Argentinean artist Marcelo Pombo creates large, colorful paintings that are rooted in a surrealist vocabulary and contain abstracted landscapes, architecture and figurative elements. The artist approaches his paint application through pointillism, employing thousands of small dots to assemble this primitive yet deliberate imagery. Pombo, who currently lives and works in Buenos Aires, is a prominent artistic figure within South American contemporary art. He has exhibited in countless museums and cultural centers on the continent, including, “Antologia de Dibujos” with Fundacion Vox in Bahia Blanca, Argentina, and “Dibujos” with the Centro Cultural Ricardo Rojas in Buenos Aires, Argentina. U.S. exhibitions include shows with the Christopher Grimes Gallery in Santa Monica, Calif., and the Marvelli Gallery in New York, which was reviewed by The New York Times.

Loyal Gallery is presenting fifteen new paintings by Eddie Martinez in his third solo show with the gallery. Martinez attempts to capture the chaotic nature of life in his paintings, both formally and conceptually. The artist uses the mutability of his medium to add and subtract layers of paint and to create constant movement across the canvas. His bold and sometimes aggressive approach to the imagery gives the work a fresh and raw quality. The longer the viewer studies the painting, the more recognizable the plethora of cultural references become. Martinez revisits certain motifs as well, such as block headed monolithic figures. He is constantly drawing which results in an incessant stream of new imagery, pulling inspiration from daily life, conversations, and his own thoughts and ideas.

Martinez currently lives and works in Brooklyn and his recent exhibition at ZieherSmith in New York was met with wide acclaim. He has previously exhibited at Deitch Projects in New York and Peres Projects in Berlin. This solo exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue that includes essays by Brian Belott and Stefan Simchowitz and will be on view until July 6, 2008.

This Saturday, May 31st, The Happy Lion in Los Angeles will have an opening reception for their next exhibition, Los Angeles-based artist Rachelle Rojany‘s Body of Work. Rojany has shown her work in several group exhibitions across the U.S. and in Europe. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley and has studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna and the University of Bologna. In 2009, she will create a site-specific installation for the Delaware State Park.

In Body of Work, the artist displays sculptures modeled from body parts to create an immersive installation that combines materials such as bronze, brass, wood, and sound. A faint soundtrack of owls and the music of Leonard Cohen accompanies the exhibition. Rojany enhances her unique formal language with metaphorical and layered meanings. In Mileft, Rojany playfully addresses the idioms “walking a mile in someone else’s shoes” and “two left feet” in a sculpture composed of two leather boots, both for left feet, thus making the impossible possible. There is a mirror in one corner, making the viewer aware of their own corporeal presence in the piece. While a sense of humor is pervasive throughout the exhibition, a feeling of dispersion is perceived due to the bodily fragments and the nature of the installation.

Body of Work will be on display at The Happy Lion until July 5, 2008.

HOT AND COLD ISSUE 2 was just released on May 9th at the Luggage Store Gallery in San Francisco. The exhibition, titled KICK OUT THE JAMS!, featured the work of all artists included in this issue of the zine including Hisham Akira Bharoocha, Chris Pew, Bill Dunlap, The Golden Bears (who have recorded a small batch of songs tucked in the magazine’s sleeve), and Jason Jagel as well as several others. The show consisted of sculpture, installation, painting, photography, and works on paper.

HOT AND COLD was founded in 2002 by Chris Duncan and Griffin McPartland. The zine debuted with Issue 10, and has been counting down since, with this being Duncan and McPartland’s ninth effort. Duncan has shown his work at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in an exhibition titled The Zine Unbound: Kults, Werewolves, and Sarcastic Hippies, where it was featured with Trinie Dalton and K-48. Each issue of HOT AND COLD comes in a zip-loc bag with posters, stickers, CDs, vegan cookbooks, prints, and other ephemera. This issue contains an impressive mix of color copied, off-set printed, silkscreened and handmade pages with limited editions by Chris Taggart, Mary Elizabeth Yarborough, The Golden Bears, Amanda Eicher, Ryan Jacob Smith, and Tucker Nichols.

Issue 2 can be found at Needles and Pens in San Francisco and Cinders Gallery in Brooklyn, New York.

Emily Huffman‘s works include paintings, drawings, sculptures, and installations. Her artwork emerges as she is informed by inner and outer landscapes and relationships. The works are created to bridge spiritual and physical, inner experience and outer world.In her paintings, fluid, dynamic fields and gestures form a context for imagery. The imagery is drawn from a personal library of symbols, objects, and stories; often inspired by nature, the body and dreams. The content in her paintings does not have strict form, but has multiple allusions. A single object can be a ‘thing’ as well as a growing plant, organ, and animal. A field of marks is flowing water, empty sky, and expansive breath. This layered imagery gives a rich feeling and emotional sense to her work. The body is often an influence on her visual forms because Huffman works with the body on a daily basis as a healer.

Huffman is showing new paintings this summer at Zely & Ritz in Raleigh, NC. She received a BFA from Tulane University, and currently lives and works in Raleigh. She is a member of Bonded Llama Artist Studios, and has a private massage therapy and energy work practice. She is one of the artists involved in The Body Center, a new creative space in Raleigh that is both art gallery and sanctuary. Over the last 4 months, she has exhibited two installations at The Body Center, and is currently part of a collaborative installation opening August 1st.

Showing at The Foundation Centre of Photography in Poland in June, Alison Brady will exhibit her latest series of large scale photographs. Brady’s photographs invite the viewer into an uncomfortable event or situation. The subject (be it Brady’s friends or strangers) are captured in precarious, oftentimes intimate and exaggerated, moments in time. Identity, body and trauma are central themes in Brady’s photographs. Her strong lighting, careful usage of decayed suburban environments and choice of character supports her sensual and horrific aesthetic. Brady, a Brooklyn based artist, earned an MFA from the School Of Visual Arts in New York and a BFA, School of Art, Architecture, Design & Planning in Ohio.

South African photographer Pieter Hugo was named the Standard Bank Artist for Visual Art in 2007. Hugo has long challenged the issues that face Africa and other developing nations, photographing the harshness of the land and occupants. The artist confronts his subjects directly, offering a raw sensibility and humanism that forces the viewer to question preconceived notions and prejudices. The Standard Bank exhibition opened in June in Grahamstown, South Africa and will tour throughout the nation. His work has been included in the 27th Sao Paulo Biennial (2006), and in publications such as Adbusters and Colors Magazine. More can be read about the artist at artsmart.com.