Sugar and Vice: From Neo-Pop to Low Brow and Back
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By Mary-Louise Price on October 5, 2009
Sugar and Vice: From Neo-Pop to Low Brow and Back
Restraint by Kathie Olivas
Chloe Study by Ana Bagayan
Easy Bake Bear by Ana Bagayan
Naughty Boy (l) / Brush Yours (r) by Brandi Milne
Untitled by Michael Caines
Angela Was Too Trusting of Strangers But Phoebe Knew Trouble When She saw It...And Gina Was Going To Be Nothing But Trouble by Vivienne Strauss
Big Boy (l) / Walley Johnson (r) by Ryan Heshka
Marie by Angelique Houltkamp
I Eat Your Skin (l) / While You Were Asleep (r) by Mitch O'Connell
Pick Your Poison (l) / Heavens No! Hell Yes! (r) by Kirsten Easthope
Evilast (l) / Dirtyland III (r) by Brian Viveros
Family Vacation by Matte Stephens
My Three Drunks by Derek Yaniger
Let's Never Dance by Gary Taxali
Diamond District by Shag
Space Sluts by Brian Taylor
Schwein Haben by Elizabeth McGrath
Beverly's Bat Mitzvah Went South When It Was Let Known That She Was On The...Rag! by Donald Roller Wilson
Reading Makes You Less Stupid (l) / Flaming Shull Visage (r) by Hal Mayforth
In The End (l) / Oh No (r) by Kevin Scalzo
With Halloween upon us, we thought it apropos to offer some inspiration for your costumes this year. EdgyCute: From Neo-Pop to Low Brow and Back Again explores those artists whose work starts out sugar-coated before taking a dip in a little poison. Leaders of the Neo-Pop scene like Donald Roller Wilson come together with relative newcomers like Ana Bagayan to complete this dynamic volume. Sometimes goofy, sometimes spooky, but always twisted, these artists shine light on the bizarre corner of the art world where cute can also indeed be edgy.
With its rich, seductive colors and child-like tropes, Kathie Olivas's work might only leave you mystified and perturbed by her disturbing fantasies. But the three sneaky-eyed children softly painted in this work might leave you thinking twice about Trick-or-Treating!
EdgyCute commissioned Armenia-born Californian Ana Bagayan to draft this graphite on paper sketch was specially for the book. The dazed doll-eye, seen here on the otherwise sweet face of "Chloe", is a characteristic that runs through her work creating an eerie feeling no matter the subject.
Ana Bagayan's Easy Bake Bear appears to be an exploration into Alice in Wonderland territory, but perhaps going even further into the looking glass than even Lewis Carroll cared to venture. As Bagayan's bubble-eyed character takes a walk over to the dark side, comparisons to Mark Ryden's work are surely warranted.
Exposed to the sounds and sights of the 70s in her youth, Brandi Milne uses a color palate that is close to weathered super 8 film or a beloved disco era shag carpet. Combining this influence with a more recent fascination with Asian fashion and culture, she creates these gentle, sometimes twisted, but always vibrant pieces of eye candy.
New York-based painter and filmmaker, Michael Caines paints with gouache and ink on brown paper, because the surface provides a kind of limbo for his figures. Always highly delicate and detailed, his images suggest a feeling that time has stopped and that the artist holds the key to the next moment.
In Angela Was Too Trusting..., Vivienne Strauss continues a story using the weary character of Phoebe, who appears in blue. The self-taught colorblind artist surprisingly uses a color palette of greens as the girls go on a jaunt through the mysterious forest.
Born before the rise of InDesign, Ryan Heshka's work is created using a technique that involves a vintage cutout method, then distressing the work, and finally varnishing the end result. Pulp sci-fi and classic cartoons (Casper the Friendly Ghost to name one) writhes throughout the darkly funny selections included in EdgyCute.
Tattooist and painter, Angelique Houltkamp mixes business with pleasure in her vibrant watercolors of beautiful freaks. Pictured is Marie, something of a Marie Antoinette of the Coney Island boardwalk, who would fair just as well posted on a wall as branded on a forearm.
Mitch O'Connell makes no qualms about the questionable nature of his work. Drawing from Pop Art and old-school tattoo influences, he is a devotee of Low Brow art. He even is known to carry his blazon art into real-life by showing up to openings in full costume. Given his flamboyance, his work has run the gamut from features in Newsweek to Playboy, to album art illustrations for The Supersuckers.
Salt Lake City native, Kirsten Easthope grew up in a strongly Mormon community, although was not Mormon herself. Feeling repressed, she ventured to neighboring city Reno, Nevada where she caught the glitz and neon lights of the casinos there, emblazoned with images of beautiful glamorous women. Along with a little rockabilly influence, this good-gone-bad aesthetic is apparent in her vibrant work which has appeared on everything from custom Fender guitars to the set of Anger Management.
The subjects of Brian Viveros painting are women of the streets--red lips and dirty fingernails, always with a smoking cigarette perched in the corners of their mouths. They're tough and mysterious, and enjoy a good tumble every now and then. Viveros "surrealist fetish" pieces blend hypersexuality with slippery candy colors to create a scene that you may be curious to crawl into, but know you better stay the hell out of.
Blasting right back into 1950's simplicity, Matte Stephens takes inspiration from modern design and furniture to create his mid-century style paintings that cater to a more naive time. In Family Vacation, the crew is all cheesy grins regardless of the puff of geometric waste puffing behind them.
Arkansas-born and bred, Atlanta-residing country boy, Derek Yaniger draws upon pop culture and art to create his comedic 1950's cocktail napkin art-inspired works. He tips his hat to those pop-influences of yore by spoofing names of said influences, such as featured here in My Three Drunks.
Gary Taxali has quite an affection for cute characters with bad attitudes in his cartoonish works which are either rendered in acrylic or oil, or screen printed onto found objects. His use of typography and wordplay are also unmistakable characteristic in his work.
Josh Agle, known as Shag, creates scenes from the swinging 60's where the women are beautiful, the settings lavish, and the men are wolves--sometimes literally! He uses bold colors, interchanging the use of vinyl cutouts and acrylic, to paint a scene that makes you wonder what will happen next.
Underground comics, circus sideshows, trading cards, cheap novelties, sci-fi television, kitsch, and vintage cartoons are only just a smattering of things of which Brian Taylor notes as inspirations for his Candykiller brand. In Space Sluts, he marries sci-fi pulp with comic book mystique.
Los Angeles-born, Elizabeth McGrath has been inspired by the relationships between the natural world and the detritus of consumer culture. Her intricate, masterfully created sculptures as much scare you, as they lure you in for a closer look. In Schwein Haben, a ghastly sliced Victorian-dressed pig perches atop two equally spooky stumps. As you come closer, you may see two small Pepto-Bismol colored houses buried amongst his insides of the same shade.
David Roller Wilson paints like the masters in rich golden tones, taking great pains in every single detail as if his life depended on it, and then handcrafting frames for each finished work. One difference though: His characters are not lovely ladies lounging, nor are they men galloping off to fight a war--they are a zany cast which includes chimpanzees, orangutans, dogs, and cats dresses as these gentle women and men, but with twist. Cigarette up the nose? Sure. Crazy sunglasses? But, of course. An innovator in the Low Brow/Pop Surrealist movement, Wilson's work has served as inspiration for many of his peers.
As a college student at Skidmore College, Hal Mayforth spent the majority of his time playing in rock and roll bars. Though he's given up on all that, he took his zeal for the bold and unusual to the page (or the wood, in this case) with his flashy illustrations of funny characters with big eyes and silly faces. His work has been featured in Time, Newsweek, Coke ads, and on HBO.
Kevin Scalzo's work is one part classic cartoon and one part graffiti all mixed up in a tornado of chaos. Many pieces would not be out of place on the side of a New York City building--that is, if several different artist had tagged the hell out of that wall. Not the case here though, this work comes from the brain of one artist who admits his work is a bit twisted, but still keeps him employed as a talented comic book artist and illustrator.
Images Courtesy of EdgyCute: From Neo-Pop to Low Brow and Back Again by Harry Saylor with Carolyn Frisch. All images are copyright their respective artists. Photographs by Raygunz copyright George L. Koroneos. No image may be reproduced or used without the permission of its owner.
30 x 40 in | oil on canvas | 20085.5 x 7.5 in | graphite on paper | EdgyCute commission18 x 18 in | oil on wood | collection of Jody Arlington & Franck Cordes | 200720 x 16 in | acrylic & ink on wood | private collection | 2008 || 8 x 6 in | acrylic & ink on wood | private collection | 20077 x 7 in | gouache, ink and watercolor on brown paper | 20067 x 9.5 in | gouache on illo board | private collection | 20095 x 7 in | acrylic on illustration board | private collection | 2006 || 5 x 5 in | acrylic on board | private collection | 2008 7.9 x 19.7 in | watercolor & ink on watercolor paper | 200716 x 16 in | gouache on wood | private collection | 2007 || 11 x 14 in | gouache in wood | collection of artist | 20068 x 10 in | acrylic on masonite | collection of Judy Jackson Brown | 2007 || 9 x 12 in | acrylic on masonite | private collectio16 x 20 in | oil & mixed media on maple | private collection | 2008 || 18 x 24 in | oil & mixed media on maple board | private c8 x 11 in | gouache on illustration board | private collection | 2008 21 x 25 in | acrylic on wood | 2008 8.5 x 10.5 in | mixed media | 2008 33.5 x 14.5 in | acrylic & vinyl on panel | private collection | 2007 12.3 x 17 in | acrylic on paper | collection of Jay Blumenthal | 2008 48 x 36 x 18 in | resin, foam, wood, & paint | private collection | 2008 18 x 24 in | oil on canvas | private collection | 2007 16 x 24 in | acrylic on wood | collection of artist | 2008 | EdgyCute commission || 20 x 24 | acrylic on wood | collection of ar18 x 24 in | mixed media on canvas | 2008 || 36 x 36 in | mixed media on canvas | 2008COVER: Greg Gossel, Special Offer | 32 x 32 in | mixed media on canvas | 2008
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Recent Comments | 2 Total
Nice collection!
Nice collection!
Would you just let us step
Would you just let us step through these at our own pace. The automatic slide show pause command apparently has a mind of its own.
Richard Geller
http://www.aSiteAboutSomething.com