I was recently invited to design a lamp for Enlighten! One Night of Light, an artist lamp show benefiting inner-city arts. Each artist’s lamp design will be sold in a limited edition available for one night only. In addition, some artists will also create one original, handmade shade for a lamp that will be featured in a silent auction. A portion of all sales will benefit Inner-City Arts, an organization offering opportunities for at-risk children from Los Angeles schools to build artistic self-expression, enhancing their ability to perform both creatively and academically in challenging environments.
Enlighten! is being curated by Tornado Design and the lamps are being produced by Lamp-In-A-Box. If you cannot attend the show but would like to pre-order a lamp, click here.
My piece, titled “Zane’s Dilemma”, was inspired by the textile arts of William Morris and the English Arts and Crafts Movement.
Enlighten! One Night of Light
Saturday, November 21
5:00–11:00 pm
Helms Bakery Building
8723 Washington Blvd
Culver City, CA 90232
Tomorrow is the opening of The Autumn Society’s final exhibition for 2009. The show is titled “Dia de los Muertos” (Day of the Dead), after the Mexican celebrated holiday, in which families bring offerings (such as food and mementos) to remember and celebrate their loved ones that have passed away. The holiday is celebrated between October 31st through November 2nd.
The show will consist of 40+ pieces of art from the Autumn Society’s finest artists, each interpreting “Dia de los Muertos” in their own unique way. Above is my piece, “Juego Terminado” (aka “Game Over”). The game over screen in video games, signifying the death of your character, is typically a negative thing, but since the holiday is more of a celebratory take on death, I wanted it to have a positive and festive sentiment.
Dia de Los Muertos
Opening reception Friday, October 2 from 6–9pm Proximity Gallery
2434 East Dauphin Street
Philadelphia, PA 19125
Tomorrow night at 6pm is the opening of the Autumn Society’s “8-Bit and Beyond!” show at Brave New Worlds. You can read an interview with myself and two of the other incredibly talented artists here. In addition to the fantastic artwork, Doctor Octoroc will be providing live musical chip tune entertainment, playing music from classic video games, 8-bit covers of 80s television shows (from his upcoming “After These Messages” album), as well as some originals. There will be a “name that tune” contest too, so you just might score a copy of his latest album. Get there early!
My piece is title “Mushroom Recession” and you can read more about it here and here.
If you’d like to purchase a print, click on the add to cart button below.
Mushroom Recession Giclee print on canvas (unstretched) 10″ x 20″ / Edition of 25 / $60.00
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8-Bit and Beyond!
Friday, August 7, 2009
6:00–9:00pm
Brave New Worlds (Old City)
45 N. 2nd Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
215-925-6525
Back in March, I traveled to Berlin for the 3rd Pictoplasma conference, Pictopia and an installation I had at the Neurotitan gallery as part of the conference’s Character Walk. You can read more about the installation here and here. Two of the coolest Berliners I met were Gabriel Shalom and Patrizia Kommerell, whose creative studio KS12 was commissioned to create a short documentary about the conference and everything that went along with it. I was thrilled to be included (2:45) along with some of my favorite artists such as AJ Fosik, Steven Guarnaccia, Charles Glaubitz, and Gastón Caba. The film, “Poems for Pictopia”, ends with a video montage set to a song that Gastón wrote and performed at the end of his presentation. I was just thrilled to be able to relive the whole conference all over again through this video. Great work KS12!
This piece was selected for the upcoming Lincoln 200 festival in Philadelphia (July 2nd–5th), which celebrates the 200th birthday of our 16th president. I will also be one of the five featured artists.
July 4th takes a new twist as Philadelphia celebrates Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday at the very spot where America was born. Join in to celebrate America’s 16th president with Lincoln200™: The Bicentennial Festival. The Festival theme, “Lincoln Then and Now,” shines the spotlight on period and contemporary takes on artistic, cultural, and culinary works, innovations in technology, and healthcare, and connects the lasting legacy of Lincoln to today’s world.
The Autumn Society is hosting their third official gallery show and it looks to be the most TOTALLY RADICAL SHOW EVER! The 80s Pop Show! will be an exhibition of artwork inspired by movies, cartoons, toys, and video games from the 1980s. The thing that I remember the most about the eighties, being the age I was, is the toys. So I started by compiling a list of people’s favorite toys from the 80s (great conversation starter by the way, if you’re the kind of person that likes meeting new people everywhere you go!). In doing some research I discovered that many of the more feminine and cutesy characters were originally created by greeting card companies and only later became toys and/or cartoons. For example, Rainbow Brite was created by Hallmark and Strawberry Shortcake was created by American Greetings. I found this amusing that they were essentially greeting card corporate adversaries, so it was only natural to pit them against one another for my piece, “Rainbow Bloodbath”:
I also did a second piece, “Care Bear Carnage”, pitting one of the Care Bears (also created by American Greetings) against the popular 80s talking bear toy Teddy Ruxpin.
Both are giclee prints on archival canvas, signed and numbered editions of 25, and will soon be available from my online shop. Print number one of each piece will be available at the show, framed in hand painted purple frames. It doesn’t get more eighties than that. Read the rest of this entry ?
Last night was the opening of Gallery 1988’s tv-guilty-pleasures-themed show Idiot Box. I wasn’t able to attend, but Matthew Roussotte (AKA Insert Coin to Continue) went and was able to coax Dennis Haskins (Mr. Belding from Saved by the Bell) to pose in front of my piece and snap the above picture, which just might be the greatest thing I have ever seen. Thanks!!!
EDIT: Oh man, I found another one online!
As well as a picture of someone listening to the AWESOME 8-bit version of the SBTB theme song that Doctor Octoroc composed for me. Thanks Doc!
I recently spent nine amazing days in Berlin with curators Love Ablan and Jon M. Gibson (founder of the I Am 8-Bit art show) setting up an installation at Neurotitan, attending the Pictoplasma conference, and absorbing as much of this crazy city as I could in such a short period of time.
