Tara Jane O’Neil is a musician and artist who will displaying her zine (entitled doodle book selections #3) at IPRC — Independent Publishing Resource Center TODAY for First Thursday.
If you don’t know her work OR the amazing things that are happening at the IPRC, you should definitely stop by.
It’s clear from her paintings that Gala Bent has a keen eye for detail, but a closer look into the writings on her blog reveals an equally impressive and inquisitive mind. Gala provides her audience an intimate and intriguing view into her methods and inspirations, and her already striking paintings are made even more forceful for the added context. Gala described this series, “Overgrown,” with her usual eloquence:
“Well, my main meditation when making these pieces was the tension between boundaries that we make and use as humans–classification, categorization–and the things that challenge those stalwart convictions or structures (thus, “Overgrown”). Without being a proper philosopher, they are my own way of thinking about epistemology. The influence of childrens’ books and animators like Hayao Miyazaki are in here as well, probably mostly as a tribute to the role that imagination has in our understanding of the world and its players.”
I ‘m going to preface this post by saying that I am deeply afraid of zombies. We all have our irrational fears, and mine happen to include being cold, the texture of chalk, and above all else, zombies. So when I say that I absolutely love Nick Beery’s zombie rapper series at Urban Light Studios, you should know that it counts for something! Nick gets around sticky copyright issues by sticking to depicting only rappers that have died, so we might have to wait a while for new additions to his awesome series…
Fuzzy little leftover childhood treasures get a fresh face, fur, and skin when Aida Gamez is done working with their rumpled, crumpled selves. Graphite pencils turn cute things into the type of cute things that are only cute because they’re hideous. The results are endearing.
Tadashi Moriyama’s cityscapes are woven with tendrils of organic patterning, and his subjects are equal parts human biology and urban planning schematic. Moriyama’s blending of interior and exterior space creates an intense sense of movement in his pieces, and the eye is constantly shifting as his fluid linework directs the eye to every corner of the busy composition. 
Linder, AKA Linder Sterling, is quite an accomplished lady. The UK musician (influential in the Manchester punk and post-punk scene), fine artist, and performance artist has her hands in all types of pies — or in this case, cakes. Her first solo show at Sorcha Dallas in Glasgow, Scotland uses “dirtied” female forms as its centerpiece.
In Sorcha’s press release of the show, Linder says:
“Instead of continuing with my life-drawing classes, I had drawn the semi-naked women in men’s pornographic magazines. This was as much a political act as driven by curiosity. Pornography had its own debased codes, and my intention was to understand them. Not to ‘borrow’ them, and never to collude with them. But to understand them seemed and seems important.”
The collages, which feature racey women with oddly-positioned moist cakes and flowers, certainly have a juicy sense of humor to them. They’re equally sexy as they are off-kilter.
Also featured in the show are installations, mixed media pieces, and drawings. Fascinating and tongue-in-cheek funny, the show runs until May 22nd, 2010.
Julie Morstad is a Vancouver artist who renders delicately surreal scenes colored with a loneliness that feels both graceful and lovely.
The entire month of May, Kansas-transplant-turned-Seattlite Anna Wetzel has a solo show at Some Space Gallery. Her works generally explore the relationship between human beings and animals, often bringing wild animals up close and personal, where they can no longer be ignored by people.
