Get A Grip

The latest installment of Get a Grip is on it's way...

Here's my entry...come and bid!

The Mummy

Dudes Night Out Anniversary Show

The Dudes Night Out Artist Collective had out one year anniversary show. It was held at ROC brewing company and they even made us a porter for the show. That was kicked in 4 hours from what I was told. Tasty little beverage. I did two paintings for this one...

This is a portrait of Son House. He was a Mississippi Delta Blues cat in the 1930's who became a huge inspiration for Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters. He left Mississippi and moved to Rochester and gave up music. From What I was told his wife didn't want playing the "Devil's Music". He was rediscovered in the mid 60's and returned to playing for the rest of his years. He's been covered by many and been an inspiration to acts like Bonnie Raitt and the White Stripes. In the picture about I tried to show a little of my process. The painting begins with a layer of very dark grays to flesh out the image and then continuous layers are applied slowly changing from dark gray to the last layer of white. The bottom image is the finished painting.

The theme of this show was Rochester. What do you think about when you think of this town? I created the hand with the gun and titled it "Greetings from Rottenchester". I was asked why I chose this..well here we go. A long time ago I traveled to Toronto with Pen One to check out a graffiti festival called Flexbo. Throughout Toronto all these writers and graffiti crews were painting walls and delivery trucks donated by the city. We hooked up with an amazing group of writers and while we were talking one of them asked me where i was from. I told them Rochester. The look of concern on their faces was enough, but then they asked "It's real dangerous down there right? Lots of killings and murders?" I was kind of stunned that this was the first thing they thought of in terms of my city. It's always bothered me to this day so this painting reflects what we apparently project. On a side note, in the local city magazine "The City Newspaper" there was an article entitled "Rochester - The city of the gun" running the same week as the opening...interesting huh?

Boy VS. Girls 2

Boys Vs. Girls 2...
Well we tried as a team to compete against the Girls that are, need I say Proficient, at installation. We went for a cave made out of cardboard, the girls made a Carousel. We lost in the vote tally, but fun was had and the space was enjoyed by many. Thanks to the boys for the opportunity...
Here's some of the pieces I made:

Matchbook of the show flyer, it had matches inside too!

Fire! Burn, burn ,burn!

Spray can...this is about 4 1/2 feet tall

The skater is mine. Donated this to the Mighty Krudco!

Krampus!

Breakfast with Krampus...

Here's the latest for the 1975 - 5 year anniversary show...Volo Calvarium
"One Step Beyond"

Dudes Night Out - Artist Collective

Greetings!
So earlier this year I had a show with a dynamic group of artists called "Dudes Night Out". The Heroes and Villains show was a great success, thanks to all of you that made it out! We have since had a few group shows around town. Here are some of the images from the last few....

 We did an online show of Monsters and Mayhem.

This was a print that I had available for the show.

We had a show a the now defunct Pandaman Toys.

The theme of this show was cult movies. I went with this

print of Ming the Merciless from Flash Gordon.

On August 1st we opened a show at The Tap and Mallet.

The theme here was obviously anything to do with beer.

Painting of Iron Man 17x12 acrylic on wood panel.

We'll be having a part 2 to this show on September 18th entitled the "Hangover" where

we'll add to the collection and fill the restaurant section to the Tap.

On August 2nd we opened a show at the Brainery in Village Gate Mall.

This painting is 12 x 19, acrylic and sharpie on wood panel. 

Entitled- Will you be my ghoul?

A few shows coming up at 1975 (The Skull Show), Tap and Mallet and the National Musuem of Play.

As a group we will also be showing at Artist Row in September at the Public Market.

Enjoy the rest of your Summer!

  

Another group show I was involved in was "Girl's Vs. Boys". The show was split between two galleries, 1975 (boys) and The Yards (girls). As a group we tried to recapture the times of yesteryear where the days were long and boys were well...boys. I did a series of cardboard cut outs and a cardboard sculptures of the old gun caps. Oh, each piece had to be at least 50% cardboard. Here's some of the images:

This guy was displayed in the bathroom. This is the second time I shown in the bathroom. Guess my career's in the toilet...ba da dum tish!

Been busy lately but I recently had 2 group shows I participated in. The first was entitled Heroes and Villains. The show is currently up at the Record Archive. It opened to a ton of good art and a ton of good people coming out to check it. There's an art group I'm involved in called "Dude's Night Out" that is filled with just talented individuals. It makes us all step up our game. Here's one of the paintings I did for the show entitled "Hulk Smash!"

Commission

The fine people over at Wolf's Brigade Gym commissioned me to do a painting for their fearless leader Greg Walsh for their X-mas Party. Now Greg and I go way back and he owns a bunch of my work, all monster related. Pat and Heather from WBG wanted a werewolf to add to his collection, plus the gym logo is a pretty sweet looking werewolf. This is the result of our discussion...

and a little detail...

latest work

Here are some paintings that were recently finished

This was called "A 'Little" Haunted". It was for the 1975 is Haunted show. The idea here was if anything would haunt the new 1975 space, it would be the previous owner of the little bakery.

 This was for the same show entitled "It appeared in a wolf's form". Kind of based off of the Goddess Pele from Hawaii.

This was for an art show at the Gallery Salon. Titled "Sellout". All images are acrylic on wood.

Well, yes it's been a while. This is a new painting currently up at 1975. They finally have a home base and have currently retired from being a nomadic gallery. I was truly honored to be asked to participate in the opening exhibit entitled "Home is where the Art is". I sent in this one and my portrait of Grandmaster Flash. The work was to be something current, but most of my stuff is gone so I had to crank this out. Largest work I've done in a while...32"x48". Fun but took some getting used to. I've worked on such a small scale over the last few years that all my larger brushes are just beat. Definitely will push to try bigger stuff down the road. Hope you enjoy, thanks for taking a look.
-Johnny

Get A Grip 3

Is this really the 3rd fundraiser for our skatepark?! Give us the money already. Rottenchester, you want something that will actually get used, put your money here. It might be a nice deviation from that god forsaken hole in the middle of downtown. Well anywho... here's my donation, acrylic on grip tape entitled "What you looking at sucka!". The show opens Friday March 2nd at the Yards. I'll be stopping by, hope to see some of you out there.

Just finished up some skateboards for a friend. The portrait is Danny Trejo as Machete.

New Work currently at Crewest Gallery in L.A. Check them out @ www.crewest.com

This is a portrait of Grandmaster Flash.

Hey new stuff coming soon...

I submitted two new paintings for 1975 Gallery's show "By The Pale Moonlight". Great new space with absolutely killer art that made me more of a fan than just a participant. Along with all the 2d stuff there are some dynamite sculptures including an amazing scarecrow head light. Do yourself a favor and go see this show...you will not be disappointed! Here are some shots of my submissions. The first is called "Thirsty" for obvious reasons. The second is titled "Grimely Fiendish" which came about with a little help from Erich Lehman. It's the title of an old tune by the Damned. Seemed fitting, so there it is. This piece is actually mounted behind an old window so it looks as if he's looking in on the viewer. I have some other stuff to crank out so I'll update this as I turn them out. Thanks for checking in...

I was invited by the wonderful people at Plastic to do a custom Munny. This was my first attempt at vinyl and also my first intro to super sculpey. 6 other artists created some dynamite customs including Bill Hand. Of course this was last minute because that's when inspiration truly happens so I never took any photos. This one was provided to me by Deana, Plastics owner. Friend them on Facebook or check out www.plasticgrrl.com.

This was new but it is now in the hands of someone else...

Had a show in May at the Gallery Salon with Paul Schramm and Cortney Konecny. Made a few new ones, sold some old ones. Here's one of the new ones...never sold, e-mail me if interested.

Sorry it's been a while...a lot going on around here. Finally able to get painting again. This is for the upcoming show with Spoke Art titled Quentin vs. Coen show in NYC. A little progress shot up top so you can see it come together. This is Leonard Smalls from Raising Arizona. Had a blast doing this one...enjoy!