Rebekah Bogard

I recently came across the work of Rebekah Bogard. You could almost describe it as a strange blend of Amy Sol's sweet sleepy creatures and Yoko D'Holbachie's cartoon colored sea- creature like chimeras, however Rebekah's works are all masterfully crafted ceramics!

Sea Urchins

Artist Kipling West posted this image of an old illustration in a book she had found, it's so great I thought I should repost it here. I especially like the one getting scolded.

"Urchins of the Sea
Marie Overton Corbin and Charles Buxton Going
1900
Longmans, Green, and Co."

They Unblinded Me With Science

Last Saturday I had lasik surgery to correct my vision. I can see close up, but was unable to see far very well (hardly at all). I could not wear contacts and hated wearing glasses so I got over the fear of having lasers slice my eyeballs open and went for it. The actual surgery kinda sucks, but only lasts a few minutes. Afterwards I took a second valium because my eyes hurt so badly that it was making me cry. That second dose made me start tripping and I thought I was in a carnival land made of drippy candle wax-like mud. (I'm SURE there is a painting of that SOMEWHERE) After I woke up that evening I could see! And I see GREAT now- it's astonishing. The only downside is that I look like a zombie from 28 Days Later since the surgery made my eyes turn red. I thought I'd share the beauty of my ruptured eye whites. Bon appetite!

Alex Gross Show

The great Alex Gross has a new show opening April 4th at Jonathan Levine, entitled "Mysteries and Manners"...can't wait to see it! I've posted before about Alex's intriguing mix of Victorian and traditional Asian motifs, looks like he's be adding some new layers to his wunderkammer-like paintings.

Elephant Art

An elephant paints and elephant holding a flower. I'm not sure what is going on with this- I think the elephant was obviously "trained" to do this, but it is amazing all the same.

Femke Hiemstra sneak peek

Here is a preview of a piece by Femke Hiemstra called "Nicotania" from her upcoming show at Roq La Rue (with Travis Louie). If I could, I would seriously buy every single piece in the show.

Audrey Kawasaki

This is a new piece by Audrey, that she just posted on her blog. I really like this one because it makes me think of a sexy, scary ghost...like something out of a folktale.

Ronald Kurniawan

Ronald Kurniawan is one of my very favorite artists. His color sense is divine. I have shown him in the past and we keep talking about him showing in the future, but he's naughty and incommunicado much of the time. That's ok, as long as he keeps making such wonderful stuff.

Inked

The gallery and the new show coming up with Travis Louie and Femke Hiemstra got a nice full page write up in the new issue of Inked magazine, which is a "lifestyle tattoo magazine" heavy on the foxy babes. It's fun to be in magazines like that and not have to take your top off to do so! God knows I appreciate the write up.

Anthony Pontius Sneak Peek Part 2

Anthony emailed me a painting from his upcoming NY show at 31 Grand Gallery. This one is called "the soothsayers greatest game ever!" Want. I bought the unsold painting from the last show and it is now over my computer at my desk at home.

Caspar David Friedrich

I was flipping through an old art book and was reminded about the work of Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840). He was an influential German Romantic painter who painted mainly allegorical landscapes. He did lots of very creepy and great paintings of run down cemeteries, gothic ruins, and shipwrecks. He was pretty into the decay of man made monuments, and consequently the grandeur of nature.

Camille Rose Garcia

I just did an interview with Camille Rose Garcia for the next issue of Hi Fructose. We talk a lot about how it is to function in a world where there is so much misery and destruction, and I really enjoyed hearing what she had to say because she's very unapologetic about how she feels. But it made me think to post some of her work. I adore it, it really pulls a lot of emotional chords in me, especially her newer work that deals with animals, habitat destruction, and looming extinction. Looking at her work is a way for me to think about these things without completely wanting to kill myself.

Esao Andrews

The work of Esao Andrews is incredibly appealing to me. I like his creepy blend of slightly strange looking women, and twisting organic plant/creatures. He has a show coming up at Roq La Rue with Fuco Ueda, which will be an amazing exhibit.

Kill Your Idols

I yoinked this off Victor Castillo's blog. I don't know the story to this (other than it appears to be several artists just goofing off) but I found it appealing in its overt finger to the classics.

Brook Slane

I love these paintings by Brook Slane. They have a similar quality to many artists I like, like Anthony Pontius, The Clayton Brothers (old work at anyrate), and Fred Stonehouse.

Surfbeat

There is a great looking lowbrow show opening up at Light Gallery in CA, called Surfbeat...dead beat surfers and surf inspired beatniks. My heart beats a little faster at the thought...it's too far back, dad!

Robert Burden

This week has been getting ready for Robert Burden's show this Friday. His paintings are huuuuuge and he drove them up in a Uhaul from San Francisco. Today we got most of them up and the effect is astonishing. Damion from BLVD is going to help me make a little panoramic video I can post, because seeing these paintings in jpeg form vs seeing their effect large scale is a whole other thing. The show truly looks amazing in the real sense of the word!

I've also been feeling a little bit burnt out, so I've been laying low. Sometimes the whole art thing gets a little overwhelming (mainly because I'm involved in it so much and there's SO much of it). I'm constantly trying to stay on top of things, as well as trying to get people excited about my new shows and new artists every month (and have been for almost a decade) that sometimes I just have to stop reading art mags and blogs and looking at shows for a little bit. It's kind of like sniffing coffee beans after smelling too much perfume I guess.

Madame Talbot's Victorian Lowbrow

Madame Talbot offers a veritable cornucopia of weird on her wonderful website. She offers handmade curio cabinets, posters, dolls and other assorted ephemera, not to mention a crazy assortment of vintage items to drool over.
Any weird counterculture thing you can think of, from beatniks to werewolves, she has got you covered.

Japanese Monsters of the Edo Period

More mouthwatering monsters in this great post on Pink Tentacle about monsters from the Edo period (1603-1868) in Japan...

Richard Dadd

One of the things I love about the Victorians was their obsession with propriety yet the huge roiling undercurrent of dark weirdness that also went on during those times. Richard Dadd was a painter who focused often on painting fairies...he also went nuts and killed his father. Many of his painting were made in the asylum. A sad story- but interesting paintings!

Leon Bakst

One of the oldest art books I have is a book of costume designs by Leon Bakst (1866-1924) He did a lot of designs for dancers so many of his paintings have great movement in them.

Gustave Moreau

Ah, Gustave Moreau (1826-1898)...big kahuna of the Symbolist movement. The thing I particularly like about his work (and in my mind he's one of the top painters ever, growing up looking at his work made him sort of mythical to me) is that his work looks like it comes from another time, it looks like it could have come from another, forgotten era thousands of years ago. It has a mystical, otherworldly look, but lacks sloppy or trite romanticism...it has a feral power lurking under the surface.

Nathan Ota

I really, really like Nathan Ota's paintings. His work contains characters such as eyeless birds, cyclops robots, and tree stump men. I think they have a nice commentary on enviromental issues, and man, are his paintings tight! Highly detailed and perfect in person, and the color palette is fantastic.