“Glassy”; 2006; photo-collage, acrylic, gouache, and resin on wood panel

The Brooklyn Museum is set to host a mid-career survey of artist Fred Tomaselli’s work. The show runs October 8, 2010–January 2, 2011 in the Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing, 5th Floor. Read on to find out more about Tomaselli from the gallery:

This focused mid-career survey presents a selection of Fred Tomaselli’s unique hybrid paintings and collages from 1990 to the present. These layered paintings combine cutout images of plants, birds, smiling mouths, and hands (clipped from field guides and magazines) with passages of paint and actual prescription pills and hallucinogenic plants to create highly stylized, eye-popping compositions. Tomaselli’s artwork draws upon a wide range of sources from both popular culture and art history, and from his own hobbies of gardening, kayaking, and bird-watching. Growing up near the desert in southern California, Tomaselli felt the influence of nearby theme parks, with their manufactured reality, and the music and drug counterculture of Los Angles in the 1970s and 1980s. His distinctive melding of these influences coalesces into a folk-driven, utopian vision of the mythic American West and of lush gardens as sites of contemplation, loss, and possible redemption. One of the pioneering artists who moved to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in the 1980s, Tomaselli continues to live and work in the borough.

“Hang Over”; 2005; leaves, pills, acrylic and resin on wood

“Untitled (Expulsion)”; 2000

posted by: Tricia Rock

Weekly roundup of the best art shows and art related events in and around the Lawrence/Kansas City area. August 27 will be the very first Final Fridays in Downtown Lawrence, look for a more detailed post about all of the art events associated with Final Fridays next week.

FRIDAY AUGUST 20

Voler Aerial Artists

• Lawrence Busker Festival
Downtown Lawrence (Massachusetts Street in Lawrence, KS)
Friday, August 20, 12-9pm (Ongoing until August 22nd)
Street performers will invade downtown Lawrence to delight young and old throughout the weekend. Performances include fire dancing, juggling, sword swallowing, magic, aerial dance, fire eating, music, acrobatics, hula hoop dance, belly dance, living statues, puppets, chalk art, face painting, and balloon art. www.lawrencebuskerfest.com

“Who Created Yo Ass?” Brass, Aluminum, and Rhinestones by Dylan Mortimer

• Peace Be With Yo Asses
KU Art and Design Gallery (1467 Jayhawk Boulevard in Lawrence, KS)
Friday, August 20, All Day (Ongoing through September 10)
From the organizers: A collection of Dylan Mortimer’s work from the last 3 years. Dylan’s work explores how private faith functions in the public sphere. It investigates the role of private faith outside of the self. www.dylanmortimer.com

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FRIDAY AUGUST 27

• Final Fridays in Downtown Lawrence, Kansas
Downtown Lawrence (Massachusetts Street in Lawrence, KS)
Friday, August 27, 5-8pm

From the organizers:
Lawrence’s first Final Fridays, a monthly celebration of the arts. Final Fridays will be presented by the Downtown Lawrence Arts District.

The gallery walk will include 15 commercial galleries as well as a number of local merchants who will take part in Final Fridays by hosting live music or displaying art. A few empty retail spaces will become “flash galleries” filled with temporary exhibits by local artists.

Art event locations and participants include:
Peoples Optical (Marilyn Horsch, paintings)
Love Garden Sounds (Hannah T. Johnson, art quilts)
WheatFields Bakery and Café
Teller’s Restaurant and Bar
Pachamamas Restaurant
Mirth Cafe
Global Cafe
The Eldridge Hotel
Aimee’s Café
715 Restaurant
Van Go Mobile Arts
Through A Glass Productions
Signs of Life Gallery (Rodney Troth, Elizabeth Rowley and Deb Schroer, landscapes)
Phoenix Gallery
Lawrence Public Library
Lawrence Percolator
Lawrence Arts Center (Stan Herd and Simon Cardova, photography)
Framewoods Gallery
Diane’s Artisan Gallery (Makenna Bartel, jewlery)
Wonder Fair Art Gallery and How! (Matthew Hoffman, text-based object installation)
739 Massachusetts Street – Flash Space, formerly Maurices (Group show presented by B.A.L.M)

Much more information about Final Fridays in Downtown Lawrence to come!

posted by: Scott Stewart

Weekly roundup of the best art shows and art related events in and around the Lawrence/Kansas City area.

SATURDAY AUGUST 14

• Artilicious Craft Fair
St. Mark’s United Methodist Church (6422 Santa Fe Drive in Mission, KS)
Saturday, August 14, 9am-4pm
A large variety of craft work that really is closer to fine art will be shown and sold to benefit the nonprofit group Friends of Recovery. Types of work include purses, t-shirts, art dolls, home decor, and more. Artilicious on Facebook

Betsy Barratt

• Viva La Femme
Alcott Art Center (180 South 18th Street in Kansas City, KS)
Saturday, August 14, 7-10pm
From the organizers: Group art show. Featuring talented female artists who push the envelope and definitions of art. Brave, edgy, and bold. This is not a show of the timid of heart. This is a show of female artists who take their art to the max and live it like its all they know.
Featuring artists Dame Osaurus, Nikki Moreno, Rachel Asbury, Jessica Logsdon, Drew Orrin-Brown, Chrystel Ann Wentling, Jennifer Boe, Apryl Mcanerney, Sarah Thompson Lift, Lori Raye Erickson, Holly Matthews, Lacey Lewis, Mary Ware, Becky Buznedo, Molly Murphy, Christel Highland, Jessica Bloom, Joanne Schiller, Betsy Barratt, Rhianna James, Angelica Sandoval, Angelica Sandoval, and Sarah Burkhart. Plus a short film “Sunset of My I” by local film maker Rossana Jeran, refreshments provided by Edible Cake Art, theatrical performances, body art of Jessica Bloom, live dance, and burlesque. Live music by The Infamous and Mercury Mad and The Plastic Bitches.

• Fire/Water: Saving the Gulf
Conspiracy Room in the Uptown Theater (3700 Broadway in Kansas City, MO)
Saturday, August 14, 7-10pm
This benefit for the Sierra Club will have a silent auction and posters with the themes of fire and water on display by Zachary Trover, Matt Hawkins, Dan Padavic, Tad Carpenter, Daniel Bartle and Phil Shafer. Also, live music by singer songwriter Heather Thornton and a special aerial acrobatic performance by Voler – Thieves of Flight. $10 donation for admission.

FRIDAY AUGUST 20

• Lawrence Busker Festival
Downtown Lawrence (Massachusetts Street in Lawrence, KS)
Friday, August 20, 12-9pm (Ongoing until August 22nd)
Street performers will invade downtown Lawrence to delight young and old through out the weekend. Performances include fire dancing, juggling, sword swallowing, magic, aerial dance, fire eating, music, acrobatics, hula hoop dance, belly dance, living statues, puppets, chalk art, face painting, and balloon art. www.lawrencebuskerfest.com

posted by: Scott Stewart

Weekly roundup of the best art shows and art related events in and around the Lawrence/Kansas City area.

FRIDAY AUGUST 6

• Jeromy Morris: Masked Portraits
The Invisible Hand Gallery (801 1/2 Massachusetts Street in Lawrence, KS)
Friday, August 6, 7-10pm
From the organizers: A series of masked, mixed media portrait paintings, with a hint of nostalgia, inspired by an early photographic process. www.jeromymorris.com

• Jeanette Powers: Self-Portrait as the Mad Hatter
Plenum Space (504 E 18th Street in Kansas City, MO)
Friday, August 6, 6-10pm
From the organizers: Jeanette Powers is a graduate physics student at the University of Kansas and a self-taught painter. Her expressionist paintings are imaginative and intense and have been collected for the last ten years throughout North America. She enjoys representing chaotic motion and fluid dynamics in her paint application, without losing the focus of the mind. Portraiture is the mainstay of her work thanks to her belief in the importance of friends and family. www.arttract.com/jeanettepowers.htm

• re:vision quest
The Slap & Tickle Gallery (504 E 18th Street in Kansas City, MO)
Friday, August 6, 6-9pm (Also open Saturday, August 7, 1-4pm)
This show features new paintings by Gryphon van der Hole. This quote directly from the artist’s statement for this show, “gay culture. queer aesthetic. kinky indulgences.”, is all we need to hear to peak our interest. We are not sure if the name Gryphon van der Hole and his photo on Myspace does the same or scares us away. www.myspace.com/gryphons_hole

• Molly Murphy: Spatial Constructions
BNIM Architects (106 W 14th Street in Kansas City, MO)
Friday, August 6, 5-7pm
From the organizers: Spatial Constrictions is an installation of paintings, drawings, text and human hair to be housed in the display windows of BNIM Architects. The show of multiple paneled works will span around the the block of 14th and Baltimore in the urban core of Kansas City, Missouri. www.mollymurphyartwork.com

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SATURDAY AUGUST 7

• I’M OK
Love Garden Sounds (822 Massachusetts Street in Lawrence, KS)
Saturday, August 7, 7pm (Ongoing until September 2nd)
New art quilts by artist Ha Johnson. Lawrence bands Strong Smells, Lite Loins, and Weird Wounds will perform starting at 7pm. Plus plenty of cookies to munch on. Yay!

• Get Your Pink On
Alcott Arts Center (180 S 18th Street in Kansas City, KS)
Saturday, August 7, 6-10pm
An art show fundraiser benefiting Passionately Pink for the Cure. This show includes art for sale, live music by Eu4ik (rock/heavy metal), a caricature artist, raffle and door prizes. Light food and beverages by Whole Foods, Tapatio Mexican Grill, and Boulevard Brewery. Admission is $5 children under 12 free.

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MONDAY AUGUST 9

• Dirty Business: “Clean Coal” and the Fight for Our Energy Future
Lawrence Arts Center (940 New Hampshire Street in Lawrence, KS)
Monday, August 9, 7-9pm
From the organizers (Films For Action): In the digital age, half our electricity still comes from coal. Dirty Business reveals the true social and environmental costs of coal power and tells the stories of innovators who are pointing the way to an alternative energy future. Free and open to the public.
Watch the Trailer: http://dirtybusinessthefilm.com/dirty-business-trailer

posted by: Scott Stewart

The opening reception for Rest For the Wicked will be held at The Shooting Gallery on Saturday, August 14, 2010 from 7-11pm. The exhibit will be on display through September 4, 2010 and is free and open to the public.

Exhibition Statement:

Highly inspired by bedtime stories and comic book consumption as a child, Ferris Plock‘s resulting nostalgia drives the creation of his art today. Plock utilizes his art practice as a mental and emotional outlet, where he illustrates the childhood spirit of make-believe and fantasy. The artist, a storyteller by nature with a formal education in creative  writing and modern literature, easily capsulates a full narrative voiced  through a single character. He breathes a sense of humor and cheer  into his pieces by depicting unexpected characters (such as Tuff Taco), monsters and animals in everyday human conditions. He cites Japanese comics and cartoons as consistent influences for his work as well as traditional Ukiyo-e wood block prints. His works are primarily on wood panels, canvas and found objects in which he often times employs the use of unconventional materials such as house paint, wood stains and gold and silver leaf.

Read an interview with Ferris Plock about his upcoming show here

posted by: Harold Johns III

Fabric8 Galleries (3318 22nd Street in SF, CA) presents Multifarious Tendencies, a group show of new work by the artists Brett Amory, Adam Flores, Kevin Taylor, and Micke Tong, curated by Sandra Silvoy. The show will be on exhibit from August 6 through August 30, 2010 with an artists’ reception on Friday, August 6, from 7-10pm.

While different in style and background, these artists translate a mutual concern for the particularities of human tendency. Brett Amory captures our state of anticipation, wherein an individual is not entirely present to the moments passing. Adam Flores reveals struggles of social and economic classes, religion, family values and morality. Kevin Earl Taylor bypasses a natural law that binds us as he explores absurdities of an animal’s relation to man. Micke Tong steps into a dialogue of faith, power, and life’s anomalies with his sculptural constructions. Touchstones of the human experience arise in combining these multifarious tendencies.

Brett Amory was born in Portsmouth, Virginia and moved to San Francisco in 1996 to study motion pictures at the Academy of Art. After one drawing class, he switched his major to fine art and started his first body of work called “Waiting,” a series of paintings about the anticipation of the next moment, which he still continues to paint today.

Adam Flores illustratively analyzes and illuminates contemporary issues that are often questioned but rarely answered — religion, mortality, society, consumption, and the improbable acquisition of the American Dream. He holds a BFA from Academy of Art University.

Kevin Earl Taylor holds a BFA from The Savannah College of Art and Design and has exhibited throughout the United States as well as internationally. Primarily an oil painter, he has lately been exploring animals and other subject matter that people consider sacred.

Micke Tong perceives art as his way of assimilating into humanity. Much of his work reinterprets life and does so through unusual use of color, shape, and transparency. In his latest series, he builds three dimensional landscapes that have graphical pop-art sensibilities with underlying narrations that touch upon current events, politics, religion and sociology. He holds a BFA in New Media Arts from Academy of Art University and is the Art Director for Computers & Structures, Inc.

posted by: Tricia Rock