Dustin Shuler Patricia Correia Gallery is proud to present new work by established Los Angeles based artist Dustin Shuler in his first solo exhibition with the gallery. This current exhibition, "Shipwrecks", of internationally acclaimed artist Dustin Shuler, highlights his diverse artistic sensibilities; drawing, painting and sculpture. This body of work pays homage to shipwrecks, capturing both the romantic and tragic at the same time. Shuler, influenced early on in life by his father, a former Merchant Marine, was surrounded by maritime images and objects accompanied by the stories of his fathers experiences at sea during WWII, capturing his attention and stirring his imagination. Shuler, best known for skewering a 1959 Cadillac with a two ton, twenty-foot nail at California State University, Dominguez Hills in 1980. He has gone on to "skinning" cars, treating the sheet metal like an animal hide, Shuler skins these mechanical beasts, and hangs them on the wall like pelts. These skinned cars range from actual size to exact scale models, as small as 6". He's also pinned a full-size Cessna airplane to a building in downtown Los Angeles with a twenty-foot nail as if it were an insect in a specimen case. Shuler's monumental sculptures have challenged art in materials from our ordinary world, and humorously defy our transitory dreams for better living through technology and transportation. Dustin Shuler is currently having a retrospective at the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum through October 1, 2000. Dustin Shuler was born in Pittsburgh, PA in 1948. He has been exhibiting since 1977 has had solo exhibitions at Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica, CA; Laguna Beach Museum of Art, Laguna Beach, CA; Natural History Museum, San Diego, CA and Guggenheim Gallery, Chapman College, Orange, CA. His public projects and commissions include: Albatross V at the Santa Barbara Airport; Pinned: Aircraft As Butterfly at the American Hotel, Los Angeles; Death of an Era, California State University, Dominguez Hills and the infamous Spindle at Cermak Plaza, Berwyn, Illinois. His work has been reviewed and featured in the following national and international publications: Sculpture Magazine, National Geographic Magazine, Stern Magazine, LA Reader, Harper's Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Artweek, Los Angeles Times, and People Magazine.