Four

The Corey Helford Gallery beat out the Culver City art walk by one day with the group opening, Four, Friday night. Featuring - as the gallery puts it - four emerging Los Angeles-based artists, the show featured a dark, Gothic sensibility throughout, but with two standouts.

I've been familiar with Jason Shawn Alexander (who used to simply go by Jason or J. Alexander, but I imagine changed it up for obvious reasons) for several years as he has worked on comics for Oni Press and Dark Horse Comics including Queen & Country and Hellboy spinoff, Abe Sapien among others. As such, even though I don't follow comics anymore, I leapt at the chance to see him show his painted work. He instills each piece with drama, but it's his distorted - almost hyper real - anatomy that really makes his figures stand out. Where an artist whose work I consider somewhat similar in look, Jeremy Geddes, uses distortions to add a dark, twisted, but humorous sensibility, Alexander's work is less cynical and more emotionally complex. Whether the red smeared across a woman's face (Repeater - to the right) as if it's blood from her hands or a little boy with a crow standing over him, there's a dark, melancholy, and fearsome quality constantly at work.

Alexander's work in comics has been well received despite how unconventional it may appear alongside more typical artists. Going for splotchy, scratchy inks as opposed to clean lines and photorealism, the skill and talent he showed in that medium is expanded upon beautifully in the Helford exhibit.

His work might be tender and human despite its edginess, but Karen Hsiao goes for a much more transgressive approach. Breaking her work into three sections, she turns the first into a de facto peepshow, making good use of the adults only label by her photographic work. Employing imagery both horrific and erotic, this portion is rooted deeply in the fetish scene where I first encountered her work.

In the second portion, she creates a pantheon of gods and demons with her own takes on Ningyo, Kali and Nephilim (pictured left). Finally, in collaboration with Miso - who provides twisted fairytale images around Hsiao's photos - she presents several photos of women in states of latex undress as they bathe. Altogether, the three scenes may seem disjointed - and they are - but they also serve to showcase the versatility of Hsiao's talents.

Provocative and unflinching, as grotesque or disturbing as Hsiao's work may be, she finds the beauty in the unnerving and shows she has grown from the good, but more one note series Bloodletting featured on her website.

Along with painters Melissa Forman and Sarah Folkman, Alexander's and Hsiao's work will adorn the walls of the Corey Helford Gallery for another three weeks until June 21. Enjoy the presence of these young artists' works while it lasts.