Scary Monsters
Ten artists make like Moreau
By Michael Leaverton
It’s nice to see an art exhibit with an over-the-top title, such as “Uplifting Vengeance World Tour,” and overblown press notes ? “an ongoing, all-out battle for human consciousness” ? actually back that shit up. One look at the work on the walls and you forget about words, because there be monsters. And sharp teeth. And genetically fractured, nightmarish beings that you’d kill to have on a T-shirt. The work in this group show tends toward the wildly colorful cartoon fright-fest aesthetic, particularly in the paintings of Skinner. His dense, collagelike portraits of all things scary, tightly grouped on a wall that features a huge caped creature with its head aflame, give you plenty to marvel over ? his work is like a study of things that go bump in the night before they rip your head off. Similarly intriguing are John Stuart Berger’s cuddly-no-more animals (a frog gone insane, a sharp-toothed Moby Dick with a stomach wound, a black-eyed bunny with a horrific overbite) and Robert Bowen’s surreal, drippy blobs of animallike flesh (enlivened here and there with a creepy Mickey Mouse). “Uplifting Vengeance” also features work by Mike Rodriguez, Kim Scott, Aaron Winters, Ashley Harris, Dan Herrera, and Kevin Price.
Date/Time: Reveiw in SF Weekly Aug. 27-Sept. 2
