Posts
Insane Ninja 10-year-old
10-year-old Black belt Tyler Weaver Jr performs an insane blindfolded Karate routine on Oprah. Unfortunately, his mother wasn't able to make it to the taping - she's still in the hospital from the last time she asked him to clean his room. This video was found on Today's Big Thing.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Insane Ninja 10-year-old
Victor Castillo & Brian Despain Show
Roq La Rue is pleased to present two solo shows for the month of September, one by Chilean artist Victor Castillo, and the other by Seattle painter Brian Despain. This will be our kick off show in the newly renovated space. Watch for our brand new website launching on the 12th as well!!
Gallery Address:
2312 2nd Ave.
Seattle, WA 98121
Victor Castillo
"When The Heavens Open"
new paintings and drawings
For his first solo exhibition in USA, Victor Castillo has chosen a biblical title taken from the lyrics of a song by Violeta Parra, a communist Chilean folk musician and visual artist. The title and the decontextualized lyrics are a statement of Castillo’s contempt for western society’s fundamentalism. Expansive politics – bombing, invasion and imposition of the self culture in foreign countries –, racism, omnipresence of violence, weapons culture, extremist Catholicism, etc. are some of the subjects of his new series of paintings. He depicts decadent aspects from our society through the use of an apocalyptical visual poetry. Children are the main actors in the artworks. They portray dark scenes where toys become weapons and cruelty replaces innocence. They act as metaphors but are actually not so far from reality when compared to facts like the trends in youth towards broadcasting their own violence and executing brutality without compassion or recognition of actual consequences. In Victor’s narratives the cast of characters usually feature hot dog noses and hollowed out eyes. This is to represent excitement, arrogance, desire, and the thought of cannibalism (the obviously phallic noses) juxtaposed with unconsciousness, blindness, insanity and dehumanization represented by the empty eye sockets. Additional common traits to his paintings are the use of lighting (characters are often tellingly lit as if from flames from below) and children in Victorian finery often doing horrible things. A brutal darkness emanates from each canvas beyond the initial reaction to the cartoon grotesquery and goofy over the top-ness of the characters with a penchant for gleeful violence, writing out words in juicy entrails and carrying the cross. Castillo was raised in a humble neighborhood in Santiago de Chile, a conflictive political and social environment, being the country under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. If historically Chile had been strongly influenced by the post-colonial Spain, during this period politics, economy and culture were heavily influenced by Wasington, the strength of the dollar and Hollywood. Victor developed since then an ambiguous relationship with the US. For him it was a country that exerted a colonial-style influence but brought a culture which fast became his main source of inspiration, far from anything else he had known before. In his first solo exhibition in Spain his paintings related a love and hate feeling towards Spain and Chile, the paintings in this first solo show in the USA ooze with a trace of ambiguous admiration and criticism towards the US.
Brian Despain
"Blood Sweat and Gears"
a mini show of new paintings
Brian Despain returns to the gallery with a new set of paintings from his 100 Robots series. While his painterly work retains a dark humor, these new paintings belie also a sense of melancholy, stemming from recent issues in the artists life. He places his depiction of the "everyman" as robot in bleak situations and landscapes that look ready to storm. Painted in hurricane-cloud greys and blues and sulphurous post-apocalyptic yellows, the robot "protagonists" blunder their way across tumultuous landscapes, thrilled by a newly discovered concept of “self” yet haunted with the dawning realization of their fatal disconnection from the life which surrounds them. Religion, as well as social and personal politics are depicted in allegorical terms, and Brian often uses a symbolic visual vocabulary within his image making. Each painting is meant to provoke introspection into one’s own existence and begs further examination of the collective human condition.
SHEPARD FAIREY : BEHAVIORAL PATTERNS
We Recently Fabricated a new set of Patterns for Obey. Sneak Peek. Maybe Pop into White Walls SF and see these Beauties in action.
DAS-MO'S MONSTER MATE and PATCH TOGETHER
DAS-MO needs our help!!
I have been following the work of DAS-MO for quite some time now, he has quite a presence on alot of the vinyl toy community message boards, and he has some great hand made pieces he has created...now he is trying to take the next step...production. Help him out by visiting the Patch together website, logging-in, and voting for his design.Here is a quick note from Das-Mo:
Mates,You can also view alot of his work on his website. This is for a good cause so help support this amazing artist.
After putting lots of time and cash into my in-house-toy-production, I am now trying to find ways to get some of my stuff done. As many of you provided very positive feedback on my monster mates, I now put them into the PatchTogether contest.
In case you think it would be great to have monster mates with different designs as production pieces, please drop by and vote for my monster mate toy here:
Patch Together
Cheers for your support!!!
Das Mo
EMPTEES
This shirt designed by Jake aka warholbot:
I make art in San Diego. I make love in San Diego. inspired by: radio frequencies and jealousy.....Warhol, Basquiat. Working full time in a print shop but also do freelance work. So dont be afraid to contact me!Representing the 619! You can see more of Jake's work on all of these sites: DesignByHumans Profile, Deviant Art Profile, emptee page, Popdeck Design, Threadless Profile
Stefan Bucher's Daily Monster #142
From Stefan's Blog:
What's his age again? And why the attitude? And the unclear skin? What does 142 sound like? What does he have to say for himself? Is he jock or nerd? Stock boy or night manager? Rhodes scholar or driveway sweeper? I know it's the weekend, but if the spirit moves you, I hope you'll take a minute and...
NATURAL SELECTION - DISTINCTION GALLERY
Info from Juxtapoz.com a great website for shows and culture:
Distinction Gallery presents Natural Selection, a tri-artist showing by Linda Herzog, Michael Brown, and Isaac Bushkin that runs September 13th - October 4th at Southern California’s Distinction Gallery.Distinction Gallery
Natural Selection explores the theme of wildlife juxtaposed with fantasy and surrealism in this eccentric showing. All three of the artists will be attending the opening reception on Saturday, September 13th from 6-11pm and will be on hand to answer questions, like “What’s the deal with a balancing stick/bone, Linda?” and other significant questions that may arise. Make sure to check out more of the great work on display in Natural Selection online here at Distinction Gallery.
317 E Grand Ave, Escondido, CA 92025
760.781.5779
Hours
Wednesday - Friday: 12 am - 5 pm
Saturday: 10 am - 5 pm, second Saturdays 11am-11pm and by appointment
The gallery hosts a party and reception on the second Saturday of every month featuring fine wine, beer, or spirits, live music by some of the best up and coming musicians from San Diego and Los Angeles and of course, lots of art.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
