SURFACE: Portraits of Street Artists

Saturday I was all over the map, cruising up and down the coast from San Diego to LA, photographing like a mad man. I finally made my way over to Subliminal Projects to check out the opening for Soren Solkaer exhibition, SURFACE: Portraits of Street Artists.

A moment of nostalgia here; while I was with Shepard back in 2011 for the “Your Ad Here” show at the V1 Gallery working on the controversial 69 mural, a Danish photographer, Soren Solkaer, walked up and introduced himself to Shepard and asked to shoot a portrait of him. I’m not going to say I was star struck but it’s always a pleasure to be around talented people at a craft similar to your own you can admire. While I was unaware of Solkaer’s background and well known residency as a portrait photographer (known for shooting Bjork. The White Stripes, R.E.M., U2, to name a few) I was curious to see how he’d capture someone like Shepard. He pulled out two external flashes with blue and red filters on top, to create the masterpiece you see below:

Here’s a behind the scene’s photo where everything started back in Copenhagen.

Fast forward years later, and here Soren is opening an exhibition at Subliminal Projects, all the while being witness to when he met Shep way back when. Running back into him, we caught up for a minute and ran through his rendition of his exhibition concept, which surprisingly began from that day in Copenhagen.

Not only is Soren Solkaer a great photographer, but more importantly, he’s an overall great personality, which in this industry.. is a rare find. A selection of Solkaer’s photographs will be on view alongside 14 unique collaborations by a number of distinguished artist such as Aakash Nihalini, Above, Dan Witz, Wolfbat, Lee Quinones, Risk, Saber and several others. If you missed the show or not from LA, don’t worry bout it! Surface will be traveling around city to city. You can see dates and locations HERE

Now the Show:

Kaff-eine

Logan Hicks, RAE, Mark Bode

Jordan Seiler

Aakash

Olek

Icy and Sot

Dabs myla

Dan Witz

Beau Stanton, Wolfbat

Risk

Pixote, Strök

Borondo

Saber, Lister, Sev, Sen4, Easy, Ghast, Zaone

Loverpusher, Dmote

Cost, Freedom, Fintan Magee,Freedom

Mobstr, Maya Hayuk, Bäst, Dolk

Now on to a bit of the opening.

Check out this video – Courtesy of Juxtapoz

A Picture of Søren Solkær from Søren Solkær on Vimeo.

Side note: Battling to keep my eyes open, I stopped by Roberts & Tilton to check out Ed Templeton’s latest show. As I walked in they were shutting off the lights, so I apologize for the lack of images here.

Peace!

– Furlong