TRANSFORMER PRESENTS
Itsy Bitsy Bollocks
March 18 - April 22, 2006
With artists:
Mr. Eggs, Mark Jenkins, Travis Millard, and Kelly Towles
Opening Reception:
Saturday, March 18, 2006, 7-9 pm
Artists' Talk:
Sunday, March 19, 2006, 3 pm
Itsy Bitsy Bollocks is a site-responsive, collaborative exhibition
featuring drawing, painting, sculpture and mixed media installation
by Mr. Eggs (Manchester, England), Mark Jenkins (Washington, DC),
Travis Millard (Los Angeles, CA) and Kelly Towles (Washington, DC).
Influenced by skate and punk culture, graffiti, comic book art, and
pop art, each artist's work has a distinct visual style that comments
on urban life, current political and pop culture news and issues, as
well as personal anecdotes that convey the laughable and mockable in
humanity and society.
The artists in Itsy Bitsy Bollocks choose to present their work in a
multitude of urban settings to allow for immediate and unrestricted
viewer response. Presenting similar bodies of work within the
context of Transformer's store-front project space, Itsy Bitsy
Bollocks encourages dialogue around what constitutes fine art – the
work itself or the context in which it is presented?
Evolving from the one night Bollocks event organized by Kelly Towles
in 2005 at Adamson Gallery (the commercial gallery who represents
Towles) – an artistic intervention and convention of sorts that
featured the raffling of free works by over 100 `street' artists -
Itsy Bitsy Bollocks furthers the relationship of four emerging
artists and their work through a curated exploration of their playful
yet defiant street art aesthetics. With their art work presented
both outside and inside the gallery space, the artists in Itsy Bitsy
Bollocks bridge their rebellious street art-making processes and
keenly tuned contemporary and graphic art sensibilities creating a
unique exhibition at Transformer that highlights the irreverent humor
each of these artists brings to their work.
Mr. Eggs "tries to stay anonymous and stay away from the glitz and
glam that some of today's street artists have come accustomed to.
Very little is known of this artist apart from what is told around
the streets and local bars. Mr. Eggs work consists of humorous and
odd statements that sometimes leave the viewer bewildered and
confused to the point where they just start to smile and giggle ever
so slightly to themselves, this sometimes leads the general public
into a frenzy of `I must try and take this piece of art home with me;
I love it,' and then try to peel, unscrew or even pick up the artwork
that has been left for the whole of the general public to enjoy.
Most of the artist's nights are filled with climbing walls with his
ninja chicken like skills and scaling crazy insane heights to place
his work for the world to see. One such case was that of the recent
Banksy "Cruder Oils" show in London, UK where Mr. Eggs single
handedly infiltrated Banksy's gallery, evading the security and the
masses of Banksy fans outside waiting to enter the venue, to stick-up
his own painting which then stayed up for the entire duration of the
show. The `Eggie Magritte' that it has now been labeled, has pride
and place in the POW headquarters in London waiting for pick up. The
very illusive Eggs has also managed to adjust and recreate some of
Banksy's work into his own, thus making a new kind of evolution in
the street art scene. In a quote by the artist over heard in the
Black Cat bar, `I just want to paint the town yellow and make folk
smile and if I have to break a few eggs along the way, well I guess
that's what's got to happen. It beats doing a 9 to 5 job and gets my
work more appreciated by the people'." www.mreggs.com
Mark Jenkins figurative tape sculptures and tape casts of urban
objects have been seen on street corners, in parks, and other public
settings. Using clear packing tape as his primary material, Mark
creates playful figures and scenarios in unexpected locations pushing
ironic sensibilities. About his chosen materials Mark states, "with
packing tape I can walk up to a parking meter, fire hydrant or
mailbox and rip a cast of it in a matter of minutes. I can't think of
another casting medium that would allow me to do this. I also like
clear tape sculpture for street installations because it's highly
reflective and translucent. It stands out in cityscapes in a way
that's otherworldly." In creating an artist statement about his
work, Mark writes: "when the Good Humor truck comes, the kids laugh
and scream; they don't even know why. I guess it's because they're
going to eat ice cream and too, the truck plays its tune loud
escalating the mood like a Pavlov effect. I'd like my art to be this
captivating to kids, and make adults the same. You can't eat tape but
you can eat art. 2006 is Year of the Stork."
www.storker.net/tapesculpture.html
Travis Millard is an accomplished artist whose work has been
presented along with artists Shepard Fairy and Jeremey Fish among
many others. Travis is also the proprietor of Fudge Factory Comics,
headquartered in Los Angeles, CA. "Fudge Factory Comics specializes
in common archaic scribbles, doodle awing, zine making, funny
stories, product design, animation, installation, and local sunflower
seed distance spitting champion. Travis Fudge makes no acts of
aggression against his neighbors and makes no attempts to harness
nuclear power for anything other than peaceful means."
www.fudgefactorycomics.com
Kelly Towles graduated from the University of Maryland with a fine
arts degree. About his work Kelly states, "social isolation and
emotional captivity are two of the major things that I comment on
with my work; people dealing with the society we live in, and the
emotional arsenal that each person is equipped with. Dark humor and
twisted features cast most of the characters that I create."
www.kellytowles.com
Uberdork Stephen Hunter has a video review of Matthew Barney's Drawing Restraint 9 (the trailer is lush, check it out). In the first seven seconds you can check out some of the panned CG sequence, which looks like a rushed cut and paste from Final Fantasy X. Kriston has his own cremaster issues to resolve before moving on to DR9.
