CHUNG KING ROAD ART DISTRICT MOVES TO THE CARIBBEAN

Silent Art Auction & Inaugural Studio-Showroom Opening: Saturday, September 22, 2007, 6-9 pm at Lili Bernard Studio-Showroom, 935 Chung King Road, Chinatown, Los Angeles, CA. Paintings are currently available for viewing.

Cuban-born, Los Angeles-based fine artist Lili Bernard is opening her art studio on Chung King Road with a silent auction of her original oil paintings to benefit the newly incorporated charitable nonprofit organization: ¡HABLA! Harvesting Asian, Black, Latino Artists. Presenting the event is Beverly Johnson, pioneering supermodel/author/entrepreneur. The event will feature a live vocal performance by Tony Award winner Tonya Pinkins, author of "Get Over Yourself” (Hyperion Books). Select paintings by Tonya Pinkins will also be debuted and auctioned. Tonya’s mystical landscapes and playful portraits are intrepid explorations in composition and hue. The event will feature a live Kung Fu exhibition by the Shaolin Monks. ¡HABLA! Youth artwork will be displayed and sold.

Brilliant explosions of color, Lili Bernard's canvases radiate themes from the natural to the spiritual. Story-telling portraits of Lili's ancestors and of Cuban musical greats (such as Celia Cruz) grace Lili's studio walls. Vibrant paintings of exotic flowers and animals and of Cuban cityscapes and landscapes transform Lili's studio space into a tropical delight. The subject matter of Lili's oil paintings celebrates her Indigenous-Afro-Cuban/Jamaican/Spanish/Chinese/British heritage. Lili feels that she was led by the spirit of her Chinese great-grandfather, Chung Fatt, to open her art studio on the street which is his namesake. By providence, Chung King Road is one of the premiere art gallery districts of Los Angeles. Lili donates a portion of her studio space for the use of the nonprofit organization ¡HABLA! Harvesting Asian, Black, Latino Artists.

Lili Bernard recently founded and incorporated ¡HABLA! in order to address the dearth of the representation of artists of color in the mainstream art world. The goal of ¡HABLA! is to provide a platform for the voices of artists of color through its all-inclusive youth mentoring programs and by providing scholarships for artists of color to graduate and undergraduate art schools.  ¡HABLA! boasts a board of high-ranking professionals, many in the arts and entertainment industry.

The legendary supermodel Beverly Johnson serves as an executive board member of ¡HABLA!, along with Tony Award winner Tonya Pinkins. A lover of art and a philanthropist, Beverly Johnson broke the color barrier in the world of high fashion in 1974 by being the first African-American to grace the cover of "Vogue" magazine. Other ¡HABLA! executive board members include filmmaker Charles Burnett, Richard Gay (Senior Vice President of VH1 & CMTV), Deborah Gregory (author/creator/co-producer of "Cheetah Girls" Books & Movies, Disney), Rich Orosco (Vice President of Marketing, Warner Bros. Domestic Television) and Virginia Watson (actress and music catalogue supervisor of her late father Johnny "Guitar" Watson's CDs).

The event is being held on Saturday, September 22, 2007, from 6 pm to 9 pm (auction will close at 9 pm). The address is Lili Bernard Studio-Showroom, 935 Chung King Road, Chinatown, Los Angeles, CA 90012. Admission is free.

For further information, please contact Lili Bernard at (323) 936-3607 or at info@hablala.org

Cash, checks, MasterCard, Visa, Discover, Diners Club and American Express will be accepted. Paintings are released upon complete transfer of funds.

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Click here to visit ¡HABLA! Harvesting Asian, Black, Latino Artists.

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