Rock / Paper / PDX @ Portland Center for the Performing Art

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gettin' into the fancy pants upper class of PDX. . . Portland Center for the Performing Arts asked me to curate a poster show for their gallery. . . break out your tux and stop by for the opening. .
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Portland Center For The Performing Arts Gallery, Peoples Art of Portland Gallery, Po Boy Art/Jason Brown and Chris Haberman presents…
"ROCK/PAPER/PDX"



We are proud to present this very Portland show: 10 regional PDX professional poster artists in one beautiful venue. These artists are some of the best in their fields in rock poster art; some of them are even noted as “revitalizing” the industry. Of the thousands of poster artists in the world, Portland is home to some of the best. Work displayed will be both new, rare and limited edition prints, all framed. The artists in this show are as diverse as the music. Likewise, the artist's techniques vary as well (from hand drawn to computer generated design). These career artists are some of the most exciting, revolutionary and well-known work in this field and we look forward to presenting their work in this historic Portland context.

ROCK/PAPER/PDX Artists:

Casey Burns
Casey Burns spent 13 years making posters in Chapel Hill, NC, before relocating to Portland in 2006. He continues to make the occasional poster in addition to doing fine art and freelance work for clients like Modest Mouse, Sonic Youth, DC Comics, Dr. Martens, and others.


Dan Stiles
What Dan is trying to do with his design is to say as much as he can by using as little as he can. He try's to pare down the idea and the form to its essence. Dan feels like visually the work is bolder that way. Posters should be bold; you're supposed to be able to see them from across the street. He also finds that once you strip off all the fluff you find out if your idea is any good or not.


David D' Andrea
David D’Andrea melds the draftsmanship of turn of the century illustrators, the hallucinatory vibe of the 60’s masters, and an organic pen and ink style that is unmistakably his own. His illustrations seethe with sinuous, accomplished line work and intentional rough edges. He draws from a variety of eclectic influences which show in the work: archaic lettering, obsessively detailed renderings of animals, and elements from numerous religions and cultures. His passion for the music/artist collaboration runs deep. It may be personified best by his ongoing series with the band OM, which shows the spiritual connection between an illustrator and the music as a circle of inspiration that spins infinitely, the Ouroboros.


EMEK
Emek has been referred to as "The Thinking Man's Poster Artist". Coming from a unique family of 5 artists, Emek has made his mark creating special limited edition silkscreen posters for live concerts around the world. Emek’ style thrives on attention to detail, coupled with layers of meaning in the artwork. His infusion of socio-political commentary into pop culture imagery has made his work instantly recognizable in the field. Emphasizing craftsmanship, his work is mostly hand-drawn in the tradition of the classic psychedelic posters from the 1960's. Born in the 70's Emek was also strongly influenced by the DIY punk flyers of the 80’s. "I appreciate the creative freedom this medium allows me because the bands generally give me total freedom as long as I advertise the show info. I am allowed to dip into the recesses of my imagination and see what spills out onto the page. This allows me to be my own art director and I am able to experiment with different concepts and styles to keep things fresh. Today's disposable culture paves the way for tomorrows collectable nostalgia...I'm just trying to make it interesting" Over the last 2 decades, Emek has created hundreds of posters for some of the top alternative bands and events, like Radiohead, Coachella, Queens of the Stone Age, Tool, System of a Down, Jane's Addiction, The Flaming Lips, to name a few, as well as album covers from Neil Young and Pearl Jam to Henry Rollins and Erykah Badu. Emek's work has been shown in galleries across the United States, Berlin, London, Tokyo, Belgium and Canada. He has been interviewed on CNN, featured in dozens of magazines and books, including covers of Juxtapoz magazine.


Gary Houston
Posters at Voodoo Catbox are pretty much hand made using traditional methods i.e. scratch board illustration or hand cut rubylith, and then hand pulled. Houston is a giant in the field, well known for his connection with the Portland Blues Festival, Willie Nelson, BB King, and a host of others.


GUYBURWELL
GUYBURWELL (King of the Wild Frontier) is an illustrator and painter and, more recently, a print maker currently living in Portland, Oregon. Known (yeah, right) for the flair of his line work, the odd and random scrapes, blunt ends and positive chaos with negative space, his work is organic at its root and full of pasty skinned naked red haired men on the surface.


Joanna Wecht
Joanna's design is hand grown and hand sown utilizing a tactile approach that belies current technologies, resulting in an organic and free form feel that hearkens to the earlier days of graphic design when practical application of materials and mechanical, rather than digital, was the state of the art. For Joannna Wecht, the state of her art is her statement about art.


Justin Hampton
Justin Hampton creates high impact imagery and is renowned as one of the leaders in the modern rock poster scene earning him international attention. His bold line work and sublime color palette mixed with a vivid imagination are unmistakable. His work can be seen in various galleries in Europe, Asia and Australia as well as in the U.S.


Mike King
Mike King is a graphic designer from Portland Oregon, not known so much the quality of his work, but for the quantity. If over the last few decades you have noticed the flyers that cover the phone poles of the cities of the Pacific Northwest, then the chances are good, you have seen some of Mike's work. When not making flyers, Mike has also designed CD and record covers for wide variety of artists, from Ben Harper to The Decemberists, from Pink Martini to Poison Idea, Mikes work cuts a wide swath through the landscape of popular culture. And if that last bit sounds like the typical bluster of a marginal artist trying to make his work appear more important than it really is, then you have hit the nail squarely on the head.


Tyler Stout
Tyler was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. He’s done work for Burton Snowboards, Forum Snowboards, Libtech Snowboards, Nike, Adidas, Xbox, MTV, Grenade Gloves, Etnies, Sobe, The New Yorker, as well as bands like Flight of the Conchords, Phish and Tenacious D.
He also does screen printed posters for movies, mostly for the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin Texas. After living in Bellingham WA, Charlotte, VT and Portland, OR, he currently resides in Brush Prairie, WA, next to the house he grew up in.


Portland Center for the Performing Arts Gallery – Main Floor
1111 SW Broadway, Portland, OR
Portland Center for the Performing Arts - Official Website

Reception: First Thursday, August 4th. 5-8pm
Snacks provided by PCPA.
Refreshments available at The Art Bar

Show exhibits the entire month of August.

Presented by guest curators:
Jason Brown (Peoples Gallery, PoBoy Art, The Goodfoot)
Chris Haberman (Peoples Gallery, Chris Haberman Presents)

[scratch]

opens this thurs
few for the show

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opens tomorrow (thurs)
few for the show

[EMEK]

That new Justin Hampton poster of the guy underneath the bridge is amazing...great concept, great illustration...

[Andymac]

you fucking guys kill me. what is it? the water? diesel's farts? Portland rocks!

[scratch]

you fucking guys kill me. what is it? the water? diesel's farts? Portland rocks!

its the water. . .lotta talent in this town

opens tonight
few for the show

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Tomorrow (Thurs) at 11:30 am. . . tune into KBOO 90.7 for interview with Dan Stiles, EMEK, GUYBURWELL, Chris Haberman and myself (Jason Brown) about the show and other poster fun. .

for those of you outside PDX and wanna here it. . . it'll be real-time webstream at

Listen to KBOO Online | KBOO Community Radio via iTunes or Abacast

And the archive version of the show should be posted sometime tomorrow afternoon on the Words & Pictures page: Words and Pictures | KBOO Community Radio

pix of the show i took suck. . i'll take some more later and post. .

[RADAR]

I really need to network better.

[scratch]

Today (Thurs) at 11:30 am. . . tune into KBOO 90.7 for interview with Dan Stiles, EMEK, GUYBURWELL, Chris Haberman and myself (Jason Brown) about the show and other poster fun. .

for those of you outside PDX and wanna here it. . . it'll be real-time webstream at

Listen to KBOO Online | KBOO Community Radio via iTunes or Abacast

And the archive version of the show should be posted sometime tomorrow afternoon on the Words & Pictures page: Words and Pictures | KBOO Community Radio

pix of the show i took suck. . i'll take some more later and post. .

.

[scratch]

extended version of KBOO interview here
Poster Art - the Extended Cut | KBOO Community Radio

pix from opening night
(L->R) Tyler Stout, Chris Haberman, Casey Burns, GUYBURWELL, Mike King, Joanna Wecht, Gary Houston, EMEK, me (Jason Brown)