Robot Sculptures

so i was having breakfast with my LODGE brothers this morning over at Meat Cheese Bread and couldn’t help but stop and check out the work of Brian Kappel / Space Monkey Designs that was hanging on the walls. i immediately latched on to the paintings and prints with their retro-movie poster/futuristic services ad layout.

i love this spin on graphic design as art. even tho my brain knew it wasn’t real, i had to stop and think about what i was looking at and contextualize it to fully appreciate it’s humor… and they are funny. just looking at them again brings smiles to my face.

while i was hooked in by the paintings, i was sold on the sculptures! i love these toy block robots – i’m sure it’s just because i have a 3 month old that i’m so intrigued by these. regardless, i think they are very fun and well executed.

Art & Graffiti

so i’ve been working on my portfolio recently and thought it was important to articulate some of my influences within the work i have been producing. one of the things that i am constantly inspired by is good graffiti. it really blows my mind what some of these people are doing with line and form and color. anyway, while searching around casually for imagery, i found the work of Graffiti Technica and my jaw hit the floor.

what i love about this work is it’s integration into the real world in a way that’s not destructive but artistic. the reputation that graffiti has is that it is vandalism  - and it is. but reading through this guys articles, he really believes that this artistic style can transcend that stereotype if it can find a way to exist without destroying someone else’s property… hence the awesome work he is producing.

in one of the articles on his site, he mentions that Banksy’s work, while still vandalism, became accepted and appreciated as art only when the mainstream decided to take it under it’s wing. as if it needed to be justified by the powers that be that it was actually good so that others would appreciate it too – i think there’s a lot of unfortunate truth in that statement.

but what i don’t agree with in his writings, was that he had given up on the gallery scene because they didn’t understand or showcase anything that was truly as interesting and unique as the message he was trying to convey. i personally feel that we want to make this art form as widely accepted as we can, we must keep showing it in galleries. the only way for people to see traditionally defined art and these new modern forms as equals is to see them side by side in a setting they already recognize as legitimate.

is this an easy task? no. will it take some hard work and perseverance? yes. is it worth it? abso-fucking-lutely!

i really think you could print these out in large format and frame them up real nice and sell them for a shit load of money – i would definitely buy one if i didn’t have a baby coming into the world in a few months. but this approach is exactly the kind of stuff people need to see in order to make the connection that the graffiti style is an art form just like anything else.

this really holds true for all these new forms of art people are struggling to get recognition for – we have to stand our ground and show these art world critics that we’re not going anywhere – in fact, we’re taking over your world already… just turn on your TV and see for yourself.

babes in toyland

like a dream i once had, the work of Nicoletta Ceccoli is beautiful and dangerous and wonderfully imaginative. her work reminds me of Mark Ryden, but she definitely has her own thing going on. if you happen to be in the Santa Monica, go check out her show at the CoproGallery.

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Q+A with artist Jason Greene

one of my favorite local artists here in Portland is Jason Greene. thankfully, i had the privilege of showing his works in my old gallery several times. sadly, now i have to travel to other galleries now to see his new stuff, but believe me – it’s worth it!

Jason is one of those artists that you meet and you instantly like. he makes you feel at ease when talking to him like he just happens to be the guy who made all the stuff that you can’t stop drooling over. it’s almost like he has too do it – like it’s something he just does cause as soon as his hand holds a pencil or a paint brush, the work just flows through him and he can’t stop creating…

what follows is a short interview and a selection of his past works. sadly, like the fool i am, i deleted all the pics off my camera from his current showing. maybe that was a good thing as it forces me to show more of his previous stuff… anyway, enjoy!

4AM Dragon

What is your name, age and where are you from?
Jason Greene, 34. I was raised in Mississippi, though I settled in Portland about 10 years ago.

What are your favorite pair of shoes?
I don’t know, comfortable ones?  I have this big bunion on my foot. It’s almost like a sixth toe, so I like wide shoes.

What sort of education do you have as it pertains to the work you create?
I have a BFA and I’ve spent a lot of time drawing with kids.

What form of artistic expression do you prefer?
Drawing and painting.  I am constantly amazed at what you can say with a line or a glob of paint.

Beside the Alibi

How would you describe yourself as an artist?
Small, reflective, and maybe resting in a bowl on your kitchen table. I actually don’t like calling myself an artist.  I have to say it when trying to communicate my profession.  Though I hold that title as a goal, and I will always be trying for it.

What other activities or hobbies other than making art, that you like to do?
Creating music, canoeing, and skateboarding.

Mustaches

Your current show is “Seeing Orange” and is showing at SOLO Studio and Gallery in Hood River – what made you choose this theme?
Safety orange did.  It made me. I can’t help but see it, and it has a lot of power and meaning in our culture.

A lot of your paintings depict everyday life, what’s significant about that?
It’s interesting because it’s happening right now and all the time!  I guess I get a kick out of glorifying the mundane. Mostly it’s objects.  Given the chance, some tiny everyday object or even action can reflect an entire human experience.

Catch

In your work, you often times paint this beautiful pseudo-realistic piece and then paint something completely abstract and conflicting over top of it using bright, contrasting colors. what’s the significance of this?
I use lines and paint to represent the form of an object. Then I start to see the object as a symbol for something else, which leads to more lines and paint. I actually spend a long time thinking about the composition before throwing down those bold colors or lines on top of a subject. The super-imposed symbols can offer a direct ambiguity and force us to make connections between two very different ways of looking at things. That and I love paint, and I don‘t want to forget that it is just paint.

Why with this show, are those above mentioned additions behind the main subject?
I was painting a lot of traffic cones and those safety barrels, and wanted to stay true to their nature.  They like to be between us and something else.  I’m not sure, but I think they are trying to warn us or protect us from something very simple and innocent.

Seeing Orange

I see lots of little scratches and doodles all over the piece when i look really close – what’s all that about?
That’s poetry. I don’t use words too often, so I improvise with little marks. It’s language, but more like cave paintings or pictographs or maybe even graffiti. Much of it is pretty spontaneous and subtle, but it adds another layer for those who take a step closer.

Growth

What advice do you have for those who are just starting to embark on a professional art career?
Keep it simple and don’t ever expect to retire.

Anything else you want to tell the readers about your work?
It’s calling me right now.

for more information or to see more of Jason Greene’s work, please visit www.greenelbow.com

Trish Grantham likes you!

while getting my morning fix of Stumptown, i got an email from Ms. Grantham with the subject – Oh glory be! i thought to myself – woo hoo, another art sale!!!

Trish Grantham has to be one of my favorite NW artists. she represents to me, what the quintessential DIY art movement in this city is all about.

a self-taught painter and a self-starter entrepreneur, Trish is one of those artists that you will see everywhere – and with good reason. her work while fun a playful, has a broad appeal due to the simplicity of it’s themes as well as the ease in which it rests in your mind. complex textures mixed with simple brush strokes and the appearance of a life slightly easier than our own, offer a retreat from the hustle and bustle of our daily lives.

and then you realize that perhaps that squirrel isn’t as happy as you thought. maybe that insane look in his eye is really the sadness in all of us trapped behind the glossy vehicle in which we see the world – or maybe he is just insane!. in this series of paintings, “Oh Glory Be LooK at All the $38 Dollar Pieces Painted by Me! “, Grantham uses pages from an old encyclopedia page to craft her works of art. kind of a sad realization how information in printed form is slowly slipping away – but i digress..

'Superstars' by Trish Grantham

the yellowed pages of history depict Grantham’s standard character list, birds, bunnies, bears, flowers and the occasional sea creature.. what i love about this work is, not only is it consistent with here past themes but her execution is so delicate and wonderful.

i always wanted to have more color pictures in my encyclopedias.. when i was in school, i always flipped right to them – now i have both! go check out Trish’s sale on eEtsy, and see for yourself how happy these pieces can make you!

First Turds-Day

well, another First Thursday event happened last night – my German cohort and i decided to brave the thunderstorms and see some art. but first, we stopped over at the Gilt Club for some pre-game drinks. nothing like a little alcohol to ease the pain of the First Thursday Art Walk – and they know how to serve it up over there.. not to mention some tasty snacks as well.

two words.. mini burger!

so off into the wild art scene we wandered… hoping for signs of creativity redefined only to see that once again, the liberal use of the word art is still being applied to anything you can put a tag on and try to get people to buy. The Everett Station Lofts & Galleries (ESL) has always been a hub for emerging artists. their mission statement is to support local art by offering (somewhat) affordable live/work spaces – some of which have retail storefronts. having lived and curated there for almost 6 years, i have a deep fondness for the potential it offers. sadly, as when i lived there, it often disappoints.

this is in part, a result of the lazy attitudes of some of these curatorial hat wearing custodians of crap and how they run their spaces. take for example one space whose owner told me she had decided not to position her lights for the show – cause she just didn’t feel like it. and while saying this to me, she realized that half her lights weren’t even on… uh, how can you call yourself a good curator when half your show is in the dark?! this was of course one of the spaces that i inhabited during my tenure so i was even more saddened by the shear lack of effort put forth. i was so uninterested after that point, i didn’t even bother to see what the name of the gallery was even called… maybe just call it the “i don’t give a shit gallery”!

the other problem with the ESL is the fact that more and more of the ground floor galleries are no longer being lived in. what is left are people that don’t have the same pride in they’re space as they would have, had they lived there. they come down once a month open up for a few hours trying to sell their friend’s paintings that they got the night before and then wonder why no one takes them serious as a gallery – complaining that there are so many homeless people standing in and shitting on your doorway – no doi, they think you don’t live there and that they can sell and smoke their crack there, too. these are LIVE & WORK spaces people – if you don’t want to live there, go rent a storefront like everyone else. otherwise, man up and make the difference!

a funny thing about the homeless around that area, they are definitely getting wise about how to work the system. i saw one guy in a blazer walking around looking at the art while clutching his wine glass for dear life! he’s no dummy. he knows that as long as he doesn’t make a scene and pretends to actually look at the art, he can drink for free! this was of course in the Anka Gallery (as of writing this post, the site is down – go figure! maybe they got busted for serving underage kids as well as the homeless!).

the show over at Anka was a shining example of what happens when you have too much space and no brain power to make good use of it.. so what do they do? fill it up with really bad art… like the paint by numbers pieces that you could participate in.. ok, you know what? i’m all for participatory art, but this just looks ugly.

sadly tho, there was much more crap on the walls and in the air to write about..

this looks like a first year design class project that got rejected from showing in the halls of their school... please make a mental note, if the school you attend wont show it, why must you torture the rest of us by displaying it in a gallery?!

my favorite part is how they lit it using red green and blue lights... ooohh fancy! that's not going to make it look any better... just in case you were wondering - it's still looks like crap!

the back room (or should i call it the bathroom) looked like some drunk asshole took some paint and decided to write his name everywhere… you’re not Louis Vuitton – they can do that because they are a premium brand – you’re just an idiot. oh and by the way, before you try and create a brand for your company name – maybe you should make sure that no one else is using it.. Lip Factory? (not shown in this image, but the LF tag was everywhere in the room).

uhh.... bite me?

i just googled : Jonathan Stanish Lip Factory and found a press release for a show he did a few months back at Gallery Zero (why Gallery Zero? maybe that’s how much of his art they sold?). anyway, i guess this is the same show or maybe it’s his only show.. what i do know is that it’s not good.

“A gregarious glimpse into Stanish’s unique worldview: the minutiae and detritus of a starkly detailed inner life of surreal repetitions, iconic landscapes and the calamity of memory.” excerpt from GalleryZero’s press release for show titled SEX, DRUGS AND THE LIP FACTORY.

this sounds like more art school bullshit used to cover up the fact that it’s just bad art.

around the corner and into Eyeful Gallery where typically i don’t mind their work – it’s usually the same 6 pieces of glass all the time – nothing special, but decent enough. this month however, they decided to shake things up a bit with DJs.. not just 1 but 4!

you know it's bad when DJ's spin other DJ's mixes... i swear i heard DJ Spooky..

4 DJs and a ton of wacky clothing and wacky people wearing said wacky clothing.. having grown up in the eighties, i really just don’t understand why you want to make yourself look as ugly as possible – it’s not ironic, it’s just dumb!

maybe she should try wearing something green next time.

word? ok, how about the word garbage?

this kind of shit makes me hate going to ESL on First Thursday.. until, i remember that there are some cool galleries on this block… but before we get to them, there were a couple more bad shows that i have to mention…

Litterbox gallery – they’ve obviously set their expectations high and they didn’t disappoint! we went inside to dig in the box and we definitely dug up some crap. i would have taken a photo, but it was really dark in there, plus i think the work might have broken my camera…

an artists rendition of the Litterbox Gallery..

another show worth mentioning was the show over at Ogle – seeing the installation from outside was all i needed. if there was a statement for the work, i’m sure it was more art school bullshit in an attempt to give meaning to PAINTED PALLETS… yes that’s all it is. pallets with paint on them. it’s really too bad too, cause i think Val puts on some great shows there, this one however… not really a shining moment.

that's right - pallets with paint..

thankfully, past that show was the work of illustrator Matthew Clark over at Sequential Gallery – not only does he draw Superman, he IS superman for rescuing me from the horrors of all the bad work i’d just seen. his show, Submit: Unedited featured his original drawings showcased next to the published version. a very cool thing to see, but sadly i know this is just work for him and not his art… what i want is more of his actual ART.. which i know he’s capable of.. but definitely check out the work cause he’s a talented man!

seen here with no eyebrows (WTF?) Kaebel Hashitani owner and curator of Sequential Art Gallery + Studio. oh look, he's got a heart-on!

another great show was the work of Justin Hillgrove – Imps and Monsters. i just loved his little creatures as they frolicked through the flat shadows of the landscapes behind them. stories of old friends and new – sharing, laughing, loving.. emotional yet childlike. simply put, charming and wonderful!

"i'll trade you this battery for your pine-cone"

definitely for me, the show stopper was over at 24PDX Gallery with Alex Pardee’s “Self Portraits of other people that i drew all by myself pretty much“. i just love the depth of his bigger pieces. the piece below a little more stark than the others, but one of my favorites for sure.

talk about a splitting headache!

there were a bunch of little drawings off to the side of famous horror film villains – while somewhat nostalgic, they seemed more like doodles than finished pieces… but the main pieces in the show were fantastic. each piece so dense with color and texture. the face off between good and evil. an interesting glimpse into the reality of humankind – cute and cuddly on the surface while the inner demon slowly overtaking the soul… another piece of an innocent girl and a decidedly evil tree man/thing sharing a gentle kiss. i found myself wondering what would happen next – was it all a dream to her? would the evil tree engulf her? or did they just happen to meet for that one moment in time to share an expression of true love never to see each other again? i guess we’ll never know…

the good, the bad, and the boob-tacular!

ok, so i know it’s been a while since i’ve been to the Alberta thing on last Thursday, but i was surprised to see that it really was even more crazy and stupid than i remember! it’s not an art walk at all. it’s a street fair at best and at worst, an excuse for a bunch of stinky hippies to take the crap they’ve been crafting while stoned out of the gourd and try to sell it…. and probably the one guy who buys it is the 50 year yuppie with his brand new Obama t-shirt tucked into his high waisted Eddie Bauer shorts with his plastic surgery wife – cause he thinks it connects him to today’s youth.

amongst all the incense, body stink, and general odor of a million types of homemade snacks, there actually was some art. most of it was crap – take for example this over-priced piece.. this looks like the toilet paper after i wiped my ass this morning!

really? $5 for this?!

but this is just one glorious example of the wares that are being pan-handled around the event. from a cardboard kissing booth suit over a dirty hipster to dread lock hair extensions, the only thing worse was the loads of bad street performers. ok so i admit the parade was kinda cool. i secretly would love to be able to get away with walking around in stilts – but to me it seems more like the moment right before those friendly clowns pull out a bloody axe and chop off a limb or two… really, i think it’s just a short step away from that. almost like an Anne Rice story… yikes!

you can't really call 10 people in stilts and dressed in drag a parade, but they were all singing the same song... seemed like they even knew the same words, too!

clowns... shivers*

so while i walked through the hordes of people with their all-too revealing clothing, i did manage to see a couple things i liked. not surprising, it was not in the one actual gallery i saw.

here’s a couple of tasty little nuggets that i dug up.

it's like escher hands cept with teeth!

Steve H Cooper’s delightfully toothy creations made me smile from ear to ear… very organic and slightly disturbing – just the way i like it! i could see this hanging in a dentist office for sure.. but probably not a children’s dentist.

he doesn't spell check tho - butt neither does i

another delight was Rachel Westforth’s little robots. check out the website – it needs to be updated for sure, but a surprise coming from this boob-tacular gal and her harmonica playing counter-part…

who said tapes are dead.. they've been resurrected and will take over the world!

this lovely lady reminds me of one of my favorite Portland artists, Jason Greene. but she has a long way to go before she can stand next to the depth and breadth of his work.. but she’s making a great start!

bots bots... everywhere bots...

a couple other artist whose work caught my eye – Schel Harris and his intriguing little inventions. Trilliumbrella whose work reminds me a little bit of Ashley Armbruster and Kara Burke but more inocent and a little less confident… give her time, i bet she’ll come around..

and that lovely readers, is that – the last Thursday, Burning Man, Saturday Market annex, insanity that is the Alberta street… thing… until next time.