Craig Norton began his career in art by selling decorated flowerpots in front of nightclubs while working as a bouncer. This self taught artist now utilizes drawing, photography, and collage in his exploration of controversial issues in history, politics, and religion. Lacking any formal artistic training, Norton's work has a sincerity that shuns conceptuality in favor of a more honest and direct approach.

Norton's exhibition, Bitter Crop, investigates social injustices that took place throughout the American Civil Rights Movement and is now on display at OKOK Gallery in Seattle. This mixed media installation confronts historical acts of inhumanity such as lynchings, segregationist rallies, and Ku Klux Klan activities. The main wall of the gallery is covered with a collage of over fifty individuals in the midst of protest, complete with familiar scenes of police brutality and civil unrest. The artist draws the faces of the figures, often in the midst of screams, with a cheap Bic pen. He then attaches these photorealistic portraits to bodies composed of wallpaper samples. The unconventional mix of materials creates a palpable tension that mimics our emotional guilt and unease surrounding those circumstances, which is now intensified given the advantage of our historical perspective.

Norton cites the text Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America as one of his main research sources. His previous work includes a large series based on the genocide in Rwanda and the Holocaust. Norton has exhibited at outsider art fairs in New York and Chicago. Portions of this body of work were first exhibited at White Flag Projects, a non-profit art space in St. Louis, Missouri where the artist currently lives and works.

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Currently on view at the Cerasoli Gallery in Culver City, California is a double solo exhibition featuring Mario Wagner's Lost Art of Murder in Gallery One and Marco Cibola's A New Division in Gallery Two. Mario Wagner is a German artist and illustrator who is exhibiting a series of paper-collage canvases that employ traditional methods of collage and consequentially reference modernist qualities, yet they also utilize a flat spacial aesthetic with loud colors that are reminiscent of more contemporary trends. With the image's hard-edged structure being the most unifying element between the two shows, Marco Cibola's A New Division series makes use of geometric abstraction with muted palettes and unique spacial construction. Both artists have exhibited internationally, and Wagner's illustrations have been featured in Playboy, Esquire and The New York Times Magazine. The exhibition will be on view through July 5, 2008.

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On May 10th, Cerasoli Gallery opened separate exhibitions by two artists working in different media: Andy J. Simmons' photography exhibition Visions of Europe and collage artist Joshua Krause's Convince Me I'm on Fire will be shown in two gallery spaces.

In Gallery One will be the work of Andy J. Simmons. Born in South East London, Simmons grew up learning to take photographs and to skateboard. Both of these interests are reflected in his photographs as well as other subcultural rituals. He works with Polaroid film and plastic cameras to capture stills as equally simplistic as his machinery and presents the images in an honest and straight forward documentary style. Each photograph is uncluttered and exudes a clean sense of beauty. Simmons refers to Transworld Videos and Slap Magazine as his major influences.

In Gallery Two is the collage work of Joshua Krause who works with acrylic, enamel, and resin on natural or painted wood. Krause relies on dreams and the unconscious to guide him through his artistic production. In his works, the foreground is an ornate organic pattern composed of white dots from which partial faces emerge in patches. Krause is primarily self-taught and currently lives and works in San Diego, California. His extensive client list includes the New York Times, Option Snowboards, Escapist Skateboarding, and Loud + Clear Records.

Visions of Europe and Convince Me I'm on Fire will remain at Cerasoli Gallery in Los Angeles until June 7, 2008.

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