Posted: February 13th, 2010 | Author: Sean | Filed under: Artists | Tags: animals, antennae, bad ass, badass, brutal, color, creatures, cut, death, flowers, insects, life, live vs death, milwaukee, milwaukee art venue, nature, paper cut outs, Roxanne Jackson, transformation, transitions, union art gallery, university of wisconsin milwaukee, UWM | No Comments »
The gallery I work at (UAG) has a pretty badass show going on currently called Flora/Fauna. If any of you are in the Milwaukee area or are passing through, definitely check it out. I did a post on Roxanne Jackson awhile back, some of the work in that post is worth looking at. Here is what we have in the show:
Roxanne Jackson:

Eat Your Heart Out

Becoming and Solid Gold

Untitled

Rorschach hide

Eat Your Heart Out

Stigma

White Diamond

Lyuba

Pachyderm

Forgotten

Golden
At the artist talk before the opening of the show Roxanne discussed the ideas surrounding her work. Transformation from man into creature or beast is a recurring theme as well as animal hybrids. I agree with Roxanne in that such a transformation is a fantasy, that we are already beasts, yet we often fear our animal nature in desperate attempt to feel superior. I don’t care so much for her works with wigs, but her ceramic heads and animals are fantastic. They draw on goth and horror aesthetics. Being a metal head I find much of her work exceedingly, specifically the black heads with jaws pushing out of the human mouth.
Kako Ueda:

Eros & Thanatos

Eros & Thanatos

Totem

Totem

Totem

Totem

Totem

Totem

Totem

Totem

Totem

Totem

Inside Out

Dreaming of Foetus

Antennae

Gaze
Kako’s usage of paper started in a happenstance sort of way. She’s always been using paper as a drawer, but many years ago she just sort of started cutting it one night. What ensued was a series of beautifully crafted and composed artworks. A large theme in her work is life and death. Life needs death and death life. To depict this she uses imagery of plants, insects, eggs, a skull, and faces. In her work “Totem” (the red paper cut outs above) are a string of narratives composing her own totem pole of sorts. Clown imagery is drawn from her mother’s interest and collection of clown dolls. The other narratives are privately inspired and we can only conclude them in our imagination.
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Posted: January 25th, 2010 | Author: Sean | Filed under: Artists, Upcoming | Tags: badass, brutal, detailed, fauna, flora, flora/fauna, kako ueda, milwaukee, paper art, Roxanne Jackson, sculpture, uag, union art gallery, UWM, UWM Union Art Gallery, wonderful | No Comments »
The University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee Union Art Gallery is starting the semester right with an intense, brutal, and beautiful exhibit with artists Kako Ueda and Roxanne Jackson. Details Below:

Flora/Fauna
Work by Kako Ueda and Roxanne Jackson
January 29-February 26, 2010
Opening reception: Friday, January 29, 5-8pm
Gallery talk with artists: 4pm
Kako Ueda and Roxanne Jackson focus on physical nature and human nature in abstract and inventive ways. They share an interest in dualities, such as nature and culture, light and dark. In their work, the natural world is intricate, fascinating, grotesque, frightening – something to be drawn deeply into and sometimes shocked by.
New York artist Kako Ueda constructs her work from intricate hand-cut paper which references, in part, paper cutting from Japan where she was born. Minneapolis-based Roxanne Jackson works three-dimensionally with clay to form large compositions of human/animal hybrids.
UWM Union Art Gallery
2200 E. Kenwood Blvd., Campus level
www.unionartgallery.uwm.edu
414-229-6310
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Posted: November 21st, 2009 | Author: Sean | Filed under: Artists | Tags: action figures, awesome!, badass, battles, board games, brutal, collaboration, creative, drawing, Ernest Conception, gamer, geek, geekdom, illustration, imagination, line wars, mixed media, multifacited, opponents, painting, pen drawing, priest, strategy games, style, video games, violence, vs., war, weapons | No Comments »
Ernest Concepcion is a BBC artist, that is an artist whose work is Badass, Brutal, and Creative. His drawings are filled with so much content that one can get lost in them even from a computer screen. I would absolutely love to see his work live to truly appreciate his taste for detail.
Here is part of his artist statement pertaining to his Line Wars Series (images below):
From tables vs. chairs to cowboys vs. aliens and cookies vs. milk, The Line Wars began as a series of over 100, 9×12 inches, ink drawings that emerged from sketches and doodles–the most rudimentary expression of visual thinking. The images are based on the entertainments of childhood and adolescence: Video games, action figures, strategy board games–always two forces opposing one another. The Line Wars is a celebration of making impulsive, nonchalant drawings, as well as a personal journey into nostalgia and an homage to geekdom.








Here are some other artworks of Ernest’s:









Additionally, here is a link with some images of one of Ernest’s most recent collaborations.
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