Downtown Los Angeles’ Corey Helford Gallery (CHG) is proud to announce its next major solo show. Costume obscura, featuring new works from Canadian artist and illustrator Ryan Heshka, is set to premiere February 1st in Gallery 3.

Heshka’s surreal and dreamy paintings--associating comic books, science fiction, pulp magazines, old advertisements, and his strong references to pop culture and Hollywood’s B-movies--has earned the Vancouver-based self-taught artist international recognition. Costume obscura marks the artist’s third solo show at CHG, following Vile-O-vision (Feb. 2022) and Freeks (Aug. 2019), which featured the complete comic book art from his new comic (at the time) Frog wife, as well as the artwork from his graphic novel Mean girls club: pink dawn.

Regarding his new series, Heshka shares, “The paintings in Costume obscura had their origins in a backlog of fashion-curious drawings I had created over many years, which accumulated in my sketchbooks, and rescued ideas. Exploring my visual inventory while gathering ‘seeds’ for the exhibition, vague paper doll-like collages of clothing and characters began to reveal themselves. The new works became an outlet for my ‘costume morgue’: a folder of rejected, nebulous but expressive fashion (or anti-fashion) sketches which also included figures, accessories, and environments. Lighting, textures, patterns, shoes, attire, backdrops…all obsessively grouped and posed, with enigmatic models carefully matched with suitably odd ensembles. Paintings became the equivalent of staged studio shots for this fantasy capsule collection. It is a love letter to the inspiration of fashion and designers, past and present, famous and obscure, intentional and unintentional. At the same time, it is a blissfully bizarre peeling back of our secondary skins which simultaneously express and veil us”.

Open to the public and free of charge, Costume obscura is set to debut on Saturday, February 1st from 7:00 pm – 11:00 pm in Gallery 3, alongside two solo shows sharing the same title, All my friends know darkness, by trailblazing multidisciplinary artist HERA of Herakut (formerly one-half of the internationally acclaimed graffiti and street art duo from Germany) and Los Angeles-based Asian-American, Hapa painter and muralist Lauren YS in the Main Gallery, and a solo show, titled Visions of the Universe, by South Korea-born/Davis, CA-based artist Seongmin Yoo in Gallery 2. The shows will be on view at CHG through March 8th.

Ryan Heshka was born in Brandon, Manitoba, Canada, and grew up in Winnipeg. Much of his childhood was spent drawing, building cardboard cities, and making super 8mm films. Early influences that persist to this day include antiquated comics and pulp magazines, nature, graphic design, music, movies, and animation. Formally trained in interior design, he is self-taught as an artist. Heshka’s personal artwork has appeared in Blab! magazine, Hi-fructose, and numerous art publications around the globe, and has been made into sculpture editions and clothing. His paintings have been exhibited in galleries across North America and Europe, with many pieces residing in prominent international private collections. Recent published comics include Frog wife, Pleasure planet, and the Mean girls club series (Nobrow, UK). His illustration work has appeared in Vanity fair, Playboy, the New York times, and the New Yorker, as well as on many book covers. He lives in Vancouver, B.C., Canada with his wife Marinda and their daughter Roxy.