Art Expo New York 2007! Part One -- Back to the Retro Future
The annual Art Expo is a combination of a gallery opening, a side show and a fun faire. Every kind of art, artist, and pushy artist's agent and/or gallery can be found at this event, as well as craftspeople, supply vendors, greasy food and cheap crap. I've gone a few other times, and usually wound up with mixed emotions. On the one hand, I would come across works there that were so amazingly good they made me say, "I'm going home, destroying everything I've ever made and committing seppuku with my favorite paintbrush!" And then there were other pieces so bland, or so trite, that I would shake my head in bemusement and think the only thing keeping me from getting an agent and earning 5 figures on my artwork was a gallon bucket of yellow paint and a palette knife. I had gotten a bit weary of the emotions the event provoked in me and had skipped going the last two years. However, this year I was pretty well fortified by how well things were going with my own artwork lately and decided to risk it again.
And was I ever glad. The art and artists and works were so wonderful and so varied that I had a bit of a buzz on for the 6 hours MaryAnn Johanson and I spent marching up and down the many, many, many aisles. We both bought art works, I made some nice connections I hope to follow up for an idea I have of forming an Artists' Salon and Materials Exchange, and I felt re-energized instead of depressed.
The number of displays and artists is so huge, and so diverse, that we made a point of stopping only when something really caught our eye and halted us in our tracks. Even so, we stopped at least 200 or 300 times to look, collect postcards and business cards, and chat with those at the display. I'm only going to be able to cover a fraction of the artists who really blew me away, provide some small samples of their work**, and a few of my thoughts about them.
We hadn't wandered around for too long before we had parsed out a few things. Artwork, at least the ones we liked particularly, has definitely taken a colorful turn, and a lot of the newer art is heavily influenced by animation old and new. There are a lot of retro-future influences and the line between illustration and fine art has really started to blur (if it was ever there to begin with). We really liked this trend. Most of the work that really appealed to me would not be out of place at any of the science fiction and/or fantasy art shows, and, in the case of s/f pros, vice versa.
Part One of this report will cover the artists I really liked whose art seemed to reflect this trend -- multiple influences, multiple art genres and a fearless use of line and colour.
The first display that stopped us, feet barely in the door, was the work of Daniel Merriam, represented by Animazing Gallery.
His work is amazing -- fantasy creatures and landscapes, all so delicate and detailed, yet the finished effect of each work is bold and memorable.
After that, it's impossible to cover the show in any kind of chronological order, so I'll just feature here the artists who inspired a longing to have at least one of their works hanging on my walls, even if my own starving artist status keeps me from having anything at the moment other than their postcards :
1. The striking and unique art of Dan Staroff. Dan's display featured the originals and prints of his Botanical Machinery series, which have names like "Cool Daddy-O":
He does several abstract series, and also has a variety of wonderful illustrations and game cards that are fun:
In addition to his prints and originals, his website sells all sorts of useful and unusual products and items with his artwork on it -- clocks, buttons, posters, messenger bags, and t-shirts to name just a few things. Dan also has to be mentioned for his generosity with his time at this busy show. Charming and gracious, he spent a good fifteen minutes talking with us without pressuring us at all. MaryAnn bought two of his pen and ink prints --which look like the schematics for his Botanical Machinery series. Believe me, I'll be emptying out my penny jar and checking out his site with an eye to purchasing something until the day I can afford one of his originals. He was also kind enough to email me the name of the company that does his excellent giclee prints, together with a very nice comment on my site. Thanks, Dan.
2. David Cowles. Another example of work the crosses the lines between illustration, advertising, fine art and comic books:
Thoroughly original, yet obviously influenced by great caricature artists like Hirschfeld and the be-bop colors of 60s album covers, Cowles has done fine art, advertising for Absolut, caricatures of just about everyone in show business, and animation and, most recently, toys.
3. Next up is Pete McKee, from Sheffield, England. His art is slyly radical and hilarious, but also thoughtful and a bit melancholy. It might help to have a bit of familiarity with British humour, the BBC Mystery series and the social changes in Britain of the last 30 years, but it isn't really necessary.
Anyone can appreciate the simple, yet expressive, faces, subtle colors and the subversive undercurrents to his style. His display and materials were also very generous -- he gave, to almost anyone who stopped and showed some interest, a fabulous brochure with prints of his art on heavy, glossy paper totally suitable for framing!
4. Alan Bodner. It was the framed, three-dimensional work that caught my eye. Wildly colorful, cartoonish and yet stylish.
These little samples provided canot begin to convey the liveliness and vitality of these three dimensional works. Bodner plays with basic art themes: landscapes, portraits, still lifes -- and makes them pop with color and line.
5. Which brings us to George Perrou. A "confessed" self-taught artist, he didn't pick up a paintbrush and finish a painting until he was 33. But boy! When he did.... here's what he got:
The only description of this work that pops into my mind is "Abstract Narrative." I don't know if that's a proper art movement or terminology, but it's the one that fits. Even though they are totally non-representational, you get the feeling there is, if not a full-length story on the canvas, then there is at least a short anecdote. These works sort of remind me of the background of the Jetsons cartoons, or the "future" as depicted at the 1964 World's Fair, or maybe even the beautifully depcited landscape of a Warner Brothers cartoon, like the Roadrunner.
6. Ed Heck's work also straddles the world of illustration and cartooning:
His deceptively cartoonish work draws you in and invites a second look. With that second (or third) look, you see that Heck uses that simplicity to express himself and his worldview with wry humour, weird characters and a subtle sense of irony.
In Part Two, I'll discuss artists whose work is deceptively traditional in style or medium, but where the total effect is something completely wild and different.
**The reproductions of works of art
herein displayed are not to be duplicated for personal use,
for distribution, nor for sale. All rights reserved.
All images are the copyright of the individual artists.
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