Sit N Spin

"Love Hurts" - detail

"Oh Brad..."

"Love Hurts" - Oil on panel

Not only the best coffee in town

but Octane is currently showing better paintings than you are going to see in most galleries.

"POW: Death of Chivalry" - Oil on panel - 2002

POW. The show 'Love Hurts - Recycled Art" by adept painter Michael Thrush packs such a visual punch it threatens to distract all of the college and indie kids from their Ibooks and espresso.

"Lang" - Oil on Panel - 2005

Done completely in oil, I haven't seen the craft of painting executed this perfectly in quite a while. The imagery drawn and shaded seamlessly, the lines so sharp, the works began to read more as paper collage, literal magazine and comic book cutouts pasted onto board, rather than oil painting.

"Speed Racer: Sit 'n Spin" - Oil on Panel

And I am not usually one to like text on paintings but Thrush incorporates ad slogans to great effect. While a few of the paintings in the show seemed to suffer from a lack of focus, "Sit 'n Spin" unifies the cartoon pop imagery, slap stick text, and abstract shapes of colorful movement just right. This painting brings to mind NYC painter Kristen Baker.

And as far as coffee shops go, Octane has got the biggest balls in town. These meticulously painted ladies no doubt derive from some hot 'n sweaty internet porn ads, each portrait hung above the other like a strip of photobooth portraits. I couldn't help but noticed it was only men choosing the seats directly under ladies.

"Great Taste" - Oil on Panel

Thrush writes about his work: "I see contemporary pop culture subversively affecting our belief structures. In many ways, I feel programmed by the media conditioning my attitude and views. I believe the influence of the media contributes to an individual’s social development. My appropriation of pop iconography focuses on this aspect of social programming. There is a need to ‘read between the lines’ of what an image means and says to understand any socially coded message. In my work, I reinterpret images out of their context as a means to gain authority of the pop image and redirect what their intent will be. Then I choreograph specific imagery into a social commentary."

"Great Taste" - detail

Thrush seeks to retranslate " the language of symbols, signs, images, and text to read as a multi-faceted allegory providing alternative meanings through the framework of free association. "

"Menu" - Oil on Panel

In looking at the work I couldn't help but think Thrush must also enjoy all of these psychologically manipulative pop images as much as he is suspicious of them, to spend so much time layering and rendering them, and often using the same visual hooks

"Menu" - Detail

such as a crotch shot to pull the viewer's attention towards the painting much like the original image grabbed the viewers attention towards the advertisement.

The show is up through September 30th 2008 with a reception on September 12th 7-10pm at Octane. Go check out the show - it's so worth the burden of having to drink some good coffee while you peruse.

Why I Reside in da Atl (reason #3)

Read recently that Georgia's system of state parks are rated 3rd best in the country.

3rd best! I believe it.

Shame you can't say the same thing about the state SAT scores.

But never mind maths

these mountains are beautiful.

and they make J-tard one happy pup.

Master of the Bump

Rainy night

loitering at Friends with Beth and Erin.

After the very best tasting dinner at Kitchen de Christo

on to the show. The much anticipated XiuXiu live at the Crunked up Uni-corn.

where I saw the magic happen live at last.

Eccentric instruments, wailing lyrics, discordant sounds, it was incredible and exhausting to watch.

Paper earplugs required. The music was beautifully jarring and threatened to pierce eardrums in all its harsh instrumental screams and cries. (I sound like a such a douche bag music critic right now)


The drummer was a force to be reckoned with.

The tortured soul Jamie Stewart used an autoharp (!) to great effect. With the level of sincerity in Stewart's rasping voice its hard to believe this concert is part of a tour, to be performed over and over on a nightly basis. The music felt emotionally raw, fresh off the cuff, but the production of it was comfortably smooth.



F.T.W.

Time to dance it all out.


Sweat it out to some Queen and what else? its all a blur.


With a dance partner

in a skirt printed with bountiful baskets of fruit.

Somewhere along the way, in all my animated eurhythmics, my cell phone bounced out of my pocket and ended up in the possession of the DJ. (just when I had become convinced my vest was the most perfectly utilitarian piece of clothing I owned)

Luckily I know Hanyun and she knows everybody. So I got it back.

Bomb Baby Bomb

To Each Their Own Monster

the eyedrum

fittingly has an old discarded car sitting out front

the Elder

is half of the team responsible for this show

Goni "Trepadora"

The Monster Show, which may be disbanded at this point but luckily you've got snap happy me to take you on a belated tour.

Jennifer Montes "Sweet Machine"

Every artist in the large group show was asked to create art dealing with "monsters" and the entries greatly varied from mutilated clocks with transplanted orifie and felt bows

Chadwick Noellert "(Everything and/or Nothing) is Obscured"

to paintings of obscure dreamscapes where the monster threat seems to loom just outside the frame of the canvas.

While the monster theme seems to be quite popular these days (possibly due in part to the Mail Order Monster Show at Deitch last year) what made this show so worthwhile had less to do with the included artist's own thoughts on personal demons or cultural symbols of evil or even present day monsters (cough cough george w cough) but that this show gave license to many young artists (a majority from SCAD) to get a little crazy and experiment both in material and subject.

Maybe the best example being the sculptural painting above. The imagery on the panels was not quite as interesting as the funky dynamic shape of the overall piece

which, especially this bit, broke apart any preconceived notions of "the painting."

Ashlee Oliver "Oh My Goodness I'm so Depressed"

Musing over monsters seemed to have moved many of the artists to drop traditional art practices for something entirely more playful.

The two organizers of the show, Heather Elder and Ashlee Oliver built this giant puppet show "I Told You All I Want is for You to Play With Me."

And there was this excellent paper-cut painting of oozing monsters defying gravity and swallowing a mannequin whole. (Not sure on the artist name)


The show came together into a comfortably packed salon style exhibition


which included this sweet series "Monsters Are Real" of crying children by Jacosa Kato (which, in a different setting, could have taken on a much darker in tone)

Alex App's "Robot Sculpture" and in the background are a series of portraits by Josh Durham entitled "King of Horror" of actors in classic horror movies (I'm think).

Heather Elder took a more personal approach in her portrayal of real life monsters with the painting "Unchecked Growth," depicting an engorged cancer cell bathed in classical light with rich reds and pinks on a velvety dark background.

The same form is almost mocked (giving the finger to one of life's more menacing occupants) with the excellent tongue-n-cheek screen print "Autotrophic Carcinoma of an Unknown Primary." This work nicely grounded a show which may have otherwise been caught daydreaming in a time when life's real monsters are all too common.

Another really excellent inclusion is "Mini-Twinned Apparatus I"

and "Twinned Apparatus I" by Lucha Rodriguez. These two writhing creatures worked well layered over water stained paper and I was ready to take them both home with me.