astronautdinosaur.com Blog | Scott Listfield on art and sh*t.

April 27, 2012
by Scott Listfield
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Dear Converse, More Please.

Apologies for being MIA on the blog for a while. I’ve been really busy in the studio lately, which has left little time to jot my thoughts here. If and when I finally have time to share my artistic exploits, I will gladly fill you in. But until then, I did want to write something quick, because the Converse shoe company (perhaps you’ve heard of them?) has just been killing it recently. Back in the summer of 2008, this little sneaker company (owned by NIKE, the not so little shoe company) produced a song featuring Pharrell, Santigold, and Julian Casablancas of the Strokes. It was like a mini We Are the World for hipsters and sneaker-philes. Needless to say, I loved it.

I assumed it was a one off thing, though, and went back to listening to songs that weren’t made by footwear companies. But then this week happened.

Friend of the blog and renowned Boston street artist Caleb Neelon recently did this Converse sponsored mural project in Allston (the beer/college/young people/throw up part of town, for those who don’t know) and they made a pretty fucking cool video about it. Caleb has long been a great proponent of finding funding for your art outside the normal places us artists look for bucks. The fact that Converse was willing to pony up some dollars (I presume – I don’t really know the specifics) for a public mural, rather than just paying lip service to the idea, impresses me greatly. Could you make the argument that it’s really just a billboard for Converse? I guess. But thye could’ve hired some faceless firm to put up a giant ad of some dude with chiseled cheekbones wearing All Stars. But they didn’t. They went out and got Caleb. Which is a whole hell of a lot cooler, in my book.

Goofing around in the Converse video library led me to their series Rubber Tracks, featuring interviews and performances with under the radar bands, filmed at this year’s SXSW and other venues. That’s how I found the above video for the band Camden, from Boston. Wait, I’m from Boston. And I like these guys. Like, a lot. Maybe I’ll go see them on May 17th when they play Radio in Somerville’s Union Square, which is like a mile from my house. Bonus points for you, Converse. Kudos to you too, internet, for finding me a band I like that plays down the street from me, as opposed to, like, Finland or Zimbabwe.

Lastly, through more handy youtube links, I found a brand new Converse sponsored trio. A few months ago, they released a tune by Andre 3000, James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem, and the Gorillaz. Which I should have loved, since those guys are all awesome, but for some reason it just didn’t do much for me. But this song, with Kimbra, A-Trak, and the dude from Foster the People? Now we’re talking. No offense meant to Caleb Neelon, the band Camden, or A-Trak and the Foster guy, but if there’s anybody who’s getting me to buy Converse in bulk, it’s Kimbra. I have a long and well documented love affair for all things Antipodean (she’s from New Zealand). My wife loves to remind me that I once bought an album by Natalie Imbruglia just because she was cute and Australian. You know what? I stand by that decision. It probably doesn’t even crack the top 5 most embarrassing albums I’ve ever bought. So there.

Now you might not know Kimbra by name, but you’ve probably heard her helping out on that surprisingly ubiquitous song by Gotye. Which will almost definitely go down as one of the strangest songs to top the charts this decade. Frankly, I don’t love it, but it’s increased her visibility enough that her album will get released in the US in May. My first knowledge of her was singing vocals for Miami Horror (ignore the name – they’re Australian) on their song “I Look to You.” When I checked out the video, I was sold. I mean, tell me this doesn’t make you want to eat mushrooms and run through the forest with, like, wood nymphs and shit (that only later, and sober, you realize were actually poison oak vines)?

Yeah, me too. OK, maybe the New Zealand cute factor gets turned up a bit high sometimes. But that is something I can definitely live with. And I hope the Converse song and the Gotye backup lead to good things for Kimbra. Lords knows she deserves it more than most anything else happening on the radio right now (looking at you, Ke$ha).

And good for you, Converse, for sponsoring interesting stuff and good local art and music. I mean, maybe they’re selling shoes based on some kind of coolness cache without really paying the artists. I don’t know. I hope that’s not the case. But even if it is, at least they’re saying that art and music are important. And not just the big budget kind, but the smaller, local kind that you might not know about but that lives in your neighborhoods. For a largish corporation to take that approach, that’s something I admire. Now go buy some custom Chuck Taylors.

February 8, 2012
by Scott Listfield
0 comments

Art shows you should see, Winter 2012 edition

"RV Dusk" by Scott Listfield, 2011, in Picks of the Harvest at Thinkspace Gallery

1. Picks of the Harvest at Thinkspace Gallery in Los Angeles.

The first show I think you should see this March is [spoiler alert] one that I’m in. Thinkspace is a really really great gallery in the Culver City area of LA (is my ass kissing not subtle enough? They’re really really really great). Seriously, though, I’m very flattered to have been chosen as part of their “Picks of the Harvest” show, a large group show featuring some really great artists from their roster (like Adam Caldwell and DABS MYLA) alongside some talented artists they’re trying out (me me me). If you’re in the LA area in March, go check out the show and tell them how much you love my work and what a fancy dresser you think I am. Or tell them I smell like lavender. Or make something up. Just tell them nice things about me so that they think I’m cool and invite me back to do more shows. The show opens March 3rd 5-8pm (sadly I won’t be able to make it myself), and runs through March 24th. Check out more about the show, including a full list of the participating artists (there are a ton of great ones) with links, here or go there in person: 6009 Washington Blvd, Culver City, CA.

"Club Narco" by Raul Gonzalez and Elaine Bay (dieRaul)

2. The Calendar’s Tales: Fantasy, Figuration & Representation at Boston University’s 808 Gallery.

For those who don’t know it, Boston University owns a giant space on Commonwealth Avenue that used to be a car dealership. Occasionally they put on sprawling, expansive shows, usually of student work. Which is fine. But this show blows that shit out of the water. Raul Gonzalez (featured in this very blog way back here) partnered with his wife Elaine Bay (known locally as Princess Die of Miracle 5 fame) to create work for this show as dieRaul. It’s some heavy shit. Drug cartels, money running, decapitation, school buses, and the 1979 cult movie The Warriors. Yikes. The other artists in the show mine illustration, graphic novels, myth and folk tales in their work. Pretty bad ass. Check it out at 808 Commonwealth Ave, Boston, MA, February 2nd – March 31st, 2012.

"Nautical flag: Foxtrot (I am disabled, communicate with me.)" by Caleb Neelon

3. Caleb Neelon: Victory Garden at the Center for the Arts at Endicott College, Beverly, MA.

Local Boston artist, writer, world traveler, authority on street art, and all around phenom Caleb Neelon has a show up right now at Endicott College, just north of Boston. If you’re not familiar with Caleb or his work, he quite literally wrote the book on graffiti in America. And I’m not just saying that to be nice – seriously, he wrote the book on graffiti in America. His latest work feels surprisingly quiet for someone known internationally for his large public murals, and it really pays to see them in person. The show is up from January 20th through March 16th, but I’d really recommend stopping by between Feb 27th – March 6th, when you can catch him working on site on a mural. Or try to catch his lecture March 6th at 5pm. Here’s the full press release.

"Night Falls on the SNPP," by Tim Doyle

4. Tim Doyle: Unreal Estate at Spoke Art Gallery, San Francisco, CA.

I’ve got no vested interest in this show, it just looks kind of awesome. Tim Doyle has painted a selection of well known television locations in a gritty, realistic style. My favorites are the scenes of the Kwik-E-Mart and Moe’s from the Simpsons, along with Strickland Propane from King of the Hill. They feel like familiar, real, lived-in places, which considering how long the run of shows like The Simpsons, Seinfeld, and Sesame Street have been, they kind of are. I stopped into Spoke Art when I was in San Francisco a few weeks ago and, although it was before this show opened, I was really impressed with the work they were showing. It was a fun show with a lot of great artists I’ve shown with at Gallery 1988 (and elsewhere), like Mike Mitchell and Scott C. If you happen to be near San Francisco, stop into Spoke Art and see Tim Doyle, from February 2nd-23rd.

5. Laylah Ali: Artist in Residence at Jaffe Friede Gallery, Dartmouth College, Hanover NH.

My alma mater has a long tradition of hosting artists-in-residence for a semester, dating back to 1932 and Jose Clemente Orozco (dayum). Although I’ve always admired the program, the artists that happened to be in residence while I was there in the mid-nineties were decidedly more of a mixed bag. Some were really great, others less so, although they were mostly in the “not really that famous” category. Which is fine. So am I. That said, I think it’s something of a coup that they nabbed an artist of Laylah Ali’s stature. I’ve long admired her work, and I’m more than a little jealous of the current students who get to spend some time with her this semester. In conjunction with her residency, she also has a show up right now in the Jaffe Friede Gallery in the Dartmouth’s Hopkins Center for the Arts, a building I spent waaaaaaaay too much time in as an undergrad. If you find yourself near Hanover, New Hampshire between January 10th and March 4th, definitely check it out.

"Lovers and Haters" by Josh Luke

6. An American Language at Guerrero Gallery, San Francisco, CA.

Yeah, OK, I’m cheating here. This show, unfortunately, will be already done by the time you read this. So you can count this as a show you should have seen. But I had the opportunity to catch it while I was in San Francisco a few weeks ago, and was really impressed with the work and the gallery. If you’re lucky, you can probably still check it out online. Most of the pieces in the show were impressively affordable, and might still be available (if you act quickly). Featuring a selection of twelve “traditional sign painters” (their words, not mine – not sure how traditional they really are) from the New Bohemia crew, the pieces in this show are all elegant and beautiful and weird and surprisingly diverse. Some are funny, some are crude, all are well made. My home boy and former manatee Josh Luke (see previous post on him by me here) is well represented, alongside fellow Boston sign painter Kenji Nakayama, and a slew of other talented folks. Take a peek at the show online here, and if you find yourself in San Francisco, get a little lost on your way to Guerrero Gallery (like I did) and see what they’re showing now. I’m sure it’s pretty good.

7. Brian Burkhard’t Unicorn Collection at the Kenneth Cole store in Grand Central, NYC.

More of an event than an art show, old friend of the blog Brian Burkhardt unveils his Unicorn Collection with Kenneth Cole at their Grand Central location in New York on February 23rd, 7-9PM). If that previous sentence didn’t make a fucking bit of sense to you, then you clearly didn’t watch Lifetime’s Project Runway spinoff Project Accessory. Back in June, I wrote this post on Brian’s amazing jewelry line Triian that he makes with his wife Trisha Brookbank. Since then, Brian was chosen for a spot on TV’s Project Accessory and [BIG TIME SPOILER ALERT] fucking dominated the thing. The highlight of the whole show, at least for me, was the episode where Brian made a handbag with a single, hand sculpted Unicorn horn attached as a handle. Admittedly, I don’t know much about designing accessories, but for me it was the handbag equivalent of what Eminem did to that other dude at the end of 8 Mile. Drop the mike, Brian. Game over. The winner of this particular challenge got their accessory made by Kenneth Cole himself (he was one of the judges), and I got the sense that none of the other participants thought Brian would win. Let’s be honest here, Kenneth Cole makes some really nice stuff (I’ve bought his shoes before). But he tends towards a classic look that, if you were feeling a bit harsh, is kind of safe. Unicorn handbags are not safe. They are fucking awesome. But give Mr. Cole some credit. Realizing that Brian’s Unicorn handbag was the signature moment of the whole entire show, he chose it to win. And now you can attend an event with him and Brian and get yourself one of those bags. Email instyle_kennethcole(AT)timeinc.com and tell them you’re coming.

December 15, 2011
by Scott Listfield
3 Comments

Make it Funny: Jeffu Warmouth and Ellen Wetmore

"Crushed Resolve" by Jeffu Warmouth

Last week I gave a talk to some art history students to close out the show I had up at UMass Lowell’s University Gallery. Like the other students I had met there, they were bright and engaged and mostly not asleep. They seemed excited (or at least not unbearably bored) to look at work that didn’t take itself so seriously. In fact, while I was trolling for questions, having run out of things to say to a group of art history students (“How ’bout that Degas guy, huh?”), somebody commented on the fact that they liked the humor in my work. Although this was not a question, I used it as an excuse to talk about how I hate what the art world considers “funny.” I’ve given this spiel before, but in the rare times when you go to a museum or a gallery and they have a show based on humor, it will invariably be strange, weird, upsetting, and not funny at all. Too often in the art world, “funny” actually means “fucking weird.” Like, 12 foot tall mannequins with long flowing vagina hair or plastic deer with human heads. That’s not funny. That’s strange. And while I’ve certainly made my share of strange paintings, and there’s definitely nothing wrong with that, I’ve also made work with the expectation that somebody might actually laugh out loud while looking at it. That’s what comedy is, art world.

"Self Portrait as a Weeble-Wobble at 6 months pregnant" by Ellen Wetmore. Fiberglass and steel, 2006.

Halfway through my rant about how boringly serious most of the art world is, I glanced over to my left and saw Ellen Wetmore sitting there and paused for a moment. Ellen teaches at UMass Lowell and happens to do sculpture, video, and installation work that, while sometimes as strange and jarring as anything I mentioned above, is also genuinely funny. Her husband, Jeffu Warmouth, also makes sculpture, video, and installation work, that is also weird, interesting, and decidedly actually funny. In fact, their work might actually make you laugh. I certainly do when I look at it.

The natural inclination when referring to husband and wife artists is to call them a “duo” or “team.” But Jeffu Warmouth and Ellen Wetmore actually do very distinct work, even while sharing similar tastes in media, and occasionally collaborating on each other’s projects. I’ve known Jeffu (and his work) since we showed together at James Hull’s Gallery at Green Street (a gallery which was, quite literally, in a subway station) way back in 2006. I was immediately drawn to characteristics in his work you almost never see in the art world: an almost Mel Brooks-like sense of humor in some of his video pieces, where inanimate objects and food products reenact various mainstream movie tropes (the monster movie, the science fiction adventure, the kung fu movie). And an honest to goodness sense for slapstick.

Of course, I also really like Jeffu ‘s work for reasons that are less rare in the art world: his hilarious but generally good natured skewering of American food culture. His series of Jeffu branded canned food items are like Andy Warhol, only if he were decidedly less blase and spent more time watching Blazing Saddles. His more recent projects, involving video sculpture and installation, perfectly recreate a fast food drive through experience, only if everything made absolutely no sense. Which of course is how I already feel about fast food culture: it makes no sense. These works have a dash of Ron English to them, but are less acerbic and are genuinely funny to watch and enjoyable to play with. I guarantee if you see one in person, you’ll want to order everything off the menu at JeffuBurger, Il Jeffuria Pizza, or JFC.

Like Jeffu, Ellen Wetmore often casts herself as the central character in her works. I don’t know the history of her art as well as I do her husband, but while it appears she has long had surrealistic tendencies in her sculpture and video work, she has more recently turned to a subject that I can only presume is the pinnacle of human physical strangeness: pregnancy. While I am perhaps the least qualified person in the entire universe to say anything whatsoever on the topic of having babies, I think I can safely say that Ellen takes what is most frequently a maudlin and sentimental subject (judging by ads I see for the Lifetime and TLC networks) and skewers it straight through its distended abdomen.

"Milk Bath" by Ellen Wetmore. Shown installed in UMass Lowell, Cut Vinyl, 2008.

Pregnancy and child rearin’ are not topics you would think lend themselves to humor – at least not in the art world. But I grew up with Bill Cosby and Roseanne and countless other comedians who have been mining their children for comedy gold for years. I’m making assumptions here, since I have clearly never been a pregnant woman, but I’m going to guess that Ellen looked at herself going through pregnancy and, instead of saying “what a miraculous event this is,” probably uttered something more like “What the fuck is happening to my body?” At least that’s what I get from her work. She’s made a number of self portrait sculptures with her stomach missing, or sliced open, or melting into a puddle. It’s probably the least sentimental portrayal of pregnancy I’ve seen since high school biology. In one of my favorite of her video pieces, she solves that tricky problem of getting rid of excess baby weight by simply green screening it away (or, in this case, black screening). Much in the way that Jeffuburger is a light hearted finger flip to fast food restaurants, this feels like a similar gesture directed at the countless hordes of magazines lining the supermarket checkout exhorting you to Lose That Baby Weight!

"Falling Baby" by Ellen Wetmore, Neon, 2008

A couple years ago I had the pleasure of attending “Nourishment” at the Art Institute of Boston, a combined show of Jeffu Warmouth and Ellen Wetmore‘s work. While I probably had the most fun playing with the interactive JeffuBurger station, one of my favorite pieces in the show was Ellen’s Falling Baby Neon Sign. First of all it was hilarious. It was such a delightfully candid and funny take on the fears you have when you first have a child. I mean, I’ve held a few kids in my time, and that’s about it as far as my parenting skills go. But all that was running through my head the entire time was “Don’t drop the baby. Don’t drop the baby. Don’t drop the fucking baby.” Seeing this sign was like having someone erect a giant billboard of your semi-irrational thoughts, in blinking lights, for the entire city to see.

Seeing as I don’t have kids, I generally feel like it’s not my place to crack wise about parenthood, and the sometimes ridiculous things you go through on your way to having (and raising) a child. And it isn’t my place. At all. But Ellen Wetmore‘s work makes me feel glad that there is somebody out there qualified to talk on the subject, with a cutting sense of humor, poking holes in the things we might take for granted. And I’m also glad that Jeffu Warmouth is out there poking similarly large and funny holes in the consumer culture that surrounds us and that we all also mostly ignore. Funny isn’t something we should shy away from in art. People are complex, and making heavy handed, overly dramatic political statements (Hunger Is BAD!) doesn’t do us any justice. Our lives are serious and sad, but they’re also funny, and ridiculous. I don’t see why our art can’t be as well.

If you act quick, you can catch the last day or two of Ellen Wetmore‘s solo show, Seven in Bed, at the Boston Sculptors Gallery. Jeffu Warmouth just wrapped up SuperJeffuBurgerMarket at SHOW in New York City. Check out more of their work below, or click on their names in this post to check out their websites.

: “Unresolved Guilt” by Jeffu Warmouth

: “Shaolin Fist” by Jeffu Warmouth

: “Ripe Bitterness” by Jeffu Warmouth

: “Il Jeffuria Pizza” by Jeffu Warmouth

: “JFC” by Jeffu Warmouth

: “Drained Self-Esteem” by Jeffu Warmouth

: “Crushed Resolve” by Jeffu Warmouth

: “Bruised Ego” by Jeffu Warmouth

: “Awareness of Mortality” by Jeffu Warmouth

: “Falling Baby” by Ellen Wetmore, Neon, 2008

: “Milk Bath” by Ellen Wetmore. Shown installed in UMass Lowell, Cut Vinyl, 2008.

: “Self Portrait as a mudflap girl knocked up” by Ellen Wetmore.

: “Self Portrait as a Weeble-Wobble at 6 months pregnant” by Ellen Wetmore. Fiberglass and steel, 2006.

November 10, 2011
by Scott Listfield
0 comments

Apocalypse Now: Jean-Pierre Roy and Alex Lukas

"No more secrets left from us" by Jean-Pierre Roy. Oil on canvas, 2009.

We humans are naturally interested in the eventual demise of our own civilization. Hollywood has produced countless apocalyptic visions of future, most of them kind of bleh (looking at you, 2012, and you, too, The Day After Tomorrow). Although this is totally an unverified personal theory, I’m guessing that where these movies generally fail is that you can’t make a summer blockbuster where everyone in the whole world just dies. That’s some bleak shit. Someone has to survive. And sure, watching New York get hit by a Tsunami, aliens blow up Mount Rushmore, or an asteroid impacting straight into Rembrandt’s “Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp” is kind of fun. But you always know that, miraculously, Will Smith/Jake Gyllenhaal/Tom Cruise and his wife/daughter/hot stripper girlfriend will somehow make it out alive so they can rebuild humanity in a post-alien/-asteroid/-iceberg world. But the 5 or 6 billion non-scientology shmoes like us (and Harvey Fierstein) will get blown to smithereens, sucked into a volcano, or alien butt-probed to death. Frankly, that’s some even bleaker shit. And I didn’t even mention Waterworld.

"Untitled" by Alex Lukas. Ink, Acrylic and Silk Screen on 2 Book Pages, 2010.

But I still watch all of those movies, and most of them are trite and unexciting except for the CGI parts where famous landmarks are disintegrating. Aside from Wall-E (a kids movie? Sort of), which painted a shockingly believable future Earth completely devoid of humanity, there is little artistry in the genre. And yet it’s an idea I find unbelievably captivating (as I’m sure others do as well), particularly as we potentially balance now on the brink of environmental and economic disaster. This is a topic I’d love to mine in my own work. Unsurprisingly, artists Jean-Pierre Roy and Alex Lukas have beaten me to to the punch, and what is perhaps most surprising is the epic beauty they have discovered in our downfall.

"An appetite for credible causes" by Jean-Pierre Roy. Oil on canvas, 2009

Some of you might recall Jean-Pierre Roy from a brief shout out a few blog posts ago – we’re appearing together in the group show “Lift Off: Earthlings and the Great Beyond” at Rutgers University’s Paul Robeson Gallery. But I’ve been a fan of his work for a lot longer than that. When I first started painting astronauts some dozen years ago, it felt like a revelation to me that a representational artist could paint something that didn’t necessarily exist. I didn’t have to paint bowls of fruit or sunsets or portraits of Madame Matisse. I could paint the robots and spaceships and flying cars I wished were part of my every day life. Jean-Pierre Roy has obviously reached the same conclusion, but his imagination has a whole lot more detail than mine does. He clearly has the chops to give those Dutch masters a run for their money were he to stumble into Marty McFly’s DeLorean and accidentally end up in 1685. But his focus is clearly set on some future Earth where people seem to be gone but our massive objects survive, albeit in some decaying or possibly radioactive state.

"The Abbey of Griefswald" by Jean-Pierre Roy. Oil on canvas, 2008.

Although there are some recurring themes in his work – hollowed out buildings, polar ice caps, lens flares – they’re really strikingly diverse. While they primarily depict objects at a scale too huge to make out individual humans (if any still exist), some scenes hint at alien invaders, some show natural forces ripping our leftovers to pieces, while others most ominously imply we did this to ourselves. Striking aerial shots depict craters pock-marking the Earth’s surface, views from inside a vast cave or atop a snowy mountain show shimmering cityscapes, presumably the last hidden outposts of mankind as we retreat from Earth’s surface. Oddly enough, my favorite piece of Jean-Pierre‘s work is a bit of an outlier, portraying a herd of giraffe trying to swim ashore a deserted arctic island. Nowhere in this painting is there a hint of mankind, and yet our dirty fingerprints are all over this. Clearly we are involved and clearly something devastating has happened somewhere off scene. Has some kind of hopeless attempt to recreate Noah’s Ark sunk off of Greenland? Is this what sudden climate change has done to the African savannah? Without people, have the zoos of the world repopulated the animal kingdom? How the hell did these giraffe get here, and why couldn’t I have thought to paint this amazing scene before Jean-Pierre Roy did???

"Six days at the bottom of the world" by Jean-Pierre Roy. Oil on panel, 2005.

If Jean-Pierre Roy‘s work feels powered by lasers and explosions, Alex Lukas‘s by contrast is surprisingly serene. Instead of implicating some violent end to mankind, it feels as if we were peaceably washed away, letting the tides roll in quietly to envelop our cities. Rippling waves, verdant mosses, and misty fog have completely taken the place of people and our people machines. Like Jean-Pierre Roy‘s work, actual humans never seem to appear, but these landscapes are all about us.

"Untitled" by Alex Lukas. Acrylic and Silk Screen on Book Page, 2011.

There’s an eery timelessness to these works, probably in part because they’re made from aerial photographs taken from old books covered with thin layers of paint. But they also feel timeless because the cities they depict are wonderfully well preserved, even as they’re covered in ivy and submerged in 40 feet of water. While not as immediately recognizable as the exploding landmarks in disaster movies, these cities feel familiar. The last wisps of humanity have presumably only just vanished.

: “Untitled” by Alex Lukas. Ink, Acrylic, Watercolor, Gouache and Silk Screen on Paper, 2011.

In addition to his ghostly cityscapes, Alex Lukas also has a series depicting the less flooded outskirts of town. Filled with waterlogged commuting routes, wall to wall graffiti, and with general urban detritus strewn about, they’re the grittier cousin to his softer focus full city paintings. Could this be where humanity made it’s last stand on it’s way out of town? Or is this merely a close up, illustrating that the remains of our civilization aren’t as chillingly pretty as they appear from far away? It seems that all we’ve left behind, for whomever or whatever to eventually find, is some piles of concrete and impermanent spray paint tags made weirdly and decidedly permanent. No Will Smith in sight.

Please take a look at some more paintings by Jean-Pierre Roy and Alex Lukas below, and check out their websites by clicking on their names wherever they appear in this post. As for the apocalypse, hopefully John Conner was right in Terminator 2 when he said “There’s no fate but what we make for ourselves,” and hopefully he was wrong in all those other Terminator movies which weren’t nearly as good. Ultimately, of course, the world will live on, whether we do or not. It might be a shattered dust strewn husk, or it might be beautiful (or maybe both). It’s a shame that no one will be there to document it.

: “An appetite for credible causes” by Jean-Pierre Roy. Oil on canvas, 2009

: “The Ice Flow Cometh” by Jean-Pierre Roy. Oil on canvas, 2010.

: “No more secrets left from us” by Jean-Pierre Roy. Oil on canvas, 2009.

: “Sight Specific” by Jean-Pierre Roy. Oil on canvas, 2009.

: “Dream of Parted Steel” by Jean-Pierre Roy. Oil on canvas, 2007.

: “Hide us in the flat spaces” by Jean-Pierre Roy. Oil on panel, 2006.

: “The Road toward Better Things” by Jean-Pierre Roy. Oil on panel, 2006.

: “The Abbey of Griefswald” by Jean-Pierre Roy. Oil on canvas, 2008.

: “Six days at the bottom of the world” by Jean-Pierre Roy. Oil on panel, 2005.

: “The Defeat of Anthropy” by Jean-Pierre Roy. Oil on canvas, 2007.

: “I never meant to remember all this” by Jean-Pierre Roy. Oil on panel, 2005.

: “She lives inside me, where others cannot see – but sometimes I take a look” by Jean-Pierre Roy. Oil on panel, 2005.

: “Untitled” by Alex Lukas. Ink, Acrylic and Silk Screen on 2 Book Pages, 2010.

: “Untitled” by Alex Lukas. Ink, Acrylic and Silk Screen on 2 Book Pages, 2010.

: “Untitled” by Alex Lukas.Acrylic and Silk Screen on Book Page, 2010.

: “Untitled” by Alex Lukas. Ink, Acrylic, Watercolor, Gouache and Silk Screen on Paper, 2011.

: “Untitled” by Alex Lukas. Ink, Acrylic, Watercolor, Gouache and Silk Screen on Paper, 2011.

: “Untitled” by Alex Lukas. Acrylic and Silk Screen on Book Page, 2011.

October 12, 2011
by Scott Listfield
0 comments

New York, New York (and Newark)

A couple of my paintings on a 10 foot high LED screen at the Big Screen Plaza, in the middle of Manhattan. Yup, pretty cool.

Those of you paying attention to my mailing list, my facebook page, or any of the other myriad ways I find to plug my crap, will know that last month I had some work in a group show at the Paul Robeson Galleries at Rutgers in Newark. The show was called “Lift Off: Earthlings and the Great Beyond.” Basically it was an entire show about astronauts and space travel. I felt right at home. It’s not that often I go to the opening of an exhibition and the other artists know more about NASA than I do. So that was cool. I decided to take the opportunity to stay a couple of days in New York while I was there (no offense meant, Newark) and check out the galleries and see some friends. It ended up being a pretty great trip, so I thought I’d write a brief post here to summarize what went down and to post some pictures.

Most of you probably know that I do all kinds of stuff with Gawker Artists. Maybe you’ve seen one of my paintings in the corner of a blog you read (I mean, other than this one). That’s Gawker Artists. Maybe you’ve checked out one of my limited edition prints on Society6.com. Also through Gawker Artists. This time, they’ve paired up with Big Screen Plaza which is basically what it sounds like: a large LED screen smack in the middle of Manhattan at 29th and 6th Avenue. I knew they would be running an hour of Gawker Artists a few times a week. So I stopped by to check it out while I was down. Truthfully, I had limited expectations, but it turned out to be pretty damn cool. I stood around gawking at it (no pun intended) for some time. It had just stopped raining and there weren’t many people about, plus as you probably know, New Yorkers don’t give a shit. But I took a bunch of pictures, more than you will want to look at, all of which you can check out at the bottom of this post.

Me n' Vader

I was impressed by the show at Rutgers as well. Given, it took me a little while to find the gallery, even though I was in the proper building. But once I found it, I liked everything in it. I’ve already mentioned in a previous post that Jean-Pierre Roy (more on him in a future blog post), one of my favorite painters, was also in the show, and it was great to see his work in person. There was a great mix of painting, sculpture, video, and photography in the show, and it all had to do with space or space travel (FYI: I LIKE SPACE). Plus the catalog is borderline ridiculous. It contains an essay by Buzz Aldrin. It came wrapped in space age polymers (ok, plastic). It’s thicker than the last book I read. Check this shit out:

The catalog. Seriously thicker than my thumb.

All told it was a pretty successful trip. I saw some of my paintings 10 foot high in the middle of Manhattan. I road a train to Newark and saw some other artists dealing with interstellar subject matter (we should start our own secret club now).I caught up with some old pals and bumped into good friend and talented artist Patrick Hammie (also a future blog post waiting to happen) in Chelsea, even though he is also not from New York (it’s a small world, folks). And if you want to see it all in excruciating detail, check out the photos below.

: A couple of my paintings on a 10 foot high LED screen at the Big Screen Plaza, in the middle of Manhattan. Pretty cool.

: Me n’ Vader

: The catalog. It’s thicker than my thumb.

September 5, 2011
by Scott Listfield
2 Comments

Art shows you should see (whether you live anywhere near Boston or not)

"Lemon Spray" by Resa Blatman (2009), 98 x 124 inches

1. Resa Blatman : Ultimate Whorl at Ellen Miller Gallery in Boston.

I’ve been wanting to feature this picture for a long time. Not just because it’s a fairly incredible piece of art (which it is), but because that’s the back of my head. Although I now consider Resa a good friend, at the time this photo was taken, we hadn’t yet met. Although we were about to. But it quite literally captures the moment I first saw her work in person, and although you obviously can’t see my face (making it the kind of picture of me I prefer), trust me: I’m suitably impressed. Amusingly enough, Resa has occasionally used this picture for press purposes, so every once in a while I’ll get an email from a gallery or museum I’m not that familiar with, open it, and immediately see the back of my head.

Woven (Detail) by Resa Blatman

Resa’s work, in case you can’t tell from the picture, is fucking ambitious. And I don’t say that lightly. They’re on massive panels cut into the shape of animals and plants and spiders (which I’m not counting as an animal) and Rococo inspired curls. They are then painted on, in a variety of media, thick with representational flora and fauna cavorting with loops, glittery spirals, and other flat design elements. My first thought upon seeing her work was “Shit, I wish I had thought of that,” followed immediately by my second thought, which was: “Shit, there is no way I could have pulled that off.”

Artists here in Boston have a curious relationship with our local galleries and museums. There are not enough of the former to foster the kind of work you need to fill the latter. Don’t get me wrong, there are tons and tons of talented artists in this city (more of whom I hope to introduce to you soon). But there are a relatively small number of galleries, and many are torn between sponsoring local work (which most do) and bringing in the big guns from out of town (which a lot also do). But galleries having been going in and out of business so fast that it’s hard for artists to build up their audience, raise their prices, and increase the size and scope of their work (necessarily – as opposed to just making big shitty paintings). I myself haven’t made a painting larger than 18 x 24 inches in probably close to 3 years. Why should I? My work is popular as ever, but I haven’t been fielding calls from the Guggenheim with 10,000 square feet of gallery space to fill.

Contrary to the downsizing everyone else is doing, Resa Blatman makes big, bold, ambitious art that is exactly the type of work you should see in a museum. But for a short time you can go look at it in a gallery on Newbury Street in Boston. What are you waiting for? The exhibition is up from Sep 9 – Oct 18, 2011 with the reception on Saturday, September 17th, 3-5pm. Learn more about Resa at her website: www.resablatman.com

"We Still See The Black" Image credit: Jack Wesley Schneider

2. We Still See The Black at the New Art Center in Newton, MA.

Almost five years ago I had the opportunity to curate my own show at the New Art Center. It’s an old converted church with high ceilings and stained glass, and a truly unique program that allows curators or artists to propose their own shows. I’ll probably dedicate a later blog post to go more into detail about this really unique opportunity (you should apply!), but for now I’ll gloss over the details. A little while after my show, the director of exhibitions at the New Art Center asked me to serve on their exhibitions committee and help choose which, of the many proposals they receive each year, would get one of the 2 or 3 open slots. Its a role I’ve enjoyed these last few years. I’ve read some good proposals and, unsurprisingly, some not so good ones. But few got me as excited as “We Still See The Black.”

This is an entire art show about METAL. Not Aluminum. Heavy Metal. Danzig, Motorhead, Guns n’ Roses, Metallica (eh), and AC/DC (that’s better). Making the sign of the horns with your hands. Umlauts! THAT kind of metal. And it’s in a church. Why on earth would you not go see this show? Seriously, Why?

Much to my eternal despair, I will be out of town attending the opening of my own show at Rutgers at precisely the instant this show is opening up here in Massachusetts. I desperately wanted to break out a Motorhead T-shirt and maybe some eyeliner. Alas. You should definitely go in my place. We Still See The Black is at the New Art Center in Newton, MA, Sept 12 – Oct 14, 2011. Opening reception and gallery talk: Thursday, Sept. 15 starting at 4:30 p.m.

3. FLUX. Offline Show at Voltage Coffee & Art in Cambridge, MA

In this day and age, every art town (both big & small) needs at least one good blogger. Boston has certainly had a few over the years, but with Big, Red & Shiny closing down a couple years ago (which still makes me sad), and the great My Love for You is a Stampede of Horses relocating back to San Francisco around the same time, things were suddenly a bit thin. Coverage of the art scene by local papers is spotty at best, so without someone writing about what’s going on, it often feels like your shows go unnoticed. Which is sad. Step in Liz Devlin of FLUX Boston. I’ve been a fan of her blog for a while now, as she tirelessly, weekend after weekend, hits open studios, publishes listings of gallery shows, and writes great profiles of artists and movements (both local and not).

Liz, along with the folks at Voltage Coffee (in Cambridge, near Kendall Square, right down the street from my day job), will be shortly unveiling a new offline show called, appropriately enough, Offline Show. It features a number of up and coming Boston artists, and should be well worth your time. As I mentioned previously in this post, there are a number of gaps in the Boston art scene, and another of them is that all the bright and talented young artists that come pouring out of the many art schools and graduate programs in town have few places to show their work. Galleries often won’t return their calls, and alternative spaces in this economy are few and far between. Places like Voltage Coffee & Art help fill that void. Sure, there are a thousand other coffee shops that show art, and some of them are pretty good (I got my start at Diesel Cafe in Davis Square). But a lot of them are not. Voltage has Art in the name of their business. They sell coffee, but clearly art is high on their priority list. Even though I kind of see them as my competition, and hence want to crush them, it’s important to nurture up and coming artists and give them a venue to show their art. This is a great chance to see some great young artists. And maybe get a really good espresso, too.

For full details and links to participating artists, check out Flux Boston.

August 19, 2011
by Scott Listfield
1 Comment

Upcoming Shows

I wanted to take a brief break from pimping other people’s work to plugmy own (it’s my blog, after all). I wanted to announce a trio of upcoming shows and a new book that just hit the shelves (of Amazon’s giant warehouses, since actual book stores are becoming sadly obsolete).

Lift off: Earthlings and the Great Beyond
Paul Robeson Galleries, Rutgers University

Opening reception and catalog launch: Thursday September 15, 5pm – 7pm. Exhibition will be on display in the Main Gallery from September 1, 2011 – January 5, 2012.
Participating artists: Sarah Bednarek, Leah Beeferman, Robbie Conal, Angie Drakopoulos, McLean Fahnestock, Rebecca Hackemann, Scott Listfield, So Yoon Lym, Kate McQuillen, Lauren Orchowski, Jonathan Pellitteri, Experimental Skeleton, Inc., Jean-Pierre Roy, Adam Ryder, Jeff Schmuki, Christopher Ulivo, and Robert Weingarten.

"Bury all your burdens" by Jean-Pierre Roy. 24” x 72”, oil on panel, 2006.

I’m excited about this show for a number of reasons: I get to show in my ancestral home (at least on my Dad’s side) of New Jersey; The 100 page exhibition catalog contains essays by Buzz Aldrin (!), Leslie Kean and Peter Nowak; I’ll have a good excuse to bum around NYC for a few days; and I’m particularly excited to have the opportunity to show with Jean-Pierre Roy, whose been one of my favorite artists since (I think) we were in the same issue of New American Paintings a few years back. His work is an incredibly lifelike take on an apocalyptic future filled with decimated buildings, cities alight with mysterious fires, gaping craters, and other hints of otherworldly visitations. If you like my work, you will love his. Check out a few paintings below, or go to his website. I’m also, of course, excited to learn more about the other artists in the show, since it’s apparent we all share a common interest. If you’re in New Jersey this fall, please stop by and check out the show!

Astronaut: Paintings by Scott Listfield
University Gallery, UMass Lowell
November 7 – December 2, 2011. Artist Talk & Reception: November 8, 3 – 5pm.

New painting which will be in my UMass Lowell solo show!

I’ve also very happy to announce that I’ll be having a solo show at Umass Lowell’s beautiful University Gallery in November. It will be my first solo show in an embarrassingly long time, and I’ll be showing some never before seen paintings (along with some kinda seen before paintings). If you’re going to be near Lowell, come by and hear me bore the local student population with my artist’s talk on November 8th!

Crazy 4 Cult Book by Gallery 1988 and Kevin Smith

Me in the Crazy 4 Cult book. 2 page spread (OMG).

I’m also pleased to share that I’m in the fantastic new book documenting the five years of Crazy 4 Cult art shows at Gallery 1988 in Los Angeles. If you like art and pop culture, it’s well worth the buy. I’m flattered to have received a full 2 page spread in the book for one of my paintings, which appear alongside work by people more famous than me like Shepherd Fairey, Travis Louie, and an intro written by Kevin Smith. You can get it for only $23 on Amazon, or buy it directly from Gallery 1988 for a bit more, but you’ll get a copy signed by one of the artists (sadly not me). I have another blog post coming up soon where I delve more deeply into Gallery 1988, their unique (and crazy) business model, and the fantastic experience I had out at the Crazy 4 Cult opening last summer. Plus, you heard it here first (or second if you pay attention to my facebook page), I’ll be in another very exciting show with Gallery 1988 coming up in January. More details to come.

: “Bury all your burdens” by Jean-Pierre Roy. 24” x 72”, oil on panel, 2006.

: “Six days at the bottom of the world” by Jean-Pierre Roy. 12” x 24”, oil on panel, 2005.

: “The Emissary” by Jean-Pierre Roy. 4.5” x 4.5”, oil on panel, 2006

: “Farsang” by Jean-Pierre Roy 48” x 60”, oil on canvas, 2008.

: New painting which will be in my UMass Lowell solo show!

: Crazy 4 Cult Book by Gallery 1988 and Kevin Smith

: Me in the Crazy 4 Cult book. 2 page spread (OMG).

August 9, 2011
by Scott Listfield
0 comments

Raul Gonzalez

"El Humo" by Raul Gonzalez

If this is your first introduction to his work, you might be surprised to find out that artist Raul Gonzalez lives just down the street from me in Somerville, MA. His drawings seem almost palpably gritty with the dust of a distant border town. But he has in fact lived here in the Boston area for the better part of the last decade. I bump into Raul on occasion on my way to or from work (him riding a bike, or pushing little Raulito around in a stroller; me on my adult scooter that almost certainly makes me look like the largest doofus in Somerville, but Raul is kind enough to talk to me, anyways). Needless to say, I haven’t chosen to write about him because of our similar commuting schedule, but because of an apparently bottomless series of drawings he’s been working on which might wreck any expectations you might have of a Boston artist (well, if you have any such expectations).

"Skull Mouth" by Raul Gonzalez

Raul clearly read a lot of comic books and watched a lot of cartoons when he was a kid (and, I’m guessing, into adulthood as well). Having digested these influences thoroughly, he has been creating an entirely new and strange language in his recent drawings. While distantly referencing such greatest hits from your childhood as Looney Toones and MAD magazine, there’s a seriousness, gruesomeness, and occasional sadness to his work which gives them a weight well beyond their influences. Like the comics he’s inspired by, Raul likes to tell a story. His drawings star a motley cast of characters: broken down boxers shambling through Wile E. Coyote’s desert landscape; Indians, recently escaped from vaguely (or overtly) racist cartoons from the previous century, only to find a reality that isn’t much better; buffaloes, dogs, and chickens let loose from Mad Magazine to live ferally; disembodied hands, hearts, eyeballs, and hairdo’s, removed from their owners through violence both very cartoony and very real.

"Solemente" by Raul Gonzalez

Raul grew up drawing comics, which you can tell. But there is a real mastery to his craft in his handling of materials. A lot of Raul’s drawings look like they were literally made with dirt and blood. Some seem to be smeared with coffee, scribbled with crayons (Raulito, is that you?), or finely detailed with gold leafing. I haven’t really talked with Raul about the content of his work, but you can probably get a sense for certain things. To the best of my knowledge, he grew up in Texas, with family on the other side of the border. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions. While some of the symbols he uses are mysterious and murky, others are brutally direct.

"Flip" by Raul Gonzalez

I’ve known about Raul’s work for a while – he’s a founding member of The Miracle 5, a local art collective/group of superheroes (or maybe supervillains?) which has made a name for itself around town. But I only had the opportunity to meet him and see his work in person for the first time a couple years ago, when we showed together in a summer exhibition in the Tufts University Gallery. His work happened to be right next to mine, although by “happen” I probably mean “deliberately placed by the curator.” Although our styles are clearly very different, Raul tells stories with his art, using characters created from a hodgepodge of childhood influences. They’re sometimes genuinely funny and sometimes genuinely sad. If you’ve come to this blog because you’re familiar with my paintings, these will be ideas you recognize.

“Untitled – Bison with Thorns” by Raul Gonzalez

Recently Raul has worked on a pair of mural projects, one on view at the San Francisco Art Institute, and another at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts (an old and esteemed institution not much known for it’s acknowledgement of local artists). You might expect the transition from small scale drawings to fairly enormous murals to be a challenge, but nothing about these murals gives any sense that it was a hardship for Raul. He’s also done a number of projects with local children (in Boston and elsewhere), and is seriously invested in community action in a way that makes me overwhelmingly aware of, and embarrassed by, my own state of apathetic laziness. In addition to the ongoing mural projects mentioned above, Raul will be showing in “75 artists, 75 years” at the ICA in Boston in September (another local institution not so easy to get into), and is featured in “Close Distance,” a show of Boston area Latino artists, in the Mills Gallery at Boston Center for the Arts (up until August 30th). He is represented by Caroll and Sons. His resume is starting to make me jealous, so I’m going to quit while I’m ahead.

To see more of his work, check out a selection below, or go to his website cerebot.blogspot.com

: “Between” by Raul Gonzalez

: “El Humo” by Raul Gonzalez

: “Face Full of Arrows” by Raul Gonzalez

: “Flip” by Raul Gonzalez

: “G-dog” by Raul Gonzalez

: “If it Bleeds” by Raul Gonzalez

: “Peluca” by Raul Gonzalez

: “Nickel Plated Visions” by Raul Gonzalez

: “Untitled – Bison with Thorns” by Raul Gonzalez

: “Skull Mouth” by Raul Gonzalez

: “Solemente” by Raul Gonzalez

: “Split” by Raul Gonzalez

: “Your Only Vato” by Raul Gonzalez

July 10, 2011
by Scott Listfield
0 comments

Stuff I Like

Time for a Kanye West post: even though any one who might possibly stumble onto this blog is probably interested in my thoughts on art, I’m going to talk about sneakers and a watch instead. This is the first in what might become a series which will highlight random stuff I like. My eventual goal is to have everyone dress and think like I do. Or maybe like I did 6 months ago, so I can still seem progressive, but not in an Andre 3000 is wearing yeti pants and suspenders kind of way.

These are going to get dirty.

Oliberté Rovia Black Sheep Sneakers

First up is Oliberté footwear. Fair trade shoes manufactured in Africa out of quality materials? Sounds like they’d make me feel socially responsible to wear them (Bo-ring). Social responsibility doesn’t usually mean fly kicks, or vice versa (looking at you, Nike). Thankfully, these look like something a stylish African would have worn to the ’68 olympics. I love vintage inspired sneakers, and bonus points are given for being made out of something that will last, and for looking genuinely authentic. I mean, if I showed these to you, it probably wouldn’t take many guesses for you to figure out which continent they came from. But you might have trouble guessing the decade. I bought myself a pair of the Rovia Black Sheep, which look just as great in person as they do in the pictures. They have a slender fit (which is perfect for me since I walk around on a pair of hockey sticks for feet), and are made from a really soft leather. My only complaint is that the bottoms don’t really seem to be soled. They come in a semi-unifinished cream colored foam rubber. Which is plenty comfy, but attracts dirt like a fucking magnet. Are there still cobblers in your neighborhood? If so, get them to attach on a hard rubber sole to the bottom of these things.

WeWood date beige watch

Dude, Balkie likes your watch.

I can’t say exactly why, but for a long time I’ve wanted a wooden watch. There’s something appealingly antiquated about rocking wrist wear made of oak. “You like my watch? It came from the forest, yo.” Enter WeWood Watches. If you’re feeling nervous in this day and age about knocking down trees for something that doesn’t really need to be made of wood, don’t sweat it. WeWood plants a tree for every watch they make. Since I’m hoping a whole tree doesn’t go into making one of these things, the net result seems to be more trees. Although nature and I haven’t always gotten along (fuck you, summer camp), this is still probably a good thing. I got myself one of these just a couple of weeks ago, and already have had perfect strangers come up and ask me about it. If you want to stand out in a crowd, awesome. If you find strangers creepy, maybe it’s not for you. They’re surprisingly light weight and unsurprisingly not that waterproof.

So I had been a fan of Australian band The Paper Scissors for a while before I even knew they had done a cover of my favorite Hall and Oates song “I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do).” If you can’t understand out why that’s awesome, then we can’t be friends. Although you sadly won’t find that cover on their latest album, “In Loving Memory” which just came out, you will (to my surprise) find their latest on US iTunes. I’m not typically into quirky lead singers and gratuitous percussion (what the hell are they banging on?), but somehow they make it all work. Nothing here is immediately awesome as “We Don’t Walk” from their ’07 album “Less Talk, More Paper Scissors,” but every track here is strong and it rewards multiple listenings.

Out of Print Moby Dick T-Shirt

I’ll admit it. I bought this shirt without ever having picked up Moby Dick. Out of Print Clothing makes T shirts from fantastic old book covers, which appeals to the bibliophile in me (I make love to books, don’t judge me), and the designer and artist. These things look awesome and make me seem smarter than I am. And you know what, I ended up reading Moby Dick because I bought this shirt. Literacy by way of fashion. Not exactly the way my high school English teachers thought it would happen. I’m sure I could devote an entire blog post to my experience reading Moby Dick, but that would make everyone stop reading my blog forever. The short version: I enjoyed it. But it’s absurdly long and seems to be written entirely in Pirate. Clearly Melville knew of no such thing as editing, and I’m not sure why it’s considered an American classic. But it is visually evocative, and looks damn good on this shirt.

ASOS Punch Toe Derby Shoes

Looking for something smart to wear? Do you like free shipping? And free returns (I think, but I’ve never had to return anything because everything I’ve purchased from them has miraculously fit my skinny ass). Try clothing by ASOS.I bought those shoes over to your left for $35. While they’re not exactly made of the finest materials, and probably won’t last all that long, I get compliments almost every time I wear them out of the house. Plus, they were 35 dollars. If they fall to pieces tomorrow, it will have been worth it. I’ve also bought a jacket and a few slim fit button down shirts and all fit great at a fraction of the price of, well, anywhere else. Of course not everything on their site is worth your time. As a UK based company, you will find your occasional MC Hammer pants on there. As always, use discretion when shopping. If you’re contemplating a piece of clothing, and some small part of you thinks that Vanilla Ice might have ever worn, step away from the computer monitor.

Like many people who like good music (note: I also like bad music), I was a huge fan of Tom Vek’s 2005 album “We Have Sound.” Hailed by some, uncreatively, as the “British Beck,” probably because he was essentially a one man band who made incredible percussive based works in a garage. The album was (I believe) pretty influential in the UK, but Vek then went all Greta Garbo and disappeared for 6 years. Out of nowhere he came back, and this month released a new album, “Leisure Seizure,” which is (again, surprisingly) available now on US iTunes.

French Poppa by Chris Piascik

I love this shirt by Connecticut based artist Chris Piascik, who is definitely a candidate for a future blog post. I found this digging around on Society 6 (where I sell some prints that you should buy immediately). You can also grab a print version of it on black if wearing T-shirts is too low brow for you. He does fantastic work with typography. Plus, who doesn’t want a shirt with Biggie Smalls on it?

Donald Glover is funny and wears ties.

Lastly, I started this post by name dropping Kanye West, and I’ll finish it that way. If you’re ever watched the show Community on NBC, you’re familiar with Donald Glover as Troy, the former high school football player, diehard fan of fake movie “Kickpuncher,” and guy who once had “the weirdest boner ever.” A former writer for 30 Rock, he’s a funny dude, and you should definitely youtube his shit. Surprisingly enough, he’s a pretty damn good musician as well, sounding almost like Kanye West, if Kanye West were funny on purpose, instead of mostly by accident. He goes by his alter ego Childish Gambino (created on a Wu Tang name generator many years ago) when performing. Check out my favorite song of his below, then learn more about him at his site Iamdonald.com or download his songs for free at his Childish Gambino site. I had the opportunity to see him in concert a couple months ago which, while certainly not the coolest room of people I’ve ever been in, was certainly a damn good show.

July 5, 2011
by Scott Listfield
1 Comment

A time before astronauts

Astronaut on the Bus, 1999, kinda blobby

So this has the potential to be a bit embarrassing. I don’t usually open up my back catalog for just anyone to look into, since there are some mighty awkward skeletons hanging in there. I’m going to assume that if you’ve found this blog, you probably have some familiarity with my paintings of astronauts. But you likely don’t have much of an idea of what (if anything) came before that. I started working on my astronaut paintings in the latter part of 1999, which feels as long ago to me as it probably sounds to you. These paintings represent pretty much the entirety of my mature oeuvre. Or, more accurately, my immature oeuvre. Keen observers (or those with way too much time on their hands) will notice a distinct difference in my earliest works and the pieces I’ve completed more recently. The early works are decidedly more “painterly,” which, if you haven’t heard that term before, is basically a more pretentious way of saying “messy.”

The whole series started around the time I first moved to Boston, and was living on my own in the city for the first time. I had spent four years going to school up in New Hampshire (which can’t even be classified as the middle of nowhere since it was decidedly not in the middle of anything), followed by some time abroad in Italy and in Sydney, Australia. Being back in America, having a low paying job, taking the bus, going to the laundromat, buying groceries, watching copious amounts of VH1, and being bombarded by the advertising we mostly ignore was a pretty new experience for me, at the time. Add into the mix the dawning realization that the future I was promised as a child (living on the moon, robot best friends, musical montages filled with synthesizer music where I could be remarkably productive) was probably not going to happen. I was also reading a lot of post modern literature, like Don Delillo (White Noise) and David Foster Wallace (Infinite Jest, a damn long book). This was where I was in life when it first occurred to me to paint astronauts.

Self Portrait, Pursed Lips, 1999

That’s what will appear in my official biography whenever they get around to writing it (I’m waiting). But what I might or might not share in that eventually awesome book is that there was actually a period of about 6 months where, after graduating college and seeing the world, I was somewhat humiliatingly forced to live at home, unemployed, and taking classes in graphic design so that I could (hopefully) get a job. During this time, I was quite literally trapped between adulthood and childhood. Thankfully for me, it was only a brief time. I kept busy by doing a lot of writing and a lot of painting. Unsurprisingly, my art work from this period also lands somewhere between my college work and my later astronaut paintings. I was for the first time starting to figure things out technically. Unlike my largely mediocre collegiate work, I was making somewhat competent paintings. But during my time in school, like a lot of art students, I returned again and again to self-portraiture. Partly this was because of convenience – all I needed was a mirror. But also it was because I was very introspective (or self-involved, depending on whether you want to be mean about it), and there was not a lot going on in my world for me to really talk about. The only thing I knew at all was myself (and, as it happens, I didn’t even know that particularly well). And so, in this time of forced solitude, alone in the suburbs of Boston, without too much else to think about, I returned to self portraits.

Untitled Film Still 8, by Cindy Sherman

But these differed a bit from earlier attempts. In college, my self-portraits were largely either academic studies (How do I draw? How do I paint? Lets find out by painting myself), or were inspired by an over-indulgent self angst fueled by an ill-fated devotion to the music of Nine Inch Nails (Ugh. We’ve all been there, right?). But out of school now, a little more self aware, and a bit less angsty (traded in the NIN for Bowie and the Wu Tang Clan), I became more interested in the early works of Cindy Sherman, and the portrait work of Andy Warhol. I was still overly interested in myself as subject matter, but I become much more intrigued by the idea of painting myself as someone else. I really liked the idea of playing a role in my artwork. I was watching a lot of music videos (they still had those at the time) and became slightly obsessed with the fish eye lens look made famous by Hype Williams in videos for Busta Rhymes and Missy Elliott (among others). I was fascinated by celebrity, and the idea that I could make myself a celebrity in my paintings. These were the earliest incarnations of ideas that I later incorporated into my astronaut paintings. But at the time, all I could think to do was more self portraits. And so that’s what I did for the 6 months or so I lived at home.

Self Portrait, Pink Lenses, 1999

I worked on these paintings for a while until they started getting a bit too weird. There’s only so many pairs of sunglasses and hats you can wear before you start realizing that they’re just props. I also at this time became aware of the work of Susanna Coffey, who basically was doing the same thing, only a whole lot better. When I got a job, moved out of my parent’s house into a place of my own in the city, and met my future wife, I realized that I had grown up (at least a little), and also outgrown the self-portrait (and future wife found them a bit creepy, truth be told. Like usual, she was probably right). I decided to make stories about things in the world larger than myself. I felt the need for a character to appear in these stories, a protagonist if you will, but I did not want him to be me. While pondering these ideas, near the dawn of the new millenium, I watched Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, and the rest, as they say, is history (or the future). And I never really looked back.

Self Portrait, Welcome to the Jungle, 1999

But now that I’ve been doing this a while, I thought I’d take the opportunity to share a little bit of personal history with you. Aside from family and a few friends, I never really showed these paintings to anyone. In the grand scheme of things, they might only be interesting as a counter point to the astronaut paintings that came after them (if at all). But for anybody interested in the early days of my astronaut painting, or for those curious how one turns student work into something a little bit beyond that, hopefully you find them interesting. There’s a few more in the gallery below. A brief disclaimer: some are more than a little ridiculous, but in my defense: I was 22.

: Self Portrait, Pursed Lips, 1999

: Self Portrait, Pink Lenses, 1999

: Self Portrait, Vertical, 1999

: Self Portrait, Green Lenses, 1999

: Self Portrait, Welcome to the Jungle, 1999

: Self Portrait, Fedora, 1999

: Self Portrait, Blue Lenses, 1999

: Self Portrait, Bat Shit Crazy, 1999

: Astronaut on the Bus, oil on canvas, 1999