TBA Magazine Vol. 1 for the first quarter of 2011 is ready for download. Our inaugural issue has features on some of our favorite artists and galleries including Liz McGrath, Seonna Hong, Edwin Ushiro, Heroes & Villains and Culver City’s Arts District.

We hope you take a moment to download our premiere issue.

Seonna Hong paints an internal landscape populated by little girls in pretty dresses who have been left to their own devices – to explore, strive, listen and learn. Though her sharply rendered figures with a vintage animation sensibility remain a constant, her dreamlike environments have evolved rapidly, from bleak, engulfing concrete cityscapes, to expressionistic forests and grasslands, to imposing geometric abstractions. A skilled figurative painter, Seonna took a detour into the world of animation in 1999 and emerged with an Emmy for My Life As a Teenage Robot and a unique aesthetic that proved ideal for expressing her introspections and perceptions. Though the demands for her talents from the world of animation and fine art are ongoing, she was kind enough to take a little time out for some personal reflection.

Read the full interview with Seonna Hong by downloading Volume 1 now.

Conor Harrington is a young painter from Cork, Ireland now living and working in London. At first look his work is heavily influenced by graffiti culture with the use or aerosol, bold colors and encrypted writing. Underlying and cutting through the urban aesthetic are photo real renderings of soldiers from days gone by. The soldiers convey a sense of power and heroic proportion but Harrington describes them as reenactors. He relates the bravado more to today’s hip-hop culture of bragging and inflated egos than to the heroic acts done in battle. Opposing elements are a reoccurring theme as the work straddles the line between street and fine art, figure and abstract. The richly layered pieces have so much energy they seem to change after each viewing much like a city wall covered in graffiti is always evolving. Harrington’s work continues to be exciting with each new show as great works are to be expected.

See more of Conor Harrington’s work by downloading Volume 1.

Volume 1 highlights four galleries, Roberts and Tilton, Corey Helford Gallery, Kinkead Contemporary, and LeBasse Projects.

Sculptor Liz McGrath is the official taxidermist of a bizarre fantasy world populated by mournful sideshow freaks, fierce patchwork scavengers and tattooed antelopes with high-tension power lines strung between their horns. After learning the tricks of the trade art directing for stop-motion animation, she began sculpting her gruesomely humorous creatures and dioramas, which have been a fixture in the pop surrealism scene for over a decade. When she takes a break from dreaming up her surreal, evocative bestiary, she fronts the band Miss Derringer. Although she is busy preparing for her action-packed fall schedule, Liz graciously agreed to share some remarkably revealing insights into her artistic motivations and inspirations.

Download Volume 1 to read the rest of the interview.