With a style that embraces creatures as well as tribal influences and sophisticated patterns, Skinner is an artist who truly knows his style, yet never becomes boring. Skinner’s pieces, which feature everything from helmeted guards to reptilian creatures and evil castles with faces, might remind you of a nerd’s favorite fantasy book by description, but that is as far as the comparison goes. His illustrated works do indeed hint at a world of marvel and mystery beyond human eyes, but they do so in a way that is exploding with color, similar to a carefully-controlled psychedelic trip. Things as simple as houses, when turned out by Skinner, become intricate, geometrically-lined portals into starry universes.

On Thursday June 4th, starting at 6:00pm, the 111 Minna Gallery in San Francisco will house a solo show of Skinner’s works. Entitled Worship Thee Kindly The Dark Hand That Guides Me, the exhibit will run until June 27th and will be Skinner’s first major solo show, believe it or not. It promises to be an EPIC show with lots and lots of titles that are suitable for metal songs. So epic, in fact, that they even use the word epic on the flyer, to describe the gorgeous installations that are bound to happen. Go view them for yourselves.

www.theartofskinner.com
www.111minnagallery.com

The ever-great Together Gallery in Portland brings together another group of illustrators for the month of May. This show ends on the 28th, but if you hurry, you’ll be able to catch the busy, schizophrenic works of Betsy Walton (left) and the awkwardly-shaped illustrated characters of Matthew Feyld (right).

The Together Gallery’s new location is located at 29th and Alberta St., 2916, Suite A!

www.togethergallery.com
www.morningcraft.com

The 3D Center of Art and Photography in Portland, Oregon, is a rarity in its own right. A non-profit museum/gallery, the Center features antique and contemporary 3D imagery in the form of everything from antique stereocards to computer-generated 3D art.

On display now through May 31st, 2009, is The City Quakes: The San Francisco Earthquakes of 1906 & 1989. Sideways-slanting buildings and burnt ruins capture two main earthquake disasters in California in a way that has been forgotten through the years — through the use of 3D cards released by stereo card companies after the events.

Head over now, and you will also get the chance to see the work of Abe Fagenson, an artist who uses three-dimensional, stereoscopic methods in his paintings. New pieces from his rose series will be seen in the 3D Center’s A Rose is a Rose is a Rose in 3D!, and it will coincide with the city of Portland’s annual Rose Festival.

www.3dcenter.us
/www.abefagenson.com
www.rosefestival.org

Most of the artists featured at this month’s Punch Gallery show, the hilariously-named Grätüitöüs Umläüt (curated by Jacob & Justin Gibbens), are multi-disciplined artists whose styles are anything but conventional. Nonetheless, they have all been brought together by the brotherly duo to pay homage to the art of heavy metal.

From left to right, images from painter Justin Taylor’s Angus, painter Steve Seeley’s Danzig Deer, painter Jason Lahr’s Diver Down, and video artist Marcel Schobel’s Samson, a half-hour video installation of head-banging goodness.

The show is on display now at the Punch Gallery in Pioneer Square until May 30th, 2009.

www.punchgallery.org
www.justintaylorart.com
www.thedelicatematter.com
www.jasonlahr.net
www.herrschobel.at

Now on display at Bauhaus in Capitol Hill are the ink illustrations of Seattle filmmaker and artist Brent Roberts. Through a series of over a dozen images, Roberts explores death visually and textually in a way that utilizes organic and slightly abstract shapes to create clearly recognizable outlines of human faces and figures. The above piece, firing squad; (bahraini)., can be viewed in three aspects, which Roberts describes below:

“Each picture contains three elements: the face of someone who is just about to die (abstracted), a graphic illustration of the cause of death, and a literal description. Hopefully these elements present a narrative, where the story is left up to the imagination of the viewer.”

German biologist, naturalist, philosopher, physician, professor and artist Ernst Haeckel was quite a pioneer in his time. He discovered and named thousands of new species, and documented many of those species with over one hundred gorgeous illustrations in his book, Kunstformen der Natur (Artforms of Nature). The book, which is now available in the public domain, romanticizes many underwater creatures with brightly colored, nearly symmetrical drawings. Haeckel makes tiny species of Siphonophorae, a class of marine invertebrates, resemble otherworldly flowers in the above diagram.

View the complete book, published in 1898, in this Flickr set.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Haeckel
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siphonophora
www.flickr.com/photos/origomi/sets/72157601323433758/

Redefine’s newest photographic contributor, Koury Angelo, had his first California solo show opening last night at the Loft 910 Gallery in the Santiago Art District. In a similar way to how the invention of the Polaroid changed the face of art photography, iPhone photography is now beginning to emerge as its own niche market; the ability of the iPhone to capture colors in a dramatic, yet grainy, way is unique.

Angelo’s statement on his solo show is as follows:

This photographic installation consists only of images I’ve taken using the iPhone as my camera. This new found freedom to explore and create has led me to some wonderful discoveries within the medium.

www.kouryangelo.com
www.santiagoartdistrict.com

Boston’s photographer Eirik Johnson captures images of decay in a way that makes them look not just gorgeous in their grunge, but truly sophisticated and somehow even positive. He has some pieces permanently in numerous institutions, including the Museum of Contemporary Photography, the National Fulbright Foundation, and the Joseph and Elaine Monsen Collection.

Although the reception for his current solo show at the G. Gibson Gallery is now in the past, the exhibit will be on display until May 30th, and will dive into the slightly dirty, wholly fascinating world of logging, as set in various regions throughout the Pacific Northwest.

www.eirikjohnson.com
www.ggibsongallery.com