End of Summer Updates

🌞With summer winding down I wanted to point you toward some fun stuff.

Recently I lent a quote about my favorite hidden gem in Tucson to the publication Redfin…so of course I HAD to mention the Arizona Poppy Shop. READ the article HERE.

And yes, I do still have original paintings at the Poppy Shop available for purchase!

Also a reminder that the exhibition ‘Vital Signs’ that I have an array of recent work in at the Tempe Center for the Arts ends September 11th. So you still have time to check out the show but like not that much time.

More info here.

Upcoming I’ll have work in an exhibition at the University of Arizona in the exhibition ‘Mapping Q Still Here/Still Queer.’ This is my first time exhibiting with UAMA so I’m pretty chuffed. And I’m totally proud to be showing work with the students that participated in the Mapping Q program that I helped facilitate as a teaching artist last spring. The exhibition opens August 20th, click HERE.

Now is as good a time as any to let you know about my solo exhibition I have in the works this winter at the Tucson Botanical Gardens. Yes, it’s a perfect match for my Flower Mounds. The exhibition will be in the Friends Gallery on the garden grounds and will run January 10, 2023- May 6, 2023. More info to follow…

Summer Spectacular🔥

The Summer Spectacular at Hey There Projects is BACK! AND ITS LIVE NOW till August 11th!

The 3rd annual Summer Spectacular group show will be at both Hey There in Joshua Tree and LA and ONLINE!. The gallery space in Joshua Tree has grown and features 4500 square feet of space so you know it’s gunna be packed with fun art. All the work in the exhibition is 8x10” FRAMED and ready to ship. I’m including these 5 stunning mixed media flower fields, which include iridescent ink and glitter, with the retailing for $320 each. These pieces will of course be available online to purchase starting NOW!

If you see something you like I encourage you to act fast! This show is always HOT!

🔥LINK TO THE SALE!🔥

PS The Mini MOCA has been in the news! Link here to read the article about the tiniest gallery in Tucson.

Summer Fun!

Lots of stuff going on this summer that I want to share with YOU!

Please welcome to the stage the MINI MOCA!

While facilitating Stay Gold last semester, with a focus on miniatures, I began dreaming up the concept for this project. With the support of MOCA Tucson and specifically the Director of Education, Harrison Orr this mini (FREE) museum came to fruition! The way it works is that anyone/everyone can take/leave art in the Mini MOCA at any time.

In my opinion it’s a beautiful extension of the already amazing educational programs MOCA Tucson has to offer. More info to follow.

But it’s cute so go by and check it out!

If you are interested in seeing ALL the miniatures and dioramas created during Stay Gold by the intergenerational LGBTQ+ participants you are in luck! All the super cool work (which includes my own) is currently on display in the Stay Gold Community Exhibtion at the Mini Time Machine Museum of Miniatures. It is some really excellent work and I’m so proud of this group. Thank you Mini Time Machine for supporting our Stay Gold artists!

Link to my IG post of the work HERE.

The juried exhibition Vital Signs is still on display at the Tempe Center for the Arts. The opening reception was so special! It was a lot of fun meeting all the other amazing artists and seeing their dynamic work. Big thank you to Michelle Dock for putting the exhibition together which is on exhibition display through the end of summer. I’m including some photos for the evening below.

Link to more info about Vital Signs.

You will also have another opportunity later this summer to see the art of myself, other teachers and students created during Mapping Q at the University of Arizona last semester. The University of Arizona Museum of Art invited students and teachers to submit art made during Mapping Q which will be on display at UAMA starting August 20. I will have several pieces int he show including one created from the wooden mound blanks that were provided upon my request to all of the students. I can’t wait to see the results!

More info about this exhibition at UAMA with HERE.

Glitter Mound, 4x6” mixed media on wood, 2022

Lastly I have TWO opportunities for your kiddo to take an art camp with me this summer!

I will be teaching the teen week camp at MOCA Tucson! All in-person camps will meet Monday through Friday from 9 AM to 1 PM, July 18-22. The cost is $175 per student. Students will learn stop-motion animation techniques in a collaborative environment while creating miniature sets, figures, and props with repurposed materials. Each camp cohort will produce a collaborative short animated film.

https://moca-tucson.org/class/in-person-summer-camp-2022/

Also through MOCA Tucson in collaboration with The Mini Time Machine I will be teaching a camp via ZOOM for kids age 8-12! During this virtual camp July 25-29 from 10am-noon students will make their own tiny worlds inside mason jars using repurposed materials. Cost is $80. Supplies kits will be available for pick-up at MOCA Tucson during open hours, July 21st to 24th. You will receive a Zoom link upon registration.

https://moca-tucson.org/class/online-summer-camp-2022/

Vital Signs in Tempe

Very excited to be included in the juried exhibition ‘Vital Signs’ at the Tempe Center for the Arts. ‘Vital Signs’ opens on Saturday 5/14 with a special reception from 6-9pm. The show focuses on environmental themes which will include a smattering of new flower mound works that I can’t wait to share with you! The exhibition runs through the summer, more information below and HERE.

THIS COULD BE YOURS!

I donated this beautiful (BIG) framed painting to the MOCA Tucson auction. I’ve included a couple photos below because it’s difficult to capture the iridescent quality of the piece in a photo.

You can bid NOW through Saturday, April 23 at 10pm!

Link to bid HERE! Good luck!

https://e.givesmart.com/events/ozF/i/_All/h7sX/

Chamomile Clump, 21x21”, mixed media on paper, framed, 2021

FLOWER SHOP AND OTHER UPDATES

Just some small updates about recent happenings…

Starting this Friday, 3/11 I will have floral landscape paintings from my series ‘Super Bloom"‘ on display in Santa Fe, NM at the gallery Smoke the Moon at their new location. New Mexicans go check it out!

And currently on display at Tohono Chul Gallery in Tucson I have a couple paintings on beautiful handmade paper in their annual 10x10 fundraiser. All the art in 10x10 is only $100! Proceeds go to support the extraordinary gardens and their programing.

More info on the fundraiser here.

Lastly, a reminder about my virtual Artist Talk coming up. Join me as I chat from my studio with the curator of Radical Happiness Jillian Nakornthap about the exhibition, the challenges of staying positive during the pandemic and how making art helps me cope..

You can register now for the event which will be via ZOOM here.

MEET ME IN CHANDLER!

After sadly having to postpone the opening reception for Radical Happiness (no thanks to Omicron) we are now ready to party!

Meet me in Chandler in Saturday, February 26th at the Center for the Arts for a fun event from 1-3.

This Meet the Artist (me) meet n’ greet as well as time to enjoy the exhibition will be coupled with a family friendly Make n’ Take activity. So come by! Say hello! And paint a flower pot!

More info here:

https://www.visiongallery.org/event/radical-happiness-lex-gjurasic/

Big thank you to everyone who has ventured to see Radical Happiness over the past month. Exhibition is up through April 9.

Virtual Artist Talk

Hiya!

I’m giving a virtual artist talk over ZOOM in conjunction with Radical Happiness. On March, 31 at 5:30pm I will be chatting with the exhibition curator Jillian Nakornthap about “Finding Levity Through Creativity” along with a bunch of other fun stuff. I’ll be in my studio in Tucson, Jillian in the exhibition space at the Chandler Center for the Arts and YOU will be at home in your pajamas with a glass of wine!

RSVP via the link below:

https://www.visiongallery.org/event/artist-talk-with-lex-gjurasic-finding-levity-through-creativity/

STAY GOLD ⭐️

Stay Gold is an ongoing intergenerational LGBTQIA+ arts program at MOCA Tucson. I will be facilitating the Spring 2022 Season in a combo of both in-person and online classes. Join me on a journey of self-discovery as we learn to create miniature and dioramas inspired by our personal narratives, internal worlds and emotional landscapes. The program will include a weekend field trip to the Mini Time Machine Museum of Miniatures. And I wanna eat mini food! New and familiar faces are welcome! No art background is necessary! Generous support for this program is provided by iLGBT Studies at the University of Arizona and by the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona LGBTQ+ Alliance Fund.

⭐️Registration now via MOCA Tucson for this FREE program:

https://moca-tucson.org/class/stay-gold-3/

Update: Opening Reception POSTPONED

Out of an abundance of caution we have decided to postpone the in person opening reception for Radical Happiness that was scheduled for this Saturday, January 15.

However we are hoping to see you at an Artist Meet n' Greet to correlate with a fun Make n' Take event (seed bombs!) scheduled for Saturda,y February 26th when (fingers-crossed) COVID cases subside.

The exhibition however WILL be on display and available for viewing starting on the 15th!

Stay tuned for updates.

And thank you for your understanding.

XOLEX

LEX GJURASIC’S RADICAL HAPPINESS!

Broken Rainbow, 12x15”, mixed media on handmade paper, 2020

The Gallery at CCA starts the new year with an exhibition from Tucson based artist, Lex Gjurasic. Radical Happiness will be on display from January 15 through April 9, 2022.

Radical Happiness is a collection of mixed media works, which Gjurasic created during the 2020 quarantine, incorporating a wide breadth of unconventional materials, using only what she had already at home-from sample house paint to mortar to Styrofoam.

Flowering Mound, 17x17”, mixed media sculpture, 2021

The artist, who finds the process of creating art to be meditative and soothing for her mental health, developed the series to relieve the anxieties and uncertainties of living in a country ravaged by the virus. Through the process, she disappeared into other worlds-amalgamations of imagery existing somewhere between memory and imagination.

"To me Radical Happiness isn't toxic positivity, it is coping. While creating my Flower Mounds series it was like a visual Prozac, keeping me afloat during the pandemic," says Gjurasic. "And when I noticed the levity I felt while making the art spread to those who experienced the work- that was absolute magic."

Flower Mound, 25x36.5”, mixed media on paper, 2020

Gjurasic's commitment to the safety of quarantine was unwavering; she began hand-making paper when her supply of other viable surfaces dwindled. To do this, she used, among other tools, a child's plastic pool. On this delicate paper, she painted rolling hills carpeted with flowers, creating part of the series, Flower Mounds.

Radical Happiness features pieces from the series Flower Mounds which she calls, "a love-letter to the natural world." The pieces draw from Slavic art's reverence for botanicals and a nod to her cultural roots.

"Throughout the creation of this series, I thought often of the delight and solace my Slavic foremothers took in floral motif embroidery on garments, decorated "pisanica" or Easter eggs and traditional Croatian silver filigree jewelry during tremulous times," says Gjurasic.
As the death toll of the pandemic grew over months and then years, so too did the meaning of this body of work. Gjurasic began to see similarities between Flower Mounds and the burial mounds of various global cultures. "Painting mounds of Day-Glo blooms shaped like headstones, I created a new and sacred space for grieving loss."

Join the artist for an in-person opening reception for Radical Happiness on Saturday, January 15, 2022, 4 - 6 p.m. The Gallery at the CCA is located inside the Chandler Center for the Arts, 250 N. Arizona Avenue. Open Monday - Friday, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., and Saturday, 12 - 5 p.m. Admission is always free.

For more information on Lex Gjurasic's Radical Happiness visit visiongallery.org.

Contact me directly anytime at gjurasicpark@gmail.com

Embrace, 3.5x3.5”, mixed media on found vintage photo, 2021

Online Studio Sale Starts NOW!

It’s HERE, my annual online Studio Sale!

Ok newsletter subscribers you have just 24 hours to make your early bird sale picks for purchase.

After that the sale goes public to the rest of the World Wide Web.

This year’s offerings are 77 floral paintings on beautiful colored handmade paper. All the sale paintings, no matter the size are $50-$200! Shipping is an additional $5 with FREE locals only pick-up in the Tucson area. Shipping can be bundled at $5 for multiple pieces purchased. As always the sale is limited time only, first come first served.

Here’s how it goes, same as every year… CLICK THE LINK BELOW, once you have made your picks then quickly email me at gjurasicpark@gmail.com and arrangements are made from there. It’s always go too have back up choices in mind just in case your first choice gets nabbed. Please feel free to message or email me with any questions.

The Studio Sale runs NOW TODAY Tuesday 11/30 through the end of the week Sunday 12/5! And this is the early bird portion of the sale for first picks till tomorrow, 12/1.

http://www.lexgjurasic.com/online-studio-sale

Good Stuff *micro* Pop-Up!

I’m pleased to invite you to this sweet Holiday shopping event that I’ve cooked up with Tawney of Little Toro Designs. This outdoor event is in the backyard of private home in the Broadmoor neighborhood of Tucson, AZ. Check out the FB event invite here.

This pop-up will be the ONLY public event I will vend at this Holiday season!

(Online studio sale to follow…)

And to further entice you out of your pandemic hibernation we will be providing complimentary mimosas!

We ask that you please have respect for pandemic precautions and wear a mask.

Check out all the cool artisan vendors below:

Lex Gjurasic/ (ART) IG HOT TIP: I will be posting art that will be for sale at the event here as the date grows closer.

Tawny/Little Toro Design (jewelry) IG

Nathanael/Tu Kaets Pottery (ceramics) IG

Rosie/ Sonoran Rosie (desert herbals) IG

Amanda/Outspokin and Bookish (zine bike) IG

Shazieh/Agave Pantry (baked goods) IG

Elana/The Solstice Studio (textiles) IG

Feel free to email me with questions! See you then!

Lex + Meow Wolf

Deep inside the new Meow Wolf project Convergence Station in Denver, in the dank swamp biome Numina, inside an oversized spore lives my ART! When Meow Wolf invited me to be involved with this amazing project of course I jumped outta my pants at the chance! Viewers can play with animations of my art via a touch screen. It’s so cool.

Convergence Station is open NOW. So go take a trip!

Thank you to the whole MW team, specifically Caity for roping me into this dream and Brad for making magic happen. Also big thank you to Andrew Brown for helping me take images for the project.

🦐🍤🦐🍤🦐🍤

Spore.

Animation on the screen

Animation still

Animation still

SUPER Bloom SUPER Sale

🌸Super BLOOM SUPER SALE!

I’ve created 99 (!!!) 7x5” paintings on LOVELY handmade paper.

Each botanical painting will be $100 each and available ONLINE through Hey There Projects starting promptly at NOON PST, next Saturday, September 4.

Also at that exact time I will be chatting LIVE on IG with Hey There about my new work, flowers and fully like whatever. Should be entertaining!

🌸To get to my IG go HERE.

🌸Hey There’s IG is HERE.

Follow us both so you don’t miss you on this incredible sale!

🌸Link to the Super Bloom Sale will be HERE at 12:00 pst on 9/4.

Super Bloom the exhibtion runs September 11- October 7 virtually HERE and IRL at the Hey There Joshua Tree location.

SUMMER SPECTACULAR!

It’s time for the Hey There Projects annual Summer Spectacular group show, and this time they are doing things a bit different. The gallery in Joshua tree is back up and running full speed so this year the Summer Spectacular will hang in the gallery as well as art being available online from July 10 thru September. A opening reception will take place in Joshua Tree on Saturday, July 10, 5-9pm.

LOOK AT THE SHOW HERE!

Art will also hang in Hey There’s LA location. And the Spectacular will also include special Instagram LIVE events…FOLLOW THEM AT @heythere_projects

As work sells, we will add new additions, so keep your eye on the prize.

My pieces in the Summer Spectacular are included below.

XO

Wild Violets, 9x12”, mixed media on panel, 2021 $350

Pink and Gold Flower Field, 9x12”, mixed media on panel, 2021 $350

Elbe Goods!

Pink and Gold Flower Field, 11x15”, mixed media on paper, 2021

A garden grows at Elbe Goods! I’ve planted an array of flower mound paintings in downtown Tucson at El Be Goods bouquet. Each painting on display is available for purchase, framed, measuring 11x15”, mixed media on paper. You can go by to see the work anytime during regular business hours starting on June 8th when El Be reopens after a brief summer break. The work will be up through August 31st.

Flights of Fancy! (And more)

Well, this is fancy! Flights of Fancy! It’s the recent edition of Southwest Contemporary Magazine which features not just my new work but tons of amazing stuff by dynamic southwestern contemporary artists. Order your copy now. And check out SWC’s website as a great resource for art in this region, especially valuable if you are planning a visit. Thanks for including me SWC! 🏜🙏🏻💕🌵

Excited to be included in the juried portrait exhibition I Am You, You Are Me, which can be viewed virtually HERE and in person in Scottsdale, AZ at the Civic Center Public Gallery. Thank you Scottsdale Public Art for being so supportive of my work.

Much like the year 2020 the virtual exhibition Picturing 2020: A Community Reflects has ended but is not forgotten. And like anything that lives it survives online lives forever and you can still view this exhibtion with the UA Museum of Art. This exhibtion opportunity along with the talk I gave really has been a lodestar for me in many ways. Thank you to the UA Museum of Art staff and friends for making sharing my pandemic made art possible so early on in this missagash. Take a look here.

One more delightful bit of news, recently I was nominated for a Governor’s Award for visual art by Citizens for the Arts. Though I didn’t move along in the process it truly was an honor to be acknowledged by being nominated.

Mounds on Pink @TinyTown

Last minute art show! Tiny Town needed art for their gallery walls so I stepped up with my series, Mounds on Pink. I began creating on this series, an extension of my Flower Mounds works, on Christmas Day 2020. These Mounds are mixed media including house paint, ink and flashe on a textural pink Mulberry paper. Each piece is framed, measuring 15x22”, and is affordably priced and includes shipping.

Mounds on Pink can be viewed safely IRL at Tiny Town Gallery at 408 N. 4th Ave, Tucson AZ NOW till March 28th. Please enjoy and brows Mounds on Pink online HERE.

Untitled (Flower Mound) #2, 15x22”, framed, mixed media on paper, 2020-2021

FLOWER MOUNDS IN PASADENA!

Pasadena, California is the home of the Rose Parade so its only fitting my my flower mounds would pop up there too. Currently on display at sp[a]ce Ayzenberg I have a grouping of flower mounds so monumental that they can only be best described as mountains. To ogle these pieces online and to purchase follow this link. And if you are in the Pasadena area arrangements can be made through sp[a]ce to safely view the art in person.

Click here to see these pieces in more detail unframed on my website.