“Lake Merced Reflections”

Trey Just Trey aka Trey Trey, 2012

Oil on canvas board

When he’s not jerking $7 coffees for “some rich techie asshole” in SOMA, hipster icon, Trey Trey, depicts an introspective moment in his ironically lived life. Having let his man bun down he perfects his hipster hunch and contemplates his fashion future. Is he considering ditching his tight, effortlessly cool corduroy pants, button up shirt and bowtie for the bare foot Iron Age retro toga look? We love Trey Trey’s rebelliously wielded 1950s pastel paint by number style and lush use of patterns and textures that flirt with the style of the great Fauvist landscape painters of the past. Do we dare call his work the dernier cri of this genre?

K.L. 

“Portrait of Auntie Johansen” 

Francis Fairchild, 1980

Oil on triple SSS board

Looks are deceiving. Meet Auntie Johansen, parish priest caretaker, organizer of bingo night, ice cream socials and Saturday catechism lessons – a kind and quiet woman. In her younger days, as Colastie Solange, she was Louisiana’s premier lady gator wrestler followed by an exciting stretch as Señora Montego, gunrunner for Che Guevara and then Hoosie Whatsis, a celebrated stripper in L.A.’s Thai Town. Behind those guarded eyes lies a world of secret identities and intrigue.

K.L.

“In the Thick of It”

Kuné Jupon, 2010

Oil on canvas

The sound of two black holes colliding, massive gaseous ball, multitudinous cries of terror and despair…

The smell of bacon frying, realizing your survival backpack won’t get you thru this one, all conflict is moot…

Were you a good person, should have eaten the second piece of pie, hated less…

Alarm clock, just a dream, the sound of two black holes colliding…

K.L.

“Breastfeeding Grandpa”

Camaro Blue, 1975

Oil on Masonite

Initially we are drawn into the dark, mysterious depths of this piece because like most viewers we are fascinated by babies and boobies, especially when the infant looks like the mom’s leering grandfather. Lacking the courage to look directly at the aberration in her arms, the mother lowers her eyes. Is she considering shoving him back onto the fiery tube from whence he came? Perhaps Blue fears his own mother felt this way or maybe he wishes he had breasts to feed himself. Some say the artist is exploring issues of gender identity and nurturing while examining his helpless old man dwarf side.

K.L. 

“Barbara’s Bender”

Nelva Morningside, 1981

Acrylic on canvas board

Wearing a green rubber Hefty Bag Barbara attempts a challenging new yoga pose.

J.O. 

“Dragonfly Watching”

Whistle Britches Riqter, 2011

Oil on canvas

We have it on good authority that this abstract piece represents a peephole view of 200 years hence. It is an angst filled cautionary tale and Riqter’s passion guides his brush to give the viewer a bit of a shake up. As a vigorous reference to climate change and rising sea levels, the artist has flooded the lower right with pink lemonade. The tattered crow feather drifts forlornly, suggesting that all non-human animal life is extinct while the champagne bubbles symbolize incessant partying in the midst of doom - denial as it were. The buildings, né civilization, are coming undone, drifting unmoored in a world where gravity is nonexistent. The artist as dragonfly observes from its perch, lost in dragonfly thoughts because, red or blue, that’s what they do.

K.L.

“Bottoming Out”    

Arius Corundum, 1996

Some kind of brown filth, possibly human blood, yellow stain that smells like mustard on canvas

We enjoy artistic challenges, but Corundum has buried the meaning of this painting so deeply that it cannot be exhumed even if we were using a high-speed tractor backhoe. Still, we are intrigued by the Sam Spade detective frisket and he is definitely clutching a Big Mac so it seems logical we may be viewing an emotional miasma, the result of a glycemic crash. We also like the red splatters – because they imply that the artist may have shed his blood for his art, thus appealing viscerally to bloodthirsty viewers and automatically increasing the value of the painting! We are currently awaiting results of the Kastle-Meyer blood analysis.     

K.L.      

“The Exterminator”        

Shinola Phelps, 1972

Acrylic on board

His fur looks soft, but his eyes are saying, “If you were just one tenth your size I would break your neck with a single bite and then just for fun toss your lifeless body into the air. Then I would eat your braincase or maybe just leave you for the blowflies. I’ve never loved you and I never will. That’s right, I’m not your lickspittle doggie.”

K.L.

“Boys Will Be Boys”

Reginald Langford Helmhurst, Chief Chronicler of Manly Games, 1956-66

Acrylic on canvas

“High Cockalorum” aka “Polly on the Mop Stick,” “Strong Horses Weak Donkeys,” “Hunch Cuddy Hunch,” “Finger Thumb and Rusty Bum,” and “Jump the Knacker” was, in times past an English game that was popular among large groups of raucous young men. Once the champion of Birmingham’s High Cockalorum club, this handsome frat boy at times had lots of fun playing hide and seek in a closet full of tutus. The artist Helmhurst captured the excited energy of the hunt with a singular intimacy and obvious advanced artistic skill.

K.L.

“Mississippi Come Up”

Josepha Josepha, 1970                                               

Creek bottom mud, fermented bullfrog skins, crushed crawdad carapace on canvas

The artist/science fiction author Josepha depicts the phenomenon known as the caridoid escape reaction - CER. The reasons for this occurrence are shrouded in mystery and seeing it was a stroke of unusual luck. Josepha Josepha painted the CER from memory, as it had occurred 100 feet from shore in the Mississippi river. Storm clouds gathered as the islet threw itself up from the murky depths with algae dripping and crappies flapping. Josepha claims to have heard Richard Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” echo across the water as a giant showerhead descended from above and washed everything nice and clean.

K.L. 

“Portrait of the Artist’s Nonna”

Bruno Monzano, 1956

Pratley’s putty – colored globulitic type shot from a can

Neither impasto nor pointillist, this piece was executed with a brand new technique created by Manzano in honor of his beloved Nonna. Using a giant Cool Whip can the artist shot globulitic Pratley’s Putty from 10 feet away, carefully building up layer upon layer of hard bumpy lumps. As Queen of the waste management business after her husband was whacked, Nonna Manzano was known and respected by all in the days before RICO. The artist cherishes fond memories of his Nonna - the smell of baking biscotti and the sound of her basement sub machine gun practice.

K.L.

“Grey Has No Agenda”        

Artist unknown – well of course, who would admit to this?

Acrylic on canvas

A disgusted Hibiscus queen is sick to death of supplicants bringing more flowers. Royal noggin hands held high, she gives the signal of all hibiscus queens to just basta! Please! A man in the background proudly displays his hummingbird chin ornament. Hope springs eternal as we look for meaning in this piece, but finally we are forced to admit that sometimes shit just happens.

K.L. 

“Polyester Cream”

Pixie Craven, 2011

Acrylic on canvas     

Romance, meditation, and cleanliness - confined only by the edges of the canvas, the artist Craven delicately explores the hidden plight of deformed women who bathe in absurdly small tubs of polyester fluff and whip cream. The grisly use of a human brain as a bath sponge is surely a cry for help.

G.O.

“Red Hen With Wagon”

Grandma B, 1986

Oil on canvas

The aging artist Grandma B asks us to make an honest appraisal of ourselves as we look at her work. Are we like the red hen dutifully dragging her burdensome wagon behind her for the length of her days? Unquestioningly she accepts her destiny because she is a ground scratching birdbrain chicken, prone to poopy butt syndrome. Grandma B challenges us to have courage and chart a different course than the bird. But, do we care enough to try? Why should we - when we know most of us will end up in a rest home in diapers with our very own poopy butt.

K.L. 

“Moon Palace Massacre”

Sanndy, 1999

Acrylic on canvas panel

In a violet-soft world of enchanting moonlight, thousands of fluttering fairies are entranced by flute music as they swarm on a silvery path to their own death and destruction. At the Moon Palace Fairy Cakes Factory they are stunned in bug zappers, freeze-dried and compressed into savory little crackers. The target market for this sinister new product is San Francisco’s trendy Mission district wine bars and restaurants where they are spread with olive tapenade and paired with the finest of charcuteries and delicious Loire Valley wines. In this, her clarion call to action, the artist implores us to look at our shameful lifestyle luxuries and amend our appetites accordingly… “The horror! The horror!“ Sanndy exclaims. “Save the fairies!”

K.L.

“Red Swollen Rosettes In a Vase-Like Thing”

Gimolina Grandeflora, 1983

Minature Nauga hides, fluffy stuff and cardboard

 As creative guru and lead artist at the School of Hospitality Arts and Hotel Arrangements (SOHAHA) Grandeflora has created hundreds of the finest innocuous motel room wall decorations (we just can’t call them art) in an effort to enhance the guests’ viewing pleasure. We find them remarkable in their complete unremarkableness. It is rumored that Grandeflora, having finally tapped out her talent in that field, moved on to design washable assless chaps, movement activated bull whips and a variety of fetish wear.

K.L. 

“Fun in the Sun”

Barbie Bimboombaugh, 1964

Oil on canvas

It’s French Peasant Dress Up Day at Club Rickets and Chloe and Jules are totally down for it. Glancing coyly away Chloe brazenly bares her poor misshapen legs, as her micro cephalic face blushes beneath a fetching apple basket bonnet. Jules’ admiring gaze falls upon her loveliness and his skintight bicycle shorts reveal that he is ready for anything because “what you do at Club Rickets, stays at Club Rickets.”

K.L. 

“Happily Ever After”

Imogen Gleesetower, 2010

Acrylic on canvas

Practical jokers at a Cirque du Soleil wedding prepare for a group face plant into the cake.

K.L.

“Hairy Creature With Brown Eyes”

Clancy Carson, 2005

Acrylic on canvas

Carson studied for years at the Margaret Keane School of portraiture before venturing out on her own. In her first solo offering, she has created what seems to be a genetic experiment that combines the best qualities of Farrah Fawcett, My Little Pony and Aatifa the Afghan hound. Its human like eyes beg us for some cream rinse.

K.L. 

“Portrait of Bimbo the Elder”        

Porky Chedwick, 1996

Oil on canvas board

It has been said:

“He will come amongst them as a childlike jester and some will open to his words as a flower to a bee. But most will laugh and ridicule him and drive him from their midst and be poorer for that. Know him then as your higher self to whom you refuse to give shelter and sustenance and know therefore that he wanders through this life a stranger to those he loves most. And when you see the one with vacant eyes, red nose and disheveled hair know that he cares not for the things of this world, but resides in a place that you will never know.”

Mama Ji

“Sloppy Rich Woman Drags Beautiful Dress in Mud”        

Cindie Jensen-Shankelstein, 2012

Acrylic on canvas

Once upon a time Edith Wharton married Bob Ross and begat a sappy pap offspring glowing with violet schmaltz and saccharine romanticism.

K.L. 

“Lassie’s Final Episode”

Ana Sassin, 1981

Acrylic on canvas

In this strangely morbid piece sweet old Lassie dog dreams of paparazzi, Gravy Train, and biting the bad guy just moments before being hit by a brick.

K.L. 

“What It Is”        

Nate Pocatello, 2010

Acrylic on canvas

It is hello. It is good-bye. It is inhale. It is exhale. It is time to think. It is “so, do you come here often?” It is after sex. It is first thing in the morning. It is the last thing at night. It is tastes good with coffee. It is tastes good by itself. It is the farmers’ livelihood. It is an industry. It is something to share with others. It is making new friends 25’ from the bar’s entrance. It is lung death. It is heart disease. It is yellow teeth and stinky clothes. It is craving. It is late night trips to the store in the rain. It is everything. It is nothing really. It is phlegm in the morning. It is phlegm all the time. It is wheel chairs and air tanks. It is your choice.

K.L. 

“Little Girl On Giant Floating Scone”

Glycolia Flexor, 1992

Watercolor on paper with heavy admixture of sweetness and light

The absolutely adorable nature of this piece should not turn the discerning art connoisseur away from an honest analysis and appreciation of it. The subaqueous qualities of the negative space and the invisibility of the submerged fish enhance the resonance of the distinctive formal juxtapositions of the rocks and trees as compositional elements. But conversely and simultaneously, the mechanical mark-making of the girl-with-dolly-narrative and line–space matrix structurally undermines the figurative gesture and threatens to penetrate the accessibility of the work and its internal dynamic which is dangerously close to codifying the blue dress and hair ribbon of the subject. It should be added that the optical suggestions of the purity of line of the floating scone seem very disturbing in light of the position of this work in the critical dialogue of the 1990’s English picnic genre.

K.L.

“The Flowers of Change”

Guang Mei, 1979

Oil on canvas

China’s Trojan vase trembles and nearly bursts with the virus ofcapitalism. This symbolic piece by a long since dead Red Guard revolutionary represents the moment in history when China’s politico economic direction changed forever. A curious woman approaches the massive vase unaware of the mindless consumption, greed and exploitation about to be unleashed upon a desperately eager population. The soft yellow flowers seduce her and the thorns hidden beneath the cool foliage wait to spill her blood.       

K.L. 

“Always Use Ice”

John Saint Juggins, 1998

Acrylic on wooden board, mirror, a bunch of disturbing ju-ju

Llama boy with the surgeon’s cap blows bubbles and reminisces about a sad BBQ where everyone got food poisoning after eating potato salad that had sat in the sun all day. The small mirror reminds us that that no matter how funky you think you look, you still look better than Llama boy.

K.L

“Exchanging Fluids”

Dexter Tight, 1975

Testor’s toy model enamel, reclaimed 60-weight motor oil, pounded automotive drip pan

When the 40-year veteran auto mechanic Dexter Tight retired, his new life’s work as an abstract artist immediately turned suburban Yamperton’s art world upside down. Mining old garages for broken greasy car parts, he wowed art lovers with his creations at his latest solo exhibition. In addition to this exceptional piece, the evening’s real show stopper was a 6’ sculpted rooster made from flattened oil cans, tire treads, universal joints and drive shafts with worn out wiper blades for the tail feathers. It was quickly voted Best in Show and dubbed “The Great and Wondrous 6’ Cock.”

K.L. 

“Edward James Almost”

Cliv Blatly, 1981

Compressed charcoal and spilled Starbuck’s Frappuccino on paper

The actor Edward James Olmos, on the set of the 1981 movie “Zoot Suit”, has misplaced his lower jaw and anxiously struggles with his lines.

K.L.

“The Day After the Life Before”

Constance Fleeters, 1985

Watercolor on paper

Pink eye, booze and a ravenous gambling habit dwell heavily on this once lovely visage. Her direct gaze unabashedly challenges us not to be judgmental. But of course we are. No doubt she’s been ridden hard and put away wet more than once; She probably deserves it…

K.L.

“Goodbye San Francisco”

Bif Dimcheck, 2014

A ground of macerated and boiled Banisteriopsis caapie covered with a light wash of brewed chacruna on Peruvian linen.

For centuries, possibly millennia, artists have been creating while “under the influence”. Journey, death, a snake with a beer stein and a dancing cat with a fiery crown – these are strong symbolic indicators of ayahuasca dreaming. Our glowing skeleton friend waves a sad goodbye with its reptilian hand; showing keen fashion awareness, he accessorizes with an expensive leather handbag.

K.L.