Reality bites until you throw some cartoons into the mix

Wouldn't your world be more interesting with a couple of cartoons stirring things up? Well if you don't expect that to happen while sober, check out Josama Madera's work at Collective Consciousness in DUMBO (10 Jay Street, Suite 605, Brooklyn, NY) through August 31st. You can't get any closer than this show to see Gary Coleman dressed in an Alf costume (remember the show "Alf" 80's peoples?). Also where else would you see Speedy Gonzalez jumping a subway turnstile huh?

For this and other pics from the opening reception, visit:

http://ccnyc-events.blogspot.com/2010/08/eyecon-cept-nyc-great-success-amazing.html

Josama's painting technique can be described as 'rough around the edges' where a fair amount of dry brushing creates a cray-pas look and feel. It is quite interesting and shows how versatile oil paints are. With this technique Josama uses, he enhances the feeling of the streets.

It's not pretty, it's rough and tumble and may not always be that pleasing to the eye, but that's the world you are in for it's up to you to survive.

In the world Josama created for the viewers, he makes it more enjoyable place to be...well maybe not so much. In bodegas, subways, on building stoops and street corners, Josama includes the imaginary characters children in these environments escape to via their television.

There is no divide anymore in Josama's work: real and fantasy collide in an amusing and sometimes disturbing way.

In one painting, there are Care Bears passed out in a subway car. In another Mickey Mouse looks to be falling down the stairs after drinking too much. A shoot out in front of a store involves Bugs Bunny in another painting of Josama's. Then Tom from "Tom and Jerry" is wielding a knife above the head of Pink Panther.

Seeing his work was certainly an experience. His work is fun, disturbing, rough, affordable and certainly memoriable. Check it out if you can either by visiting the gallery or visiting his website (http://ripjosama.com).

Peace out.

"See, Also" goes beyond sight at Central Booking Art Space in DUMBO

"See, Also" is currently being held at Central Booking Art Space in DUMBO [111 Front Street] and will run until August 18. The show was really enjoyable as it brought out the curiosity in all of its visitors with various interactive works. 

The show was curated by Omar Olivera, a native Brooklynite now residing in Queens and part of the Central Booking team. He also included a piece in the show that made pixels fun and colorful. Most of us encounter pixels when we enlarge a picture too much, taking something we are familiar with and turning it to a nearly unrecognizable and grainy image. Omar

 turned what would appear to be unrecognizable into something fun 

by taking the pixel out of the picture allowing it to stand on its own to create its own image.

While I described pixels as taking a picture and enlarging it, the way Omar approaches the use of pixels reminds me of the Impression style of painting. The technique used with Impressionistic work is that colors aren't blended perfectly, the human eye is a part of completing the illusion. So while the colors in a painting can, from a far, appear to be blended well, when you get up close, you see the brush stokes and the separate colors of paint. Omar celebrates those stokes and colors.

Part of his work includes a light box and several patterns of pixels printed on transparencies, a way for the audience to experience layering pixels and allowing the eye to blend the colors together. Another part of his piece took up an entire wall of Central Booking Art Space which was pretty much a large painting of pixels.

Another artist featured at "See, Also" was Andrea Uva who included work from her Braille series. Her work can be seen here on her website. It is certainly an interesting concept in providing those who can't see, the opportunity to still experience works of art in an objective and descriptive way. In her words:

"The purpose is to allow the visually impaired to experience art by stripping a painting of its paint and reducing it to a type of language code."

Even how the works are created feels thoughtful.

Other works in the show included a carton of drained eggs. The eggs had their form and a note was inside each egg. Now how would you get to the note? Well you would have to crack the egg!! The only slightly messy part were all the shells. It was fun to see people's reactions to this piece which ranged from skeptical to "haha, this is pretty cool....I wanna crack another one."

Another work that caught my attention was several dozen drawing on paper each hung by a silver binderclip on a horizontal line along a wall. The drawings were very neat with clean lines and hardly showed any erasures. The drawings did not seem connected to one another. Part of the experience was just the act of  thumbing through them wondering what was going to be seen next.

You should experience it for yourself.

About Central Booking Art Space:

Conceived by respected and accomplished artist/curator, Maddy Rosenberg, Central Booking’s objective is two-fold: create a distinctive space where the virtually infinite forms and range of book art and prints can be seen in one place while simultaneously providing both established and emerging practitioners of the genres with an outlet for their work. Central Booking’s overall mission is global in scope: to serve as a catalyst for the integration of artist’s books into the mainstream art world where they are now often marginalized.