John Weston, Tunnel Vision, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36 inches

An eye-popping show of hybrid paintings by Los Angeles-based painter and installation artist, John Weston, will be closing this Saturday evening, August 20, at Sabina Lee Gallery in Chinatown.

Weston’s show, entitled “Pleasure Paintings,” is comprised of work that mashes together disparate styles and interests to form one extraordinarily visually stimulating body of work.

John Weston, Slip of the Tongue, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 32 x 24 inches

The imagery is largely derived from: psychedelic poster art, underground comics, erotic art and ethnic textiles. In the best of circumstances, any one of these separate elements has the power to dazzle and/or titillate. Residing some place in between abstraction and representation, and as concentrated hybrids of such wide array of potent sources, these intense, aggressively decorative paintings positively roar with a surprising combination of hideous fury and orgiastic ecstasy.