REAX Music Magazine Article from the archives

Unripe 2.0
Aubrey Bramble

The summer of 2006 started off with a creative bang for the budding arts collective Avant-Garde in the Now. On June 3, a swarm of curious spectators buzzed about the industrial expanse of Transitions Art Gallery at the Skatepark of Tampa, eyeing the creative spoils set before them. As previously reported in the June edition of Reax, "Unripe" was an ambitious collaboration of photography, live art, music, film, and culture.

On September 30, Transitions will again play host to an Avant-Garde in the Now event, aptly titled "Unripe v2.0." The second public offering from this experimental bande à part looks to further influence and inspire the masses through a riotous buffet of experimental peals, twisted visuals, and subterranean hubbub.

REAX: What does the Tampa Bay Area have to look forward to at "Unripe v2.0?"

Aubrey: In contrast to our inaugural event, "Unripe v2.0" is going to be more specific. This time the emphasis will be on the noisier end of the experimental spectrum, with a barrage of ear-splitting electronic acts, large-scale art installations, and short film presentations. I'm very excited to be moving the individual events into more of a "themed" direction. For our third event, I am already thinking about switching the focus from music and film to performance art, with music taking on more of a supporting role.

REAX: What artists and performers are taking part in this event?

Aubrey: I am really pleased with the caliber of artists we've been able to attract for this show. Our main focus is going to be on the musicians, with NoWhere, Ironing, Uh-Oh Spades, Xingu, and Distraub (a side project of Negative Format's Alex Matheu) taking the stage at various points throughout the evening. The music will be supplemented with innovative art installations from Christopher Kelly, Angus Shafer, and Tony Krol, along with individual works from Jen Moreno and Corie Staub. In between the musical acts, myself and other independent filmmakers in the area will be premiering short films. Be sure to stick around for the end of the event, as we have a little something special planned to wrap things up.

REAX: What is the purpose behind Avant-Garde in the Now?

Aubrey: I basically began Avant-Garde in the Now as an antidote to the cultural "coterie" in the Tampa Bay area. I have a very varied taste in music, art, culture, and I think that a lot of others do as well. So, I decided to work on putting together an evolving roster of artists and events that would seed the local community with a more diverse and eclectic perspective. My main objective is to open peoples' minds, and to give them a different kind of experience than they may be used to.

Unripe v2.0 will occur on Saturday September 30, 2006 at 7:00PM at Transitions Art Gallery at the Skatepark of Tampa. Please visit avant-gardeinthenow.com for more information.

Creative Loafing Article from the archives

Screened In
Bay area artists challenge the gap between high and low art

By Megan Voeller

Brandon Dunlap doesn't want his work to be in Juxtapoz.

The question comes up as we're talking about where the 33-year-old wants to go with his art in the future, and it takes me by surprise because -- as Dunlap himself immediately notes -- just about everybody making work that resembles his regards the influential, San Francisco-based magazine as a gold standard. If an artist makes it inside the pages of the glossy monthly, he has forever been stamped with the imprimatur of cool.

Not that Dunlap has anything against Juxtapoz. Quite the contrary: He reads it regularly and respects his peers' craving to be featured in it. He's just not so sure about seeing his work sandwiched between sneaker ads and articles about graffiti and tattoo-inspired art. (Though if the magazine called tomorrow, his idealism would probably be seriously challenged.) While Dunlap has one foot in that world, he doesn't want an association to turn into a pigeonhole.

His hypothetical conflict -- and I'm putting the magnifying glass on a fairly casual remark -- underlines the complexity of a movement some have called lowbrow art or street culture, others pop or representational art. Dunlap's work fits the bill--he uses silkscreen printing and a combination of original photos and found images to create hybrid works with a gritty feel and doesn't discriminate between T-shirts and wood panels as artistic canvas -- but he also boasts some serious printmaking chops: an MFA and a three-year gig as a production assistant at USF's Graphicstudio. No wonder the label "street culture" chafes a bit.
His latest show, Abomination of Representation, featuring works created individually and in collaboration with Red Labor, the duo Dave Rau and Josh Bertrand, opens this weekend at RedLetter1. The exhibit's title started as a political joke aimed at the current lame-duck administration, Dunlap explains, but evolved into a comment on the artistic process. The works on view display a combination of printmaking techniques, digital and otherwise, as well as hand drawing and painting.

The collaboration at times reaches a fever pitch, with Dunlap and Red Labor (who work as commercial graphic artists by day) effectively obliterating each other's images with layers of their own. Both in terms of content and process, the act of representing as an image-maker, as well as being represented (or defined) as a certain sort of artist, is subject to challenge.
Perhaps a bit of urban flavor can't help but creep into Dunlap's art because of where he works. It's all grit and grunge at a run-down building on Lemon Street in downtown Tampa, where he finds the space he needs to print from large screens and the freedom to get messy. Late-night sightings of homeless people and a dude calmly smoking crack next to the parking lot have him planning a move to a new spot in Seminole Heights behind the former Covivant Gallery. Though the exhibition space closed last fall, replaced by a furniture store, the building remains ground zero for creative revolution. Among others, Jay Giroux, a similarly multitalented designer-artist, houses his studio there and, soon, a press for his screen-printed clothing company, Sauver.

Until its closure, Covivant offered the only Tampa space where "street art" and "fine arts" mingled in smart shows on a regular basis. (And in conversation, side-by-side, the works often revealed the patent absurdity of such a division.) Now Dunlap and others are left showing at venues like RedLetter1, a tattoo studio that doubles as an art gallery, and Neo Trash, a vintage-and-new Ybor clothing store that has been a huge supporter of local artists and designers. Even Urban Outfitters has gotten in the game of late. Don't get me wrong -- all are fantastic venues, but they have the unwitting side effect of typecasting the works of a whole group of artists, who comprise one of the most visible movements in the Bay area, as something other than high art.
In Dunlap's images, the uneasy experience of being hybrid shines through. He typically starts with photographs of friends and models, and turns them into screen prints, visually flattening the image. He adds new dimensions by piling on textures and sometimes text, building up layers of ink and varnish, or watercolor. Figures often end up as half-human, half-animal creatures of myth. One portrait pops a woman's surprised head on Cthulhu, the H. P. Lovecraft monster whose appearance signals that Armaggedon is nigh; another builds a Medusa on a friend's quiet, come-hither-if-you-dare gaze. In both, it's hard not to read a double portrait of the identity conflicts -- gendered, political, aesthetic and otherwise -- of our times and of the artist as an individual.

Chris Kelly, a display artist at Urban Outfitters in Centro Ybor who recently helped the chain store start a program showcasing window designs by local artists -- including Dunlap, whose window is up right now -- takes the identity question (street culture? lowbrow?) in stride.

"They're just labels, like anything else. People have to label things so that they have an understanding of them," he says.
Kelly deals with the issue in his career, too. Besides designing windows at Urban, he does graphic design and makes 2-D, screen-printed artwork. Unlike Dunlap, Kelly, 26, is largely self-taught. He says one of the best things about the local community of artists who work in the street art vein is how supportive and willing to teach and share many of its practitioners are. In that way, their work is accessible or lowbrow in the most positive sense of the word, Kelly points out.

On the same night as Dunlap's RedLetter1 opening, Neo Trash -- a short walk away -- showcases Pastels and Neons, a combination fashion show and art exhibit featuring work by Kelly and others. Giroux will launch Sauver's latest clothing and accessories and do live screen-printing on panels. It's also the next-to-last weekend to check out Robot Invasion at Blackout Creations (up through July 14), a combination graphic design and tattoo studio in St. Pete, where both Dunlap and Kelly have work in a (you guessed it) robot-themed show. And keep your eyes peeled for the next window at Urban Outfitters, which will feature Chris Parks and Scott Lukacs of Blackout Creations.

Call it whatever the hell you want. Just don't be surprised if the revolution turns out to be screen-printed.

St. Pete Times Article from the archives

So street it's chic

Some innovative thinkers seek to make creativity a part of everyday life, from nightclubs to T-shirts.
By Sharon Kennedy Wynne
Published September 13, 2007

The hottest trend in modern art isn't likely to be found hanging in a museum.

Instead, look for it inked on some dude's arm, spray-painted on an alley wall or screened on a T-shirt.

For today's modern artists, anything, from the back of a neck to a canvas sneaker, is a valid medium.

"A person's still going to know your name and buy your art, even if it's on their body or a T-shirt," said tattoo artist Scott Lukacs, co-owner of the St. Petersburg gallery Blackout Creations. "That's the beauty of lowbrow art."

Not all artists are as unapologetically "lowbrow" as Lukacs, but the influence of poster art, tattooing, comics and digital media is finding a home in even the high-end art scene.

"A lot of these artists grew up with underground revolutionary punk, hip-hop, the skateboard scene, so they aren't afraid to express visual elements that might be considered commercial," said Jay Giroux,28, a Tampa artist who trained in London and at USF's highly lauded GraphicStudio. "There's now a level of professionalism to this rebelliousness."

Art over ego

The emphasis on collaboration is part of the charm of this populist art form's new visibility in Tampa Bay.

At RedLetter1 in Ybor City, a tattoo parlor with gallery space, the gritty work of Tampa artist Brandon Dunlap is on display. The Skatepark of Tampa's Transitions Art Gallery two weeks ago hosted an evening of scooter-related art. In June, local artists began decorating the front window at Urban Outfitters in Ybor City with edgy displays.

Even the Arts Center in St. Petersburg will host "Skin City: The Art of the Tattoo" in mid October, featuring some of the best contemporary artists in the country.

"I want to convey this trend that I had seen in other parts of the country in contemporary art," Arts Center curator Amanda Cooper said.

It's not a trend the galleries and museums of Tampa Bay have devoted much attention to yet, a frustration for local artists.

"It's like, there is a market, but as far as appreciation for it in Tampa, that hasn't happened yet," said Chris Kelly, a Tampa artist who helps local artists get their pieces in the Urban Outfitters storefront.

Dunlap's current show at RedLetter1, Kelly notes, is "super affordable ($100-$500), especially for the quality of that work, it's amazing. . . . If that same show was in San Francisco or New York, it would be selling for much more and selling out."

These artists find alternative paths to the mainstream. Giroux, who has a line of T-shirts, sees an untapped market for art in nightclubs.

Club Czar, for one, has hosted the annual Dirty But Sophisticated party the past few years, pumping up local fashion, art and music artists.

"Think of all the people who don't go to galleries and museums," Giroux said. "If you can get half the people at a club to pay attention to the artwork, they walk out of a social environment thinking about the art. That's many more people we've touched than we would at a gallery."

An evolving process

Blackout Creations opened a year ago in St. Petersburg with the plan to bring attention to the growing constellation of artists who can deliver this street sense in a polished artistic framework.

Founded by Lukacs, 29, and graphic artist Chris Parks, 28, high school buddies from Venice, Blackout is a combination graphic design and tattoo studio with gallery space. Tattoos and graphic art jobs pay the bills, but the gallery "is our way of giving back," says Lukacs.

In June, they drew 200 people for the opening of "Robot Invasion," a collection of works by renowned digital artists whose robot-themed pieces had appeared on MTV and Cartoon Network.

On Saturday night, Blackout will hand over the space for a monthlong show of an Asian-themed collection called "Big Trouble in Little St. Pete." The highly stylized pop art, dragons and samurai come from more than 20 artists around the world. Lots of local artists will take part, too, including RedLetter1 tattoo artists Angelo Nales, Jeff Srsic and Lucky Matthews.

Inside the Blackout Creations gallery, digital art is an equal partner with pens and brushes.

For example, one stylized moth, titled Dissection, started as a pen and ink drawing by Lukacs. Parks scanned it into his computer, where he sharpened the image and added flourishes that have the effect of confusing the viewer. What's drawn and what's printed by the Mac? It's nearly impossible to tell.

The moth was printed and painted with watercolors, then scanned back into the computer.

The final product, a neon yellow and green collection of bug parts that is both beautiful and gruesome, was printed on canvas, numbered, framed and priced at $160.

"Some people call it 'pop surrealism,'" said Parks, who studied at the Ringling College of Art and Design.

Their work appeals to "a different kind of art community," one that's younger and not as conservative, he said. "It's art for the masses, and it's affordable."

The experience can be as important as the art, and the image can easily disappear. For example, the current display in the Urban Outfitters window, by Matt Squires, uses a motion sensor to send up balloons as people walk by.

"These are the kind of artists that aren't taking themselves so seriously," said Brad Hoffmann, whose recently closed vintage clothing store in Ybor City held numerous art-meets-fashion events.

"With an artist like Jay Giroux, you can find him online or with apparel. He'll bolt it to the side of a building. His attitude is 'I don't care where it is, I just want it out there.'"

More street art outlets
RedLetter1: The tattoo parlor with gallery space is at 1510 E Eighth Ave., Ybor City. (813) 241-2435.

Skatepark of Tampa's Transitions Gallery: 4215 E Columbus Drive, Tampa. (813) 621-6793; transitionsartgallery.com.

The Arts Center: "Skin City: The Art of the Tattoo" opens Oct. 12 and runs through Dec. 31. 719 Central Ave., St. Petersburg. (727) 822-7872; www.thesartscenter.com.

Owl Movement: These Tampa T-shirt masters get graphics from artists around the world and print them in limited edition designs. They've turned up on the backs of Veronica Mars characters and VH1's Best Week Ever hosts. Available online at www.owlmovement.com.

Resist Today: One-stop shopping for independent artist products. It has a huge collection, from the ceramics and screen prints of Brandon Dunlap to the political-rant shirts of Josh Bertrand from the RedLabor collective. Online at www.resisttoday.com.

Library of Congress goes Flickr

These are some amazing photos brought to you by the Library of Congress

http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress

Typografica

I've come across some really good finds for old design. I picked up the Max Huber book, a 200 and sum odd page book full of Max Huber design, from early stages to his most recent. Also, the series typorgraphica... A little too expensive for my budget but great work from these early pioneers of design. Party on...

New Visual stimulation

Found a dope spot... Stanleys + FRESH FOOD

RANDUMB

RANDUMB

Hot Animal Madness

RANDUMB