Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
HOPSCOTCH at GR2, April 22 – May 17, 2006 Reception: Saturday, April 22, 6:30 pm –10:00 pm GR2 2062 Sawtelle Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90025 gr2.net (310) 445 – 9276 Giant Robot is proud to present hopscotch, a group show serving you at GR2. Artists will include Susie Ghahremani, Kelly Tunstall, Keith Jones, Jack Long, David Magdaleno, and Matt Moroz. Susie Ghahremani is a RISD graduate whose work has appeared in Mac Design, UTNE Reader, and Martha Stewart Kids magazines. Illustrations by the San Diego artist have a patchwork appearance that is simple in design, complex in execution, and all-around pleasing to the eye. For the show, Ghahremani is creating small studies of patterns, color, and objects, as well as larger works featuring ghosts, people, and ghostly people. Kelly Tunstall is a San Francisco artist who specializes in depicting women. Her style blends elements from ’50s Good Girl Art, ’60s surf style, and dolls from the ’70s. What sets her apart is that she’s female and it’s 2006. Her work both revisits and reexamines female imagery or the past. Her careful blending of brushwork, sketching, and textures creates deceptively clean-looking pieces that warrant examination for extended periods of time. Keith Jones can pack any surface with people, creatures, buildings, vehicles, devices, robots, aliens, and whatever else hits his stream of consciousness. As the viewer’s eyes follow the various paths of details, it’s clear that the Montreal-based artist’s ultra meticulous drawing style cannot conceal the hyperactive the nature of his mind. Published works and contributions include his own Hello Car mini-comic and the Bacter-Area art book from Drawn & Quarterly. Jack Long studied illustration at RISD but has gone in a different direction from the Providence art scene. Rejecting bright colors, silk-screens, pop-culture references, and humor, Long’s oil paintings are filled with more subtle, serious, and dark content. Citing Northern Renaissance painters as influences, the Philadelphia native and Los Angeles resident paints birds, boats, houses, trees, and wisps to personify his life experiences. David Magdaleno is a Los Angeles resident whose style has evolved quite a bit since he appeared in American Illustration 22. Moving away from his graffiti-inspired roots, his work has mutated into an inspired mix of horror comic strips, Japanese woodblock prints, vato prison tattoo lettering, and sci-fi and fantasy themes from prog rock. Magdaleno sporadically releases the Snacks series of self-published art comics. Matt Moroz is best known for making album cover art and a video for Canadian rockers Wolf Parade. His use of geometry, subdued colors, and ample space implies a visual code or hieroglyphics—almost like water-colored cave etchings. At once primal and refined, the Montreal artist’s body of work is welcoming in its simplicity yet cryptic in its vagueness. A reception will be held from 6:30 – 10:00 on Saturday, April 22. Artists Jack Long, Kelly Tunstall and David Magdaleno will be in attendance.
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Harvard GSD talk went well. We’ll post a broken down sound file soon. It was a long talk. 6-8pm. We thought it was supposed to be for one hour!
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Just like how we opened a year ago, gr/eats is having a promotion. Eat a meal and you get a nice prize right over at gr2. It’s been a zoo! Restaurants are tough and I laugh when people tell us to open one elsewhere like in NYC. I just can’t do it. Today, we also decided that the new site should be up next week. This blog and others will be on the front page. It should be six total and hopefully fresh and new often! Also the lounge! Yes our lounge will have a hopefully daily update on what the hot topics are of the day. We may recruit someone from our lounge to help do this for us. The podcasts will be right up there too.
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Martin and I are going to be at Harvard GSD. Last time we were there, it was bogus. We were on a panel with a bunch of artists, and the subject of racism came up, then one of the artists stepped up and said they’re too young, they won’t know what racism is all about. And proceeded to mic hog. In the end, he looked like a dick, especially since he was an Asian american artist censoring another Asian American person from talking. This time, it’s all about Giant Robot, and we’ll hopefully get there on time. Plane lands at 5pm, we talk at 6pm. I don’t like cutting it that close, but oh well, that’s what the plane ticket says. A little more info is on the lounge.
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Aya Takano is one of the best Japanese artists. Of course, she’s part of the Superflat, Takashi Murakami clan, so that means, she’s managed tightly. I’ve been a fan for a while and thankfully, she’s one of the nicest persons around. If you’re in Tokyo, you have a little bit of time to check out her show at Parco. It ends 4/24! Parco is one of the coolest places since it’s actually on the top floor of a mall type of building that’s filled with “cool” types of shops. Every exhibit has a store at the end of the show. I once saw a Robocon show years and years ago, so you can imagine the goods there. We got some too! Check it out.
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