Shay Bredimus brings together several traditions, high and low, new and time-honored, corny and cool, in "Kotomi," a series of depictions based on Los Angeles and its sister cities. The "sister city" network, an upbeat, cold war-era initiative of the United States to link its major cities with their equivalents abroad, still exists, and is the frequent platform for point-to-point cultural exchanges. Bredimus takes the diplomacy-laced symbolism of the network a step further, harking back to the tropes of classical allegory by depicting each city in LA's constellation as an ethnically appropriate young woman clothed and surrounded by synecdoches pertinent to the city assigned her. Some of Bredimus' renditions are large panels, others small, almost locket-like circles, but all are rendered with tattoo ink and wax crayon on drafting film. As such media would attest, Bredimus makes a living not just painting people but painting on them, and his blend of flat graphic device with naturalistic portrayal embodies (if you will) a conceptual merging of two artistic practices that couldn't be more socially divergent. Academic realism and tattoo art have indeed converged, however, under the rubrics of "lowbrow" (or, if you would, "newbrow"), "pop surrealism," and "urban art;" Bredimus not only exploits but champions such post-class mingling, adding in the almost-pop clichés of mid-century foreign-policy propaganda as another layer of ironic -or not-so-ironic - nostalgia. (Koplin Del Rio, 6031 Washington Blvd., Culver City CA; closed. www.koplindelrio.com)





- Peter Frank