Opening up last week was MARK DEAN VECA’s phenomenal career retrospective “Mark Dean Veca: Painting, Wall Drawings and Collaborations” at the UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY/UCSD. Providing a comprehensive overview of the Shreveport, Louisiana native & current Altadena resident’s creative oeuvre, the multifaceted exhibition chronicles the diversity of the painter’s career from his early drawings and monochrome paintings to his creative collaborations with Nike, KAWS, Ford, and Burton Snowboards, before arriving at a selection of the artist’s stunning new work. The show also features two intensely detailed wall paintings indoors & out exhibiting his signature style of graphic assault. In the words of curator Steve Mitchell, “Veca works in the meticulous tradition of the fresco painter to produce an image that paradoxically evokes the immediacy of the graffiti artist.” HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »