MANTIS LOKE

EM GRAFF
HOLDEN FULLER
TONY LOMBARDO III

July 13 - 28 2024
MANTIS LOKE is a collaborative experimentation within the territories of painting, sculpture, and installation. Site specific to ARCANE Space, Fuller, Graff, and Lombardo III have been invited to completely canvas the space to create one big enveloping work. Reflecting a combination of abstraction, mixed media, and the language of symbols, they transpose their painting styles by crossing over each other's work while banding together for the entirety of this project.  The show will also include individual works by each artist within the collaborative effort.  In 2024, Fuller, Graff, and Lombardo III, painted and exhibited together at the Bombay Beach Biennale along Southern California's Salton Sea. It was here that they created the name Mantis Loke to describe the ancient, primal, mythological, current, and fresh “wild man life force” that was generated while they worked together.

BIOS
EM Graff (b. in 1996 Tacoma, WA) works in Los Angeles. He is a self-taught artist who considers his time living in NewOrleans to be integral in his development. EM works in painting and sculpture to explore studies in what he has coined “psychic archaeology,” a process in pursuit of enigma, “excavating artifacts of divinity, spirit, and timelessness, right out of thin air.” He finds the artifacts to offer a mysterious warmth and familiarity to which he can hold onto, in trust of their presence, throughout his illusory travels on earth. Recent exhibitions include Definitely Possible - Gail Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), Curved Wall Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), Bombay Beach Biennale (Salton Sea, CA), and Beneath The Paving Stones - Stone/Age, Beast It Boyz (Los Angeles, CA).

Holden Fuller (b. 1997 Los Angeles, CA) is a self-taught artist living and working in Los Angeles. His work lends interest into the subculture of the city, inspired by graffiti, music and skateboarding with a heavy emphasis on community building and bringing like-minded artists together. Holden works subconsciously, painting in fast bursts of energy building up the surface over time like the raw surfaces of the heavily painted facades of buildings that have been buffed hundreds of timesfrom the graffiti. Recent group exhibitions include Duff Cheeks, San Francisco gallery, SF (2024); Beneath The Paving Stones, Stone/Age x Beast It Boyz, LA (2024); Definitely Possible, Gail Gallery, LA (2024); Bombay Beach Biennial, Salton Sea, CA (2024); But In Real Life, Transport Gallery, LA (2024).

Tony Lombardo III (b.1999 Torrance, CA) works in Los Angeles. He received his BA in 2023 from the University of California, Santa Cruz. His work is drawn to a studied casualness in abstraction that aims to embrace an off-kilter, intuitive, and open-minded approach to painting. Tony consistently works in different mediums and generates connections sustained by impulse, alternative art materials, and non-traditional installations. His paintings are ambiguous and contain many splintered meanings that harken back to the process of painting itself. Recent exhibitions include Definitely Possible - Gail Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), Curved Wall Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), Car Show (Santa Cruz, CA) Bombay Beach Biennale (Salton Sea, CA), and Beneath The Paving Stones - Stone/Age, Beast It Boyz (Los Angeles, CA).