow -- into a Byzantine dyptich that, by nature of their pagan presence, morphed into what looks like a rockin party. With Doritos. And PBR. And a tiger.  

#solsticemuertosfiesta2014, bitches!

To see more of her #phantastic work, go to staceyzorich.com.

Gosha Levochkin - pizza water colors

Pizza is fuckin delish. It has lots of gluten (gluten is everything that's bad for you, right?) and dairy and grease. Your friends on paleo/gluten free/veg-only/cayenne pepper+apple cider juice fast whathaveyous can't eat it. Because of this, it's a greasy, triangular symbol of [insert tiresome food/culture commentary]. And, as you can see from LA artist Gosha Levochkin's pizza water color series ... it's hilarious.

Pizza, lol. It's the best. Imma get me a piece rn. 

For more silly (and not so silly) water colors, illustrations, and paintings from Gosha Levochkin, go to goshalevochkin.tumblr.com!

Buckley Now

Sarah Buckley is an LA illustrator and pattern maker. Her illustrations break subjects into multifaceted areas and/or flat, geometric forms in a single plane. They are simple and sexual and feel like pieces of half-remembered dreams. Fingers, thighs, hair create patterns that give me feels. Below, I've copied a couple examples.

See more at cargocollective.com/buckleynow

wind horse 

You & I

New Woman

Hobo Artist 

Alia Penner

Alia Penner grew up in flower-child village Topango Canyon to become flower child part deux (but the millennial Los Angeles fashionista version). Her paintings, illustrations, and designs are a vintage, dreamlike rampage of color and pattern with a Sargeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club aesthetic. 

Penner's art is stylish and retro and slathered in pop culture references. For instance, the three illustrations below: (1) "Tori Burch Muses," which is like a Renaissance Madonna painting, but with the crucifix swapped with a fashion logo; (2) "Father John Misty," which is a cuh-ray-zee shroom trip (apt, considering the Misty himself recently shroomed his way down the coast and ended up in a self-proclaimed "spider shack" in Laurel Canyon ; (3) and this illustration for Marie Claire of Zooey Deschanel, which is basically a 2D gold Byzantine icon complete with halo (but with extra stars). 

Anyhow, I love her gregarious mashups of color, eras (Byzantine + 2K14), high and lowe brau themes, etcetera. Her art is fantastically fun to look at and I want to be her friend. Don't you? 

Check out more of her stuff on her website, aliapenner.com. 

Chyrum Lambert - I Was Planning On Calling Home #2 (Low-Income Advertisement); Little Pictures

LA artist Chyrum Lambert cuts and shapes his paintings into these collages that kind of remind me of the art in The Very Hungry Caterpillar and also of pre-war Japanese posters (the combination of which equals awesome). 

Visit his site to see more of his striking (A1) collages and paintings.