After forsaking you, they will call you hero in their speeches

This release drops Thursday Oct. 15th at 9am PST.

Here:https://www.1xrun.com/collections/forsake/

In the Spring of this year, when there were massive PPE shortages among frontline COVID workers, I started contacting friends in China, Hong Kong and Cambodia to see if I could buy masks and supplies to donate to some of the hardest hit areas. While the United States government dragged its feet, unable to offer even basic protection to health care and other essential workers, I, as an ordinary citizen, was able to purchase around 1000 masks and distribute them to hospitals in need. It wasn’t particularly difficult, this administration simply lacked the will to protect the very people who were keeping us safe and risking their own well being. I spoke with hospital workers at the time who were reusing disposable masks for 4-5 days of 12 hour shifts. The very people who risked their own health everyday to keep us safe could not even be provided with the most basic items to allow them to perform their work safely.

This print “Forsake” is in response to that experience. “After forsaking you, they will call you hero in their speeches” is written across each image. It’s indicative of the sanctimonious gestures of this administration and politicians in general. While the essential workers were little more than an afterthought, their efforts are co-opted as public relations campaigns for leaders who failed to lead.

1Xrun and myself will use 100% of the purchase price of these to procure PPE and distribute it this coming Fall. Many in the medical field have suspected there may be a second wave of COVID this Fall. If I have learned anything from the Spring, it is not to assume this administration has any sort of plan or is even moderately prepared for this. Together, 1xrun and myself would like to be out in front of this and help. Should there be a second wave, the funds from the sale of this work will have created a small stockpile of PPE that we can quickly distribute to the facilities that need them most. That is the very least we can offer in appreciation of the relentless efforts of frontline workers.

By purchasing this print you are actually purchasing PPE to keep these workers safe and helping us stay prepared for the coming months.

Eddie Colla

Buy it here: https://www.1xrun.com/collections/forsake/

About the Print: There are 2 different versions of this print.

The first is a 16×20 inch giclee. Signed and numbered- edition of 50

The second are hand painted multiples 18×24 signed and numbered-Edition of 10

The HPMs are acetone transfer prints finished and stained with tinted shellac each is a unique piece.

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“Without Excuse” Hand Painted Edition Release

Type: Hand-Embellished Archival Pigment Print on 290gsm Moab Fine Art Paper

Size: 18 x 24 Inches

Edition Size: 40

Available HERE at 1XRUN

“Without Excuse” is a piece I made while I was at the Jardin Orange artist residency in Shenzhen, China in 2018.

I spent a lot of time in Shenzhen, roaming around abandoned buildings collecting old signs and posters and billboards. I don’t read Chinese, so I had no idea what was written on any of these things. I also never asked anyone to interpret any of it until pieces were completed. What I was trying to do was tell something about a place through what was discarded or left behind, while also juxtaposing that with some of my salvage portraits. Much of the material in this piece came from an abandoned office building at the beginning of August 2018. By the time I left Shenzhen, the building was well on it’s way to being apartments. Things change fast in Shenzhen.

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The original piece is 50×66 inches (125 x 168cm) on a section of vinyl billboard I found being used as a tarp in the abandoned office building. The title “Without Excuse” comes from the line of small text just to the left of the figures head which literally says “Refuse to accept excuse” which was pinned to an office wall. The large main text in red and blue translates as “wonderful exquisite life”. Additional pieces collaged onto the piece read “Crane for rent”, “Make more money”, “Good business and prosperity”, and there is even a small newspaper headline about “President Xi”. In some ways these discarded things do describe the ethos of Shenzhen. Shenzhen was China’s first Special Economic Zone, an experiment by China with market capitalism. It is literally a manufactured city. In 1979 in was little more then a fishing village with a population of 60,000. 40 years later, it is a city of 13 million and the manufacturing center of the world. Shenzhen is at the center of China’s exponential economic growth. It is a boomtown like no other. In many ways the random text I collected illustrate the dream that Shenzhen presented; hard work, wealth, business development. In that sense, it was my most successful experiment in telling the story of a place by combining random discarded things. Things whose meanings were only told to me after the piece was finished. The addition of the Salvage portrait makes the piece a cautionary tale about the fragility of that unbridled growth. The age old boom to bust scenario that we never really seem to accept as more than coincidental or circumstantial.

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Each of these prints have been hand painted and contain the number of the edition in Chinese characters at the bottom right corner. Near the left edge, the edition number is also painted into the existing background in English. Making these 40 variations was one of the most enjoyable studio projects I have done in recent years.

Eddie Colla

Cacophony and GFL 5 Release on 1XRUN

These pieces go on sale May 14th at 9am PST. Cacophony is 18×18 inches laser cut 3/4 inch acrylic stacked in 3 layers. GFL-5 is an 18×18 inch print on 290gsm Moab fine art paper. They are available HERE

ABOUT THE PIECES

The Goldfish girl (who is the same character as the bike girl) was created almost a decade ago. I often revisit it, and she has been longest continuing character I’ve created. I often write back stories for these characters to help me create the pieces, but they are generally never shared with the viewer.

The Goldfish girl was born in mainland China, and raised mostly by a single father. Her mother passed away when she was 18 months old from cancer. She was often very ill as a child, and was eventually diagnosed with a compromised immune system disorder, although a precise diagnosis was never given. However, something even as harmless as a common cold would escalate to further respiratory complications or pneumonia rather quickly as her body had no defense mechanism against these things. This is the reason for always wearing the mask and gloves. She was hospitalized often and resuscitated several times as a child. As a result, she could not attend school with other children and was home schooled by her father.

Her father bred Goldfish for a living and taught her that trade as a kid. They worked side by side and rarely had visitors because of her condition. Goldfish rarely occur in nature, and are actually a result of a genetic mutation in silver carp. Because of their beautiful color and rarity, they began being bred and sold about 1500 years ago. They are, for the most part, a result of steering the hand of nature.

Often being extremely ill and also losing her mother made her childhood difficult. As most children do, she tried to find a reason for her misfortune, a reason for why all this had happened to her and her father. Eventually, she believed that her illness and her mother’s cancer were a punishment by nature. A curse for toying with nature by breeding goldfish. Her family had toyed with nature, and she believed that now, nature was toying with them. She never shared that thought with her father because she felt it would indirectly place the blame for all this misfortune on him.

When she was 11 and extremely ill and hospitalized, she asked her father “Why don’t I just give up? This is too hard. I think we need to accept that this is my fate; it is my fate to die” Her father became angry and replied “Fate? Do you know what fate is? It is the result of a life unattended, it is what happens when you do nothing” He needed to give her a reason to keep trying, a challenge. He continued “We can cheat fate, create our own fate and all you have to do to cheat fate is live another day. Every day that you do that, you have won, not fate”

That was the conversation that shaped the rest of her life, that was her mission, to survive and deny nature its punishment.

Eventually, her father passed away as well. Needing to make a living and also to taunt fate she illegally immigrated to Hong Kong. There is a famous goldfish market in Mong Kok on Tung Choi street, but it’s commonly called goldfish street. With a compromised immune system the most dangerous thing to her was other people. As a challenge to fate she moved to one of the most densely populated cities in the world. She got a stall on Tung Choi street. This is her challenge, to taunt fate and win, becoming the master of her own fate.

These images are vignettes of her life in Hong Kong. I’ve never given the character a name. Often the pieces are accompanied by the text “I have a name, but it doesn’t matter” That phrase is to express her belief that life is not about who we are, life is about what we do. She is pictured always alone. Sometimes she is on a bike as crowded public transportation poses to big a risk. Sometimes she is pictured with a boombox because music becomes a central companion to her mostly solitary life. In the piece Cacophony I wanted her to literally be surrounded by the city. There are many more specifics to the story, but I wanted this character to be a vehicle for ideas about self determination, finding meaning in life and playing the hand you are dealt even when it’s a piss poor hand. In some way I think I tried to create a character that embodied a lot of traits I aspire to. To remind myself.

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Ambition – Etched Metal Plate Release

As a Pow Wow Hawaii Alumni I was asked to be  part of  1xrun’s Pow Wow Hawaii Print Series this year. I decided to do an edition of the piece I did at Pow Wow 2012.

I produced 2 versions of the “Ambition” image as chemical etched metal plates. Each plate is .030″ and 16×20 inches They are available in stainless steel, edition of 100 and Brass edition of 15. Each edition is signed and numbered and comes with a certificate of authenticity from myself and 1xrun. These drop Monday, February 22nd at 12noon PST. The brass edition is available HERE and the stainless steel edition is  HERE

The etching process gives the surface an engraved or intaglio of the image which is then filled with paint. I choose this process to give the pieces some weight and dimensionality and create an object more than a print.

 

Eddie Colla – “BLNT” Limtited edition boxes and originals at 1xrun.com

I am releasing a new edition at 1xrun.com this coming Tuesday July 22nd at 9am PST. “BLNT” is an edition of 35 wood cradled boxes 10×20 inches. The boxes are treated with and iron based reactive paint and screen printed. After the screen printing is done they are put through a chemical process to rust them.

Each box has an individual brass plate with the title and edition number engraved in it. Each plate goes through and acid bath to crate a unique patina on the brass.

The Back of each piece is has my logo burnt into it with a branding iron and there is also a small note that gives some context to the piece.Due to the organic nature of the rust the pieces vary quite a bit and no 2 are the same. This edition is definitely the most elaborate edition I have done. There are about 9 different processes to go through with the various elements before they are completed. In Addition to the editioned boxes there are 3 originals that will also go on sale with this drop. These pieces were the first time I printed on metal. Each image is made up of a series of 11-15 individual prints on aluminum that are screwed together on a latticework.

Everything goes on sale Tuesday July 22nd at 9am PST.

Here’s the link: http://1xrun.com/runs/BLNT_-_Hand-Painted_Multiples_Original_Artwork

Air Kowloon Limited edition wood boxes and prints

 

I have new “Air Kowloon” multiples dropping on monday March 25th @ 1xrun.com. There are 2 editions available, A hand embellished, collaged and distressed wooden box and a limited edition Print.

The boxes are birch wooden boxes 12×18 x 1.75 deep. They are all unique. Individually collaged and embellished there are 25 available. These were pretty time consuming to make. Each box is collaged with an archival glue and sealed with acrylic. The base is then painted with a shellac based paint and the image is sealed face down onto the box. The next step is to remove all of the paper from the original prints until the only thing remaining is the pigment. The bowes are then embellished again with an amber shellac and sanded and distressed and finally sealed with acrylic.

 

Epilogue prints release

D Young V, Hugh Leeman and myself are  preparing up for our opening of Epilogue at Hold Up Art Sept. 8th. On Sept, 4th our first collaborative work will drop at 1xrun.com. It’s a limited edition (30) print hand embellished by all the artists. Each print is unique and the edition number is incorporated into the design of each image. Get it here

 

There will also be a 2nd color way available opening night at the gallery. A super limited edition of 10

 

“Radio Yau Ma Tei” Print release @ 1xrun.com

Radio Yau Ma Tei is my newest that I created specifically for release at 1xrun. After talking with Jesse at 1xrun we decide we wanted to do something different from a typical limited edition. These print started out as giclees on 300lb acid free water color paper. After that there were really embellished in a lot of different ways. Every print was drawn on with pencils, markers and mop pens and part of the image were overpainted with acrylics. They were then tea stained and airbrushed in 6 different colors. At this point the prints were distressed using sandpaper and steel wool and the text was screen printed onto the image. The test roughly translates as “I have a name but it doesn’t matter”

In addition to the 20 embellished prints there were an additional 3 prints made with the text gold leafed in 22kt gold. This print will be released on 1xrun.com on April 25th. You can see it here