If you like L.A. Weekly covers, you’ll love this. La Luz De Jesus, the preeminent gallery for alternative art, hosts its 9th Annual Group Show "Everything but the Kitschen Sync," (those with pun-allergies are advised to skip the show.)



To deconstruct the title further, however, the show is entirely not in sync, completely devoid of any theme and including the works of students, animators, commercial illustrators and tattooists. Look hard enough at "Everything but …" and I’m positive you most likely could fine a Kitschen Sync.



While communist in philosophy, the show’s capitalist pig is Mark Ryden, fresh off his solo tour-of-duty at the Pasadena Museum of California Art. Ryden’s creations resemble overfed Tim Burton creations. Usually. Remember the Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy-ey cover of Michael Jackson’s album Dangerous? Ryden. (As if Jackson wasn’t scary enough, the cover looked like the schematics for Hieronymus Bosch’s funhouse.)



Ryden’s work typically features his three favorite themes: rabbits, children and unprocessed meat. In one of his most recent oils, "Rosie’s Tea Party," a grotesquely large-headed lass uses a tree-saw to carve raw meat for her tea-party that consists of a doll apparently modeled after a young Joe Pesci, a rabbit adding Earl Grey to his wine, and a pinko Abraham Lincoln with his equally salmon-colored date; to clean up, immaculately white mice scurry beneath the table. In the corner of this tableaux are the framed words "Be Good." I’d rather meet the Children Of The Corn than any of Mark’s spawn.



La Luz de Jesus Gallery is located at 4633 Hollywood Blvd., in Los Angeles. Gallery hours: Mon-Wed 11 a.m.-7 p.m., Thu-Sat 11 a.m.-9 p.m., Sun noon-6 p.m. For more information, call (323) 666-7667 or visit www.laluzdejesus.com.