SURFRIDER AT THE
PALISADES
Brian Bent​

March 8th-31st 2025​

Brian Bent is a singular character. The ever-eclectic, self-taught artist, musician, surfer, hot rodder, skateboarder, designer, builder will be bringing a large collection of new paintings to Adler\Smith and we are so excited to share this living legend’s newest work with Los Angeles!

Bent is an iconic, future-primitive, So-Cal jack-of-all-trades who has been mashing 1950’s beach culture into contemporary projects for decades. A stand-out surfer who is unmistakeable in any lineup: striped woolen sweater, captain’s hat perched on shock of white hair, plywood kookbox underfoot; he’s a kind of alt-Santa Claus, cruising the beaches, spreading aloha, making waves. Paired with his daughter, the twosome are the Bent Duo and will rock the gallery with deep reverb and rockabilly swing at our opening on March 8th from 5 to 9 PM.

Bent has a long career in painting behind him and these new works continue his engagement with mid-century Californian figurative expressionism, as characterized by Rex Brandt, Karl Benjamin and Surfer Magazine founder, John Severson. In Bent’s hands, seascapes take on a semi-abstract and raucous vision of wavey afternoons. Lavish, steely-blue folds of color surround his lithe, silhouetted figures, as they slip through arcs of heavy water. The pictures are full of painterly energy and while certainly bustling, retain the artist’s unique controlled and steady hand.