Monday, February 28, 2011

VERSUS at MIR Gallery

This Saturday night from 6-9PM, over twenty of the wildest pop surrealist, fantasy, and low brow artists of the Mid-South converge in this no holds barred, kick-in-your-teeth group art event.  This will also be the first exhibit I have curated in a couple of years and from the looks of all the works, every last artist brought their A -game and a brutal, bloody and fantastic outcome to the simple theme I threw at them...
Each artist has one work of art displayed following along with the title of the show, VERSUS.  Creators pitted forces of nature, elements of architecture, cartoons, celebrities, and icons against one another (and in a few instances against even themselves.)  Every single artists represented their craft with beautiful execution, pushing my theme to the limit.

The artists choose the combatants and you get the front row seat during Nashville's Downtown Art Crawl!  Click on the flier to get the full lineup and check out the sneak previews below to get a taste of what you're in for!  VERSUS kicks off at 6PM this Saturday night, March 5th at MIR Gallery (44 Arcade Building / Nashville, TN)

Here are some process pics from the creation of my own entry for the show, Cyborg Steve Jobs VERSUS Cyborg Bill Gates!




Initial Sketch

 


ENTRIES FROM OTHER VERSUS ARTISTS
 



Monster and Zombie Artist Extraordinaire, Billy Tackett's Frankenstein Vs. The Cube



Erin Lord's Earthworm Jim - "Worm vs. Self"  Groovy indeed



Thomas Payne's "Battle of the Cosmos"



Siamese Twins Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse by Brooke E
Brooke is a very talented up and coming artist who is getting pop surrealism on lock down with her own unique style.  If you like it as much as I do, good news is there's more at www.unfriendlythings.com!



The Dragon vs. The Man of Steel by Roly Viruez (oils on canvas)
 Roly is already an award-winning tattoo artist after only a few years pushing ink.  He can be found at Tattoo Technique on Madison Street here in Clarksville.  I don't know how long he's been slinging oils but he has a masterful control of the medium and also paints some verrrrrrrrrry nice pinup girls.



American Religion II by Jesse Shaw (layered woodcut prints)
See much more of Jesse's intensely political creations at his website, www.americanprintmaker.com.This guy has an ethic like no other when it comes to his craft.  Each work is a few feet tall and takes a month or more to hand carve out of wood blocks and print.  You can stare at this one for hours.

[Click HERE for an interactive map of the Art Crawl including shuttle routes, where to park, and participating galleries]


OPENING RECEPTION
 UPDATE 03/06/2011

Last night's opening reception for VERSUS was one of the most entertaining nights of my life.  Every artist who participated in this group exhibit really knocked it out of the park with our theme.  There is a tremendous group of visual artists right here in the south making some outrageous and stunning artwork and we got a full dose of them.  I need to offer a very special thanks to Miranda Herrick (MIR Gallery) for hosting our event and trusting my vision for the show.  We had the perfect number of hand picked visionary creators who blew us away with what they came up with.  Hundreds of Art Crawlers (thank you too for braving the cold rain!) converged through the Arcade galleries and provided many of the artists with energetic and insightful feedback on their works.  I saw people pointing, jumping up and down, laughing, arguing their sides, and giving us a full range of emotional response to our artwork.  The crowds at MIR Gallery on first Saturdays never disappoint.  I found myself talking about each and every piece as the night progressed amidst the bedlam of VERSUS!




My finished Cyborg Steve Jobs vs. Cyborg Bill Gates.  I chose a slick brushed silver frame for it that kinda looks like static along with a purple and black double matte. 




My wife, Aurora doesn't take any flack from the likes of me, nevertheless from a joker like El Hombre!




Charles Bennett (El Hombre last night) with his work, "Spoils."  This is another addition to his Hug Life series where men dressed in stuffed animal costumes battle to the death.  Charles really brings the gore and hilarity of it all to life with his watercolors!




Dustin Dirt! with his painting Man vs. Self.  Dustin's hot rod west-coast inspired style is getting him all over the place. 




Aurora with Miranda (MIR Gallery)



Brooke E and Anjeanette Illustration



Dustin Dirt!



Jeff Bertrand



Miranda Herrick



Randy McQuien Jr



Roly!




Michelle Duckworth makes some beautiful works on wood using a variety of inks and stains.  I'm anxious to add one to the collection myself!



My buddy Dan with El Hombre!



We moonlight as security for any event.  Contact me today for rates and details.

 


 






Friday, February 25, 2011

Illustration Friday: Send in the Clowns

Inks on Bristol / 2008
"Swarm" is the theme the good art-prompting folks at Illustration Friday threw at us this morning.  My entry for this week is a Topsy-Turvy (Click Here for more on this series), entitled "Send in the Clowns."  The illustration was made for a three-man show I did with Jeff Bertrand and Charles Bennett for The Roxy Theater's production of a My Way: A Tribute to Frank Sinatra here in Clarksville.  This was one of the first times I had the pleasure of exhibiting at the Roxy and have worked with them once or twice a year since, making original artwork for their Peg Harvil Gallery to accompany productions such as Dracula and Julius Caesar.

[Click HERE for my post on Dracula: The Musical]

Some people are petrified of clowns.  When I was young, my mother had this clown painting in my room and I was terrified of it and often laid in bed just hiding from the gaze of this Norman Rockwell-looking hobo clown.  So now I draw creepy clowns which scare other people.  If you saw a "swam" of clowns coming, which way would you run?

Sunday, February 20, 2011

In Memoriam: Hunter S. Thompson


 “Buy the ticket, take the ride.”
            -Dr Hunter S. Thompson

  
"Gonzo Waltz" inks on bristol / 2009 [Print Shop]
Spat into existence on our own plane of reality on July 18, 1937 in Louisville, KY, Hunter S. Thompson snatched his ticket to this wild world and smirked at the turnstile, knowing they shouldn’t have let him loose, but they had no choice (as it goes with forces of nature.)  He took the Universe and all of its powers and weaknesses and twisted them around and channeled them out onto paper for us to muse side-by-side with him along his odyssey through the wonderland we call America.  As a preface to his collected works, The Great Shark Hunt, published in 1979, Thompson composed a suicide note, telling frankly of his plans to dive off the balcony of the hotel room he was writing it from (and how he knew he wouldn’t go through with it- but how he was a better man if he did.)  On today’s date in 2005, twenty-six years later, Thompson shot himself and punched his ticket.

By his mid-twenties, there was no firearm, firework, fire alarm, or drug foreign to the good doctor in regards of his need to disrupt the status quo.  He started getting serious about branding his own mode of chaos after being discharged from the Air Force in 1958.  "In summary, this airman, although talented, will not be guided by policy", Col. William S. Evans, chief of information services wrote. "Sometimes his rebel and superior attitude seems to rub off on other airmen staff members."  Little did they know within 15 years, Thompson’s work would influence an entire generation.   Thompson wrote a mock press release about his discharge citing himself as “totally unclassifiable” and giving the world his first glimpse of Gonzo.

Where do you go after a stint at Columbia University and acquainting yourself with the entire core of the Beat Generation including Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs, writing two books in Puerto Rico, and working at a magazine in Brazil all within a four year period?    

Detail from "One Flew East / One Flew West"
The Nation answered this question when they offered Hunter the opportunity to write about The Hell’s Angels in 1965.  Thompson got several book offers after the initial article, when he went undercover with the notorious motorcycle gang of California.  With Hell’s Angels, Thompson invented Gonzo Journalism (where the writer immerses himself into his subject matter- to where he becomes the central figure of the story.)  The book covers the writer’s initiation into the gang, his education of biking culture, building custom hogs, the hierarchy of the gang and their mamas, their drugs and their homemade wine.  No substance and vice was left untouched by Thompson as he delved headfirst into what it is to live the life of a Hell’s Angel.  The book only ends when Thompson takes a serious ass kicking from a few of the gang members (and is all too happy they let him live to write about it.)

Three years later, Thompson took a $6,000 advance from Random House and followed the Campaign trail of 1968.  He crashed hotels and followed along until the end at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.  He witnesses protesters clash with police but never quite translated enough to get a book to fulfill the contract with the publishing company.  You see, he didn’t get involved enough to do what Thompson did best.  In 1972 when Thompson barely made it to Sin City in a drug-induced stupor with a suitcase of narcotics to cover a dirt bike race, he became a legend (and fulfilled his contract with Random House by publishing Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.) 


“I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me.
            -Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

Hunter S. Thompson giving Johnny Depp his haircut for the role.
Thompson rode the city, rode his high, and became a rock star when his vision of the American dream was penned to scripture for future generations with this breakthrough visionary work, published by Rolling Stone and immediately released in book form thereafter.  Terry Gilliam bore witness through his visual testimony of Hunter’s magnum opus with the 1998 film adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, giving a broader audience to his story and reinventing the legend for a new generation with bizarre special effects and a phenomenal cast in rare form. For his preparation of the role of Thompson, Johnny Depp lived in the author and madman’s basement and subjected himself to extreme hazing at the hands of the twisted doctor.  This was Thompson’s way of getting involved and going Gonzo (in return, the experience was Depp’s dues and homage to the heart of his character also by living the part.)     

After Thompson’s timely suicide, Depp saw through with the financing of the most elaborate dedication of human remains in documented history as the author’s ashes were fired from a cannon atop a 153ft tower of his own design (in the shape of a double-thumbed fist clutching a peyote button- all in neon) to the tune of Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky" and Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" across a fireworks display.   The Doctor got to take part in one last celebration of life which will echo on through the lore of his audience and friends who lent their open minds to his uniquely terrifying and triumphant voice.  Thompson conquered the game and called all the shots, up until the last… and the odds were never on the house when he was driving.

In Memoriam 02/20/2011

Friday, February 18, 2011

Illustration Friday: Exclamation!

"Layer" is the theme for this week's Illustration Friday.  In all forms of art, it's all about the layers.  As artists, we start with blank canvass, panel, or paper and build our way up with our medium.  As you've seen in some of my process posts, a drawing can be more involved and have more layers than you ever expected.  Painting is no different, especially in when it comes to low brow, in which we often mix our mediums.  This painting, "Exclamation!" is from 2007.  For a few months, when I was staying with my buddy Nick after moving back to Clarksville, I had an assortment of scrap panels my friend Al was bequeathing  me from the shelving company he works for.  The panels needed some sort of priming so I went wild with spray paints and stencils before layering over it and touching things up with brushes.  Most of the art I created in this short time was very free and loose, being away from the tight confines of my usual illustration style.

Nowadays, with a busy illustration schedule, I rarely get to paint unless it's for a specific project.  What do you like better?  The low brow paintings or the tight confines of the illustrations?

(Click here to see all my Illustration Friday weekly entries)

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Superheroes: Evan and River

Last year, I posted a commissioned portrait of Joey Holmes, my friend Joel Ray's uncle.  This week I went on to draw up Joel's two sons for him as well.  River and Evan came by the apartment a few weeks back so that I could get a picture of them for reference and hang out.  River was talking about getting a heartagram tattooed on himself when he turns 18 and both the boys got talkative when they noticed my graphic novel collection.  Joel knew he wanted two small illustrations of the boys separately and one of them together, we just weren't sure what to have them doing.  River mentioned how cool he thought it would be to have the ability to throw fire as we were talking about different comics and such and after they left, the idea to draw them as comic heroes came to me...
inks on bristol / 2011 / commissioned portrait
Line Work
Initial Sketch
Thumbnail Sketch- Everything starts from humble beginnings!
River & Evan


Click HERE to visit my Portrait Page for more examples and how you can get your own custom portrait started today!

[Update 03/06/2011]
Joel got his portraits picked up from the frame shop and send me a nice picture of the final product on his wall at home... Thanks for the project, Joel!

 

Monday, February 14, 2011

Happy Valentines Day!

Happy V-day!  Check out the DREGstudios! Fan Page on Facebook today to post a pic of yourself "Showing Your Love" (this is open to your own interpretation.)  Winners will get a free print in the mail this week!  Today, I'm going to post a few nudes from several years back in commemoration of the sweetest and sexiest holiday of the year.

Our first piece today is an illustration from 2005 when I was first getting started with the medium of markers.  Lots of my work from that year was random.  This gal made it into my Dip and Trip .45 book (as did a lot of the more random works from 2005-2007.)


"The Dance" (Inks on Paper / 2006)


"The Dance" is from my Scenes of Faith and Devotion exhibit from 2007.  It depicts two nude figures dancing and was a little too racy for the show, so it wasn't included.  I later had an uncensored version of the show at a second venue with all of the intended works on display.  There were a few nice works from this series of figures playing and praying and dancing and such around large flowers.  Most of these works were also highlighted with gel and glitter pens (which is hard to tell from the scan.)

"Love in an Elevator" (2007 / inks on scrap brstol)