The show is at the Arlington Arts Center a nonprofit contemporary visual arts center. It’s located at 3550 Wilson Blvd Arlington and the art will be on display until Jan 16.
Here’s the list of artists who works appear in the show.
Pittsburgh artist Jim Rugg’s Afrodisiac refers to ‘70s blaxploitation and mimics the look of aging pop artifacts—each page features simulated yellowing and tattered edges. Rugg uses comic tropes in unexpected ways: advancing a narrative through fragments, covers for nonexistent stories, or sketched, incomplete splash pages.London-born, NY-based Gabrielle Bell is known for her confessional autobiographical mini-comic, Lucky, which documents her life as a struggling twenty-something artist in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Her style is decidedly unironic and disarmingly direct.
Chicago artist Deb Sokolow contributed to Creative Time Comics. In her art, viewers must follow directional arrows through tangles of drawings and diagrams that describing outlandish conspiracy theories concerning pop culture, politics, and the artist’s own neighborhood.
Philadelphia’s Derik Badman is a critic, librarian, and comic artist, who transforms found texts, images, and even other comics to acheive unexpected results.
Chicago artist Robert Pruitt, another Creative Time Comics participant, creates large afro-futurist drawings in which isolated black figures are shown wearing the trappings of superhero and science fiction culture—as well as references to avante-garde early 20th century European art.
New York artist Victor Kerlow not only creates surreal stories that bridge the gap between urban ennui and paranoid fantasy, but also observes his environment with a reporter’s eye, making energetic line drawings of the city in which he lives and places to which he has traveled.
Portland, Oregon artist Blaise Larmee creates washed-out black-and-white worlds populated by childlike young adults. His current book, Young Lions, highlights the artist’s fascination with ‘zine culture, bohemian lifestyles, and Yoko Ono. (Larmee also designed and illustrated the PARTY CRASHERS catalogue.)
Charlottesville, VA artist Warren Craghead III creates drawings, collages, books, and mail art inspired by his everyday life experiences. Craghead’s stories are free associative and decidedly nonlinear.
Philadelphia, PA artist Jamar Nicholas has created a graphic novel adaptation of Geoffrey Canada’s 1995 book, FIST STICK KNIFE GUN. His work was also included in the acclaimed John Jennings and Damian Duffy book, BLACK COMIX: AFRICAN AMERICAN INDEPENDENT COMICS, ART AND CULTURE.
Capetown, South Africa-based artist Anton Kannemeyer (aka Joe Dog) creates potent, troubling drawings that explore the legacy of Western colonialism in his home country; the hypocrisy and racism hiding beneath the surface of white society; and the corruption of South Africa’s political elite.
Chicago artist Jeffrey Brown draws gently humorous autobiographical pieces, exploring not only the author’s experiences with fantasy and comic culture, but also his relationships with his own wife and son. Brown was also featured in the Creative Time Comics series.
New York artist Dash Shaw pairs a powerful, reductive drawing style with sprawling, convoluted narratives. His latest book, Body World, follows botanist Professor Panther’s encounters with a strange new psychedelic drug that threatens to turn humanity into a single hive mind, open to alien influences.
New York artist Rosaire Appel creates books and sequential images with asemic writing—a wordless form of writing that often resembles pictograms or reflects the mechanical act of producing text.
Bloomington, Indiana-based artist and scholar Andrei Molotiu is the editor of the award-winning Abstract Comics anthology. Molotiu offers digital animations, abstract comic drawings, and a catalogue essay about the uneasy relationships between comics, literature, and contemporary art in the present tense.
Oakland, California based Rina Ayuyang’s Whirlwind Wonderland follows the daily life of a Filipino American girl, navigating, in the artist’s words: “sleepy suburban sprawls, empty diners, fantasy-filled commuter traffic jams, misplaced football fanaticism, ethnic identity crash courses, and just good ole family hi-jinx.”
Chicago artist Joshua Cotter’s latest book, Driven by Lemons, is a sprawling sketchbook packed with ideas, story fragments, and intricate abstract exercises, all struggling against the boundaries of the comic form.
Hamburg, born, New York based artist Olav Westphalen uses the conventions of comics and caricatures to challenge the traditional baggage of fine art, creating outsized (and outlandish) sculptures, drawings, and performances. Westphalen was also featured in the Creative Time Comics series.
