GuGa: Cafe Series No. 1: LUV1

Had an art opening last night up in Monclair, NJ at the fabulous Red Eye Cafe.  The above clipping is from the Monclair Times.  On exhibit were 8 of my Recycled Advert Art pieces, curated, hung and framed by Guerilla Galleries.

First class all the way, it was truely a pleasure to work with Stan and Christine from GuGa.  Many thanks to everyone who came out to the opening, especially fellow artists and friends DEMER, and Joe :01.  Joe's bird stencils at the cafe are pretty cool too.  Oh yeah, go see the art, ok, but also try the food, OMG, I had a turkey, pear, and brie sandwich that was BANGING (not just saying that b/c my art is up there either...de-lish)

"Hot Cocoa" (top) and "Darker the Berry" (bottom)

"Burning Time" (top) "Pipe Organ" (bottom)

from L to R "Calm", "Gut Grinder," and "Herbal"

"Spirit of Competition"

Ensnared

Ensnared, a photo by eL hue V on Flickr.

caught in the cookoo, covered in do do, no one to get thru to, tell me what would you do? a dust, a sprinkle, the passing of time, a wrinkle. a gas so divine. shout out to the void, who be staying annoyed, unemployed and out to avoid whomever whichever trendsetter vendetters they deem to be toyed. put my ancor down right in that trap and say this is me and that is that!

Spirit of Competition

Spirit of Competition, a photo by eL hue V on Flickr.

Aka forked up
Aka fork it over
Aka crabs in a barrel, divide and conquer, I against I,
Aka we all gotta eat, forks over knives, food on the table, roof over head
Cut off, cut up, cut it out
Hungry
Chew on this
Beautiful struggle, human race
At what cost, to what peril?

Making Babies

i'm going to be tactfull and not add sensory memories, inspiration, ect. Let your imaginations run wild...

Hot Cocoa

Hot Cocoa, a photo by eL hue V on Flickr.

It's autumn, it's brisk, windy, chilly. It's dark and it's not even dinner time. Warmth and comfort, the heat of the steam, creamy hot cocoa going down to your stomache, spreading heat all around your chest to your finger tips. Giving you power restored, no longer so vulnerable to the rugged concrete, no longer a chattering statue, now fresh and agile. These paintings are biographical visual memories, a collection of textures and rhythm I feel of my past as I paint them. I sit at kitchen tables, I walk down dim lit streets.

Darker the Berry

Darker the Berry, a photo by eL hue V on Flickr.

two things happened on this one...

1, while explaining it, in it's defence with my wife (she is my hardest critic), I realized I really need to start talking more about my work because there is a perspective and a witness I can bear to the moment and action and it should be part of the experience I share with you the viewer...so sorry for not sharing so much, I'll try to make it up

2. I really came to an understanding of how I want this project to continue.

So bare with me as I ramble..."this project" that I referred to is my Recycled Advert Art series, which consists of art on signs we were throwing away at my job because the next retail set went up, yes I work sorta retail, I make coffee, I'll let you guess...Reason I started it is to save money on canvas and have thinner easier to store pieces that could still be very large and yet not burdensome b/c they lay flat. It's also that I feel myself eager to use them, I live around them, they have symbols that are ingrained in me because of all the time I've spent around them. They also represent society to me. As the people I encounter by a huge majority present themselves as a result of these images and the culture it represents. I think it's something I want to reclaim and be heard in, not a take over or separation, but a Buddhist like acceptance and flow, like using their aggression into a counter move in water style kung fu. At first I wanted to cover the surface of the ads and rid them from my memory, make "me" all that matters. But, what I feel at this stage in my life, is a deep pull toward at oneness. And although this Americanized commercialized commoditzed genericness I am surrounded by has always been my skeptically paternal ever present bad ruler thru putty brains of warm cozy conformity in the sentiment and motives of even my own and always under the guard of "safety" is an acknowledged problem I have with the world, it is just that, everything that raised me, something I feel sentimentally proud of even such, there's good there too sometimes, it's just misled. So the pieces are to be my coercion, my Utopian edits, places of common ground with the subtle monsters of our commutes. Complete with organic local handmade fingerprints!

Wishing I went back to writing nothing, aren't you?

dark roasted, black, and aromatic
seconds tick, drops drip, bubbling
traffic downsized and quaint for a moment swirling by like a breeze