On what seemed to be a quiet Wednesday night on the streets of DTLA, art lovers from all over the city were coming together for ART BATTLE, a live art competition created by Simon Plashkes that would pump up the volume and pulse of Downtown.
While critics argue whether or not Los Angeles’ contemporary art scene can compare to that of New York or stand out in a global art system, LA’s underground art scene seeks to make a name that is all its own.
Art Battle is a major part of the emergence of “closet artists”. Plashkes says, “What better life and dream than to bring artists out of their studios and onto the street?”
Set to do three-hundred events within the year, Art Battle began in 2001, when Plashkas began hosting the event in Toronto. Since then, the live art battle has gone worldwide.
This past week, the competition hosted artists with various backgrounds from all over LA and beyond, most working their way up the art ladder with their unique acrylic painting skills. Art lovers gathered in a large room at Exchange LA with standing room only. The event space provided the perfect setting for the battle.
20 Minutes To Masterpiece
Competitors took center stage, in front of 18×24 blank canvases. While hundreds rotated counterclockwise around the room to examine every brush stroke with intense eyes, the artists had exactly twenty minutes to create their masterpieces.
There were two rounds of competition before the finals round, in which the top four competitors created a second piece with hopes of receiving enough votes from the audience on the Art Battle App. A win in the finals round would earn them an invitation to the next level of competition in a different city as well as a cash prize. In addition, each art piece that sold in the silent auction throughout the night would be split fifty-fifty between the artists and the organizers.
And the Winner Is..
In the end, Wednesday night belonged to Angela Bermudez, a Costa Rican native who moved to Los Angeles a year ago to pursue an art career. Bermudez painted a beautiful landscape being ruined by mountain fires. The image depicted villagers attempting to escape on rafts. The painting definitely resonated with the LA crowd as the burning hills hit all too close to home. “I wanted to paint something with the victims of the fires in mind, for sure,” Bermudez mentioned at the end of the night. It was her first live art event since being in The States; she participated in something similar in Costa Rica and said the nerves don’t ease up at all. Bermudez will go on to compete at another Art Battle in the near future.
Anyone is welcome to compete in Art Battle. Creator Simon Plashkes says his mission is to create art stars. The competition now has its own app, which not only allows guests to vote easily on their devices, but also opens up the battles to those who wish to watch and vote from wherever they are.
If Art Battle is any indication of where the underground art scene in LA is headed, locals should be proud and excited for what is soon come. www.artbattle.com
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