Bovine Picture Day

Last night was the opening of a group show I participated in called "Found in Translation." 

"Found in Translation is a group exhibition making use of a process similar to a game of Telephone or Exquisite Corpse. An object is made and passed chronologically amongst participants whom then make a work in reaction to the one they receive, being sure to maintain a clear formal or conceptual connection to the previous piece. Each artist only sees the piece immediately preceding her or his own and gives their work to the next person for inspiration. This creates through-lines that become visible only after all the pieces have been placed side by side for the exhibition." - Description from the press release. 

Here's a photo of the piece by artist Leif J. Lee that was the inspiration for my piece.

And here's a look at snippets from each piece that show the threads between each artwork.

I'm very excited to be part of this show which can be seen until March 28th at The Lodge Gallery in the lobby of Allied Works Architecture at 1532 SW Morrison and SW 15th in Portland.

Insect Buddies!

Sorry for the wait, friends!

Here are the final two pieces from my show. If you're familiar with my work you may recognize these guys from previous paintings, but this time there's a whole new spin on them. Enjoy!

The original drawing of this guy can be seen on my website (with his full story!)

                          That's a Sphinx Moth around his collar, it's what Mr. Marvelous will eventually turn into.                           I have have been wanting to update the original drawing of this guy for a while now and
 I'm pretty happy with the results.

The original drawing of this guy can be seen here in all his kaleidoscopic glory!

We've Been Bugged

Here are two more pieces from the Insect show. These two were an experiment in turning people into bugs. David Cronenberg's "The Fly" is one of my favorite creature movies and was definitely going through my mind when I was working on these, even though they don't even come close to being as grotesque. You might say I was going for something a little more subtle. 

Faceless Woman

Despite what some people think, that is not a Star Trek uniform.

Fly Guy

I probably had the most fun with him.

Insectopia

I really wanted to create new work for my show at Flutter (that I actually uninstalled yesterday) and I knew I wanted to continue exploring working with ink wash and wood, so it seemed like a natural medium to use for this show.

Lately I've found myself fascinated with insects and as such I've decided to incorporate them into my art. I've been thinking about how the world of insects exists almost as a parallel universe to our own, while at the same time inhabiting the same space. We are increasingly being made aware that we are more dependent on each other than ever thought before and I thought it would be interesting to try and bring those universes closer together visually and thematically. These pieces take a step into imagining a world where insects instead of mammals grew to be the dominant wildlife on Earth.

While I don't feel like these paintings address all of my ideas, I do think it's a good start and I look forward to investigating these ideas further. Here are two pieces from the show with more to come later this week.

Portrait of a woman with Rain Beetle hat and Millipede Boa

A boy and his Rhinoceros Beetle

Detail

All pieces are painted with an ink wash.

Book Release Party!

Well it's no lie that I've been busy lately. Or at least I WAS busy up until my art opening and book release party at Flutter on September 12th. After frantically preparing for that show I decided to take a week off from the studio to relax and recharge, but now I'm ready to delve back in it.

The book release party for the Advanced Style Coloring Book was a ton of fun. People came dressed in Advanced Style outfits and everyone indulged their crayon loving inner child and colored in some of the illustrations from the book. Here are a few pics from the event.

Marvel at the concentration!

Some didn't have to delve too far to discover their inner child

For others it was just under the surface

Our community coloring experiment yielded interesting results. Why so serious?

It was an exciting week indeed! In addition to the party I was interviewed by Marjorie Skinner for her weekly fashion column in The Portland Mercury. You can read the article online here.

Check back soon to see images from my all new, all different art show hanging at Flutter right NOW.

(Or go down there and see it in person. Up until the second week of October)

The Fresh Pot of Bel-Air

Here are a few pics of my show up at The Fresh Pot on the corner of Mississippi and Shaver in North Portland. 

So nice to see my name is white vinyl. These guys had no idea what was happening.

Unbeknownst to these cafe dwellers, sipping their soy lattes and americanos, my old Jewish relatives are quietly judging them from above. 

No word on when it's coming down, but now that October's over it could be any day now. Go in and take a look while you still can!

DISTANT RELATIVES

As many of you have probably already seen on my facebook page I've recently had a show go up at the Emerson Space Case this month entitled "DISTANT RELATIVES".

The show features three large portraits on wood panel, which is a first for me in both scale and material.   As an avid fan of old photographs I've amassed a pretty good collection of my own family photos that I sometimes draw on for inspiration. "DISTANT RELATIVES" centers on three of those photos, specifically family members that I never got the chance to know, but who's influence wears heavy on the overall narrative of the family on my father's side. The show is designed to reflect on that narrative and the place that I might play in it for future generations of my family; those for whom I will become a "distant relative."

My great grandfather Israel Schraer, my partial namesake who passed on when I was an infant.
Ink and Watercolor on Wood

My uncle Arnold, the second oldest of my father's three brothers. He was a professional artist in the bay area and died of melanoma at the young age of 42.
Ink and Watercolor on Wood


My grandfather Paul Schraer depicted here as a young man. Although I know my grandfather very well, the stern-faced man in this image is unrecognizable to me. As he is the link between the other two men it seemed fitting to include him in this series
Ink and Watercolor on Wood

The show will be until the end of September and can be seen at the corner of NE 30th and Emerson in Portland, OR every day until 2am.