Keystone Gallery proudly presents a group exhibition MOSTLY FRIENDS, SORTA., featuring John Herndon, Sarah Staskauskas, and Dean Styers.

Join us for the OPENING RECEPTION on Saturday, March 7, 6–10pm.

JOHN HERNDON

John Herndon was born in Long Island, NY in 1966 and eventually relocated to Western North Carolina with the communal living group the Grateful Union Family Trust, where he spent his childhood. Since the 1990’s, John’s primary work has been in music where he plays drum kit with several groups including but not limited to Tortoise, Exploding Star Orchestra, Pulsar Quartet, and Starlicker. He is also an illustrator and tattoo artist currently working and showing between Los Angeles and Chicago. His illustrative medium is primarily india ink, water color and gouache on paper.

SARAH STASKAUKAS

Born in Rockford, IL, Sarah Staskauskas spent her childhood and spastic teen years plotting how to get out.  Before emigrating to Czekago, she breathed life into Rockford with her entrepreneurial vintage freak out atelier, Pinkadelic, catering to stylish weirdoes and future dopers.

Ninety miles southeast in Chicago Sarah burned bright, forging ironclad friendships and thriving collaborations in fashion, music and fine art.  She continued to facilitate playing dress-up for the city’s scumbag art elite with her vintage clothier, Hot Damn, which led to her creating her own fashion line, Peel Out! and producing elaborate fashion shows such as Dr. Borlonicon’s Intergalactic Unearthings and Fashionism: A 13 Point Manifesto For Cosmonauts of Innerspace, which featured performances by Bobby Conn and The Lonesome Organist among other visionaries.

Fed up with just tending bar at various Chicago rock clubs, Sarah took to the stage with her guitar and fuck-em-if-they-can’t-take-a-joke attitude, first with the short-lived punk outfit Cherry Rodriguez, then moved on to the more driving garage bop of The Dishes.  Three albums and ten years later, The Dishes disbanded after playing All Tomorrow’s Parties in England.  Then Camaro Rouge was formed; a power trio with undeniable style, grit, and swinging rhythm.  A short-lived project long remembered by those who were lucky enough to witness them live.

Cajoled and harried by her delusional husband-to-be, Sarah fled Chicago’s ghosts for the magnetic fields and occult vibrations of Los Angeles.  Quickly adopted by the blind ogre of the entertainment industry, Sarah became a set decorator in short order.  However, still unable to shake the spectacle virus, Sarah produced the apocalyptic crust opera Baroness Dianaea’s Wastoid Wonderland & Apothecary, featuring the 26-piece punk rock marching band Mucca Pazza, a female body builder, an aerialist, as well as an opera singer.

Since moving to LA in 2007, Sarah has honed her pen and ink drawing, having previously focused mainly on oil painting. This show features her return to oils on canvas as well as the results of her ink drawing experiments. Still building creative communities wherever she goes, Sarah’s subjects are often friends she snaps photos of while making them laugh and forget their hang-ups. 

DEAN STYERS

After painting greyscale/monochromatic acrylic on canvas pieces for many years (which has not been completely abandoned) Dean stumbled upon working on this current/ongoing series entitled “All My Children: 6 packs” less than 2 years ago.

The name is derived from 2 things: 1. All the wood that the stencils are painted on are cut from former set walls once used on the soap opera “All My Children” , and 2. Six different color/pattern pieces are made of each stencil design.

The pieces are 100% spray paint & each stencil design is hand cut.

Upon first viewing the paintings can seem simplistic, however the process behind it is quite labor intensive.

When enough are made, the pieces will eventually be shown in a grid fashion, hung 1” from each other, floor to ceiling- completely filling the walls of the space.

This present series/style will continue indefinitely, or until he “get’s bored with it”, but after executing approximately 300 pieces in 18 months that doesn’t seem likely anytime soon.

Styers has exhibited extensively in numerous galleries, showing with the like of Robert Indiana, Mark Ryden, Ed Ruscha, Barbara Kruger, and Andy Warhol. He has shown at The Santa Monica Museum of Art, The Zimmer Museum & The Tucson Museum Of Art. He has painted murals, designed record covers & done a lot of commissions. CAA commissioned Styers to paint portraits of the full cast of Oceans Eleven, and then a second commission for portraits (25 total) of the executives and owners of the agency. He showed & spoke at the Tuscon Museum Of Art with Raymond Pettibon at a lecture entitled "The Creative Process". His work is included in many private & corporate collections, including Mr. Burns (Harry Shearer), Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), George Clooney, Gary Calamar (KCRW) & the Cartoon Network amongst others. He lives and works in Los Angeles.