Word: Art Meets Advertising explores the intersection of the creative experience and everyday life. What is the shared experience encountered when navigating the public realm whether it is the streets of the urban core or the latest social media platform? At CAE our shared experience comes from welcoming artists from throughout Evergreen and throughout the world to create within our walls. Whether it’s a watercolor class, a documentary film screening, or a world-class exhibition like Word: Art Meets Advertising, we are focused on exposing people from all walks of life to the power of art. We are forever endebted to our curators: Chris and Will Krieg—without their vision, this exhibition would never have been possible. David Russell did extensive research and worked closely with Chris in determining the direction of the show. It is a gift to have the phenomenal work of these exhibition artists in our community: Chris Krieg, David Russell, David Conger, Amaury Pdilla, Will Krieg, Mark David Baer & Joe Broxterman. We are also thankful for all of the others who made this show possible: Doug Chapin of Douglas Chapin Photography, Olde’s Garage, Bear Creek Towing, Resilience 1220, National Charity League of Evergreen, Hunter Culberson, David McKee, Kelvin Ventura, and Alex Miller. Please keep this catalog, visit the websites of the artists, and continue to support their artistic endeavors year-round. In turn, CAE will continue to enrich and serve our mountain community by promoting and cultivating the arts in our community through quality educational programs, exhibitions, and events. Thank you for keeping the arts alive in our mountain community!
Lisa Nierenberg Executive Director Center for the Arts Evergreen
Word: Art Meets Advertising is an art exhibition created at the Center for the Arts Evergreen (CAE) in Evergreen, Colorado. CAE is a registered nonprofit that has been in existence for 45 years. CAE’s mission is to enrich and serve our mountain community by promoting and cultivating the arts through quality educational programming, exhibitions, and events. Word: Art Meets Advertising runs from November 7-December 6, 2020. This exhibition would not have been possible without the help of so many artists, businesses, volunteers, and the CAE board and staff. Center for the Arts Evergreen Executive Director: Lisa Nierenberg Director of Exhibitions & Marketing: Sara Miller Events Managers & Administrative Assistant: Jordan Gill Accounting Manager: Tom Maxey Board President: Bryant Robert Curators/Guest Artists: Chris Krieg & Will Krieg Exhibition Artists: Chris Krieg, David Russell, David Conger, Amaury Pdilla, Will Krieg, Mark David Baer & Joe Broxterman Catalog: Written by Sara Miller & David Russell
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The THE line LINE between BETWEEN Art ART & Advertising ADVERTISING The idea for Word: Art Meets Advertising sprang from a conversation that Lisa and I had in May. Most of the world was staying at home due to COVID, and those who were venturing into the streets were heading out with something to say. Protesters were marching, tensions were high, and civil discourse was alive. People were desperate to express their feelings through words, through action, and through art. We met with artists in Evergreen who were using brushes on canvas to sort out their thoughts, and we met with artists in Denver who were painting the walls of buildings or the pavement of cities—broadcasting their emotions with their public art. Art galleries were shuttered and artists were struggling to make a living in the “traditional” ways of the contemporary art world, but public art was booming. In the midst of all of the isolation, artists and designers were bringing art to billboards, to bus stop overhangs, and to city streets to spread messages of hope and support. Driving down I-70 and then into Denver’s RiNo district, I found myself questioning: Are they billboards? Are they murals? Are they advertisements…or are they art? What’s the line between the two? With the ideas of public/gallery art and the large-scale impact of urban art swimming in our heads, we called Chris Krieg of Altitude Murals. Chris is a longtime Evergren resident and has made his living with his hands, “schmearing paint” onto billboards, signs, and canvases across the country. Chris pulled together a crew of like-minded visionaries: David Russell, who is a master of engaging people with his public art projects and murals; David Conger, whose interactive work crosses the lines between architecture, engineering, and art; and can be seen in public projects at Belmar Commons and Yale University; Mark David Baer, whose startling 2-D and video art began brewing during his days as Executive Director of the Monterey Museum, and has blossomed since he began pursuing art full time; Will Krieg, Chris’ son and partner in crime at Altitude Murals, whose trained hand and boundless energy have him creating at all hours of the day and night; Amaury Pdilla, whose mixed-media paintings combine urban ephemera, the gritty textures of the city, and the flowing lines of Greco-Roman sculptures; and Joe Broxterman, whose unshakeable hand has earned him the title in the automotive and sign industry as one of the steadiest pinstripers and letterers of his day. We noticed a common thread with all of these guys—when pushed, most of them shy away from the title of artist. Upon digging deeper, I discovered that many whose work and technique I admire wouldn’t consider themselves artists. Since the inception of the term fine art, critics have drawn a hard line in the sand between art and advertising. Fine art is often respected and critically acclaimed, whereas commercial art might be appreciated and acknowledged, but it’s not likely to hang in the Louvre. Or is it? In 1891, 27-year old Henri Toulouse-Lautrec was commissioned by the Moulin Rouge to design a series of posters promoting the Bohemian nightspot. Toulouse-Lautrec was criticized in the high art world for, “using his art to sell a product.” However, word spread around Paris. 3,000 copies of the lithograph print were disseminated, and the posters captivated the public with their eye-catching design, bold colors, and Japanese-inspired use of silhouettes. Crowds at the Moulin Rouge skyrocketed, and one hundred years later, the few remaining posters from Toulouse-Lautrec’s Moulin Rouge series were part of an acclaimed exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Toulouse-Lautrec wasn’t the only painter who realized he could make a living off of commercial art. Outdoor advertising became the go-to method of spreading the word. Hand-painted billboards were part of a wave of outdoor advertising that was popularized by circuses and theaters in the 1800s. By the end of the century, it was a full-scale industry. Whether it was art or craft, painters across the US were creating eye-catching images in paint. In 1916, illustrator Norman Rockwell painted his first cover for The Saturday Evening Post, the magazine considered by Rockwell to be the “greatest show window in America.” Over the next 47 years, another 321 Rockwell covers would appear on the cover of the Post, and each time sales of the magazine increased exponentially. Rockwell, who painted all of his iconic illustrations in oil paint, never claimed to be an artist but became recognized as one of 20th-Century America’s most enduring artists, straddling both ‘high’ and ‘low’ art. In the 1940s Rockwell had a cultural following in the US, and he was hired to create advertisements for Jell-O and Orange Crush. As Rockwell’s career was winding down in the 1960s and ‘70s, the art movement known as Pop Art was born. Artists such as Andy Warhol and Ed Ruscha, began mass-producing images using the tools of a commercial artist. The lines between commercial and fine art started to blur. Warhol used Campbell soup cans and Brillo Boxes—familiar objects that lulled the viewer into the work—and then startled them with garish colors and time-honored, yet primitive-looking silkscreen techniques. Ruscha, who studied commercial art at Chouinard Art Institute (now CalArts) challenged the relationship between language and images—juxtaposing text and photographs on oversized canvases and using pictorial strategies of graphic design and advertising to transform letters to icons that represented something bigger than themselves. Fast-forward to the late 1990s, and the Digital Revolution had begun. Companies found easier, less costly ways to get their products on buildings and signs. Although, graphic designers were having their career heyday, commercial and fine artists were still butting heads. The art world had made space to combine elements of both commercial and fine art, but art schools still maintained a division between the two. Students were forced to choose between majoring in fine arts or commercial graphic arts when pursuing degrees. The art of hand painting on billboards and hot rods had been pushed to the background in favor of slick, computer-generated productions. Today, only one school in the country, LA Trade Tech, teaches classes in sign painting and hand lettering. In spite of their disappearance from traditional academia, large-scale hand-painted outdoor works have found their way into the 21st-century canon of popular art—street art. Today, Instagram and YouTube have become virtual classrooms, allowing masters of public art to teach their trade secrets to millions of admirers and would-be apprentices. Public art, advertising, and fine art have amalgamated. No longer do fine art critics drive interpretation and understanding...the world of large-scale art has been blown open to critics from all walks of life to interpret or simply appreciate the beauty of the work. As I sit writing this, I’m surrounded by artists (who won’t label themselves that). They are painters, who are bidding on jobs: painting murals on science museums and outdoor gear company headquarters, and — David Russell schooling me in depth and perspective and substrate. Hanging with the crew who created Word: Art Meets Advertising made me realize the line between art and advertising has dropped away. These are artists who make a living by their own hand. Call it art, call it design...call it creation. To them it doesn’t matter what we call it. They find joy in the mere act of moving paint with a brush and allowing people to see things or discuss things in ways they haven’t before. And isn’t that what it should be about?
— Sara Miller, Director of Exhibitions & Marketing, Center for the Arts Evergreen
WHAT’S the WORD? As we explore the categorizations of visual communication, it is apparent that semiotics is at the core of this discourse. Semiotics is an investigation into how meaning is created and how meaning is communicated. Its origins lie in the academic study of how signs and symbols (visual and linguistic) create meaning. It is a way of seeing the world, and of understanding how the landscape and culture in which we live has a massive impact on all of us unconsciously. Word: Art Meets Advertising is an art exhibition that explores the intersection of the creative experience and everyday life. Modern society positions us to navigate the paradigm between art and design. This paradigm is largely based on the etymological departure point of the word art itself. Where does the word come from? What is the root word of art? Some notions may include Art-icle, Art-ificial, or Art-ifact… What is art and who decides what is considered art ontologically? What is the difference between art and design, and why is there a distinction? What do we experience when encountering art and design whether it be in our homes, navigating the public realm or the latest social media platform? Some critics say that art is subjective and design is objective, or design is understood and art is interpreted. The majority of the rhetoric surrounding this everlasting debate lies within intention. Perhaps design has the intention to serve as a solution whereas art has no boundaries? Signs, symbols, icons, and indexes serving as various forms of visual language are commonplace in the advertising industry. However, these visual languages, including design principles, can also be reappropriated in an art context representing place, identity, and interconnectivity. Can art function in multiplicity? Word: Art Meets Advertising aims to represent artworks that straddle the precipice of art’s autonomy and design that functions in everyday life. Furthermore, the discourse surrounding art and design also includes another dichotomy between art and craft. Certainly, one key distinction between craft and high art has always been the status of the individual artist. The high artist has been hailed as a genius, a seer, a path breaker. The craft artist has tended to live in anonymity. Why? People still debate the relative value of art made to be used (crafts and design), and art made to be contemplated (painting, drawing, and sculpture). It’s the utilitarian versus the high art tradition. But why must high mean better? — David Russell, Exhibition Artist & Professor of Art at Otis School of Art & Design
The Magical “Word” Van Resilience 1220 1220 Teen Group
The Word van was a broken-down van donated to CAE by Olde’s Garage in Evergreen. David Russell and Chris Krieg conceived this public art project to serve as a marketing piece for the show and to disrupt people’s daily experience and force them to question their perception of art in public spaces. As this Pepto-Bismol pink van with a giant retro font became art in front of the building, people flocked to CAE to learn more. From far away, the word Word stood out to drivers. Up close, the piece took on an entirely different meaning. The cacophony of smaller words was painted by local Evergreen/Conifer teenagers to represent their feelings about their modern-day existence. Love, rage, acceptance, impulse, temptation, resilience, celebrate, and art. This living piece speaks to a cross section of our local youth and the thoughts that drive them.
Resilience 1220 www.resilience1220.org Resilience1220 provides free counseling services to youth ages 12-20 in the mountain communities west of Denver. Through counseling, support groups and community outreach, we work to raise awareness of the social, emotional, and mental-health issues young adults face, and to provide the necessary life skills to create wellness and resiliency in their lives.
Chris Krieg @chriskriegart @altitudemurals Chris Krieg is an American muralist, artist, and entrepreneur. Over the last 40 years, Krieg has painted murals from New York City to San Francisco where he was an apprentice at Foster and Kleiser and studied under some of the greats in contemporary art. In 1989, Krieg left the big city behind and moved to Colorado with his wife Sue. They had planned to land in Denver but after what was meant to be a quick stop in Evergreen, it didn’t take much for them to realize that this was the place. Krieg continued to travel the country painting billboards, and in 1993, Krieg and his wife started Evergreen Signs, which they built from a small operation in their on-site studio to a commercial property near Main Street. As a fixture in the Denver art community, Krieg has played a major role in the beautification of Denver, painting cornerstone pieces including the legendary Willy Matthews Cowboy on 16th and Larimer, murals at the Denver Pavilions for Cirque du Soleil, the Denver Botanical Gardens, The Breakable Bear at 9th and Colorado and The Climber visible from I-25 and Colorado Blvd. In 2000, Krieg realized it was time to return to art; out came the smaller brushes and a vast collection of works ranging from abstracts to landscapes. After selling Evergreen Signs in 2012, Krieg took a brief hiatus, but it wasn’t long before he had new motivation. His son, Will, was ready to join the family business after following in his father’s footsteps as an apprentice at one of the premier mural studios in NYC. The two started Altitude Murals and have been painting around the country ever since. Not one to sit still, Krieg continues to work on his smaller scale artwork alongside the mural business.
Motel 6 Chris Krieg bulletin enamel paint on sheetrock
From 1973 to 1997, Chris Krieg painted dozens of murals throughout the country. Many of these murals could be found scattered along dusty highways in rural areas of the southwest. Krieg used time-honored strategies and techniques of commercial design to create this giant hand-painted mural, which takes the form of a commercial advertisement in CAE’s gallery. Krieg’s piece incorporates the necessary tools used to create billboards of the 1970s. The hand-powered swing stage, which was a standard piece of equipment for working at height from the 1930s to the late 1980s, but was lost to modern advances in equipment, adds a sculptural and experiential element to the piece.
FRESH CONTENTS Chris Krieg bulletin enamel paint on wood 96 x 216 $2,500
For more than half a century, billboards served as “framed” advertisements, trapped in the confines of the horizontal proportions of the sign’s panel.s According to The American Billboard, “cutout images extending above the billboard itself were the most far-reaching innovation in the 1950s. Cutouts and large painted bulletins in which products and people were given unusual scale and proportion diminished somewhat the framed-pictures style that had been the convention of outdoor advertising for half a century. These extensions, in breaking the frame, developed into the ‘full-bleed’ board without a frame at all.” Fresh Contents reappropriates the styles and branding of a 1950s billboard and the Madison Avenue advertising world and places them in an indoor gallery setting. In using Oriented Strand Board as an artistic canvas and vintage iconography, Krieg has introduced the commercial conventions of size, scale, and symbolism to the artistic world.
Word birdS Chris Krieg oil on canvas 57 x 57 $1,500
Language and letters are powerful tools in art. In 1929, when Rene Magritte put the words, “Ceci n’est pas une pipe.” (“This pipe isn’t a pipe.”) on his painting The Treachery of Images, artists began using text to make a statement and draw out emotion. Krieg conceived of Word Birds while watching his cousin decipher the newpaper game Jumble:The Scrambled Word Game. Pulling crumpled papers from the trash, Krieg saw a codex of 21st-century cartoon/word game culture. The letters floated across the paper—so random, but so precise. Overlaying the text as the central communication vehicle in the painting, Krieg wanted to capture this purposeful abstraction which is an art form in itself...much like the murmuration of starlings or the “hawking” of warblers.
Esthetic Chris Krieg enamel paint and multimedia on wood 27 x 96 $1,500
According to Merriam-Webster, aesthetics—also esthetics—is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. Aesthetic is traditionally used in British English while Esthetic is used in American English. Krieg’s Esthetic speaks specifically to the Light and Space movement of the late-20th century. The first light art appeared at the end of the 19th century, after the discovery of electricity. However, it didn’t catch on as dedicated art form until 1969 when Robert Irwin and James Turrell collaborated on an experimental program at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art called the Art & Technology Program. Their resultant work is said to be part of the Light and Space movement in which alternative materials were employed in the creation of both two- and three-dimensional works of art. In lieu of paint and canvas, or marble and bronze, these artists looked to alternative materials as seemingly mundane as glass and plastic as well as experimenting with newer technologies, particularly polyester resins, cast acrylic, neon and argon lights, influenced by the flourishing aerospace industry. Krieg’s juxtaposition of a painted backdrop with color-changing lights begs the questions: Is it art? Is it industry? Is it beauty?
However the economy was growing, billboard companies had their technical creative departments working overtime to dazzle us with mechanical and electrical innovations to heighten interest in the products displayed or, with improved lighting, give us a better chance to read them at night. Fraser, James “The American Billboard 100 Years.� 1991 Pg. 96
David Conger www.davidcongerstudio.com David Conger grew up in Denver after his parents moved to Colorado in 1953. After receiving his MFA from the Art Institute of Chicago in 1975, Conger started his long career combining fine art and architecture in Connecticut. His first 69-sided sculptural passive solar house in Guilford, Connecticut, was an Architectural Record House of the Year in 1979 and won many national and international awards. In the 1980s, Conger began working on large-scale institutional projects including the Yale Medical Library, the University of Connecticut’s main Homer Babbidge Library, and even the Yale Psychiatric Institute with Frank Gehry. He was the project manager for the Biology/Physics Building at the University of Connecticut that integrated one of the most spectacular pieces of public art ever commissioned there, Jun Kaneko’s soaring atrium walls of hand-built glazed ceramics. After returning to Colorado in 1999, Conger became a Partner and the Director of Design for Continuum Partners in order to plan, design, and build large mixed-use urban infill projects like 16 Market Square in downtown Denver and the Belmar project in Lakewood. At Belmar he had the opportunity to continue designing large-scale public art projects including the multi-media environment Lily Pad Lane, the Over-Roadway Street and Sidewalk Lighting System, the Bones light and sound system over the outdoor skating rink, and many others. Conger has continued his mural design and abstract art painting and has exhibited in many local shows. He is currently under contract with the South Suburban Regional Park and Recreation District to build the public art for their new $61M Recreation Complex in Littleton. The artwork is titled Field of Play and features an almost 2000-square foot interactive computer-controlled color-changing painted mural. Chris and Will Krieg of Altitude Murals are handpainting the work. Conger is currently a Commissioner on the Denver Commission on Cultural Affairs, which acts as an advisory board to Denver Arts & Venues’ cultural programs department. Commissioners are strong advocates for arts and culture, and help promote equity, diversity, and inclusion in the arts.
Huh David Conger acrylic paint on canvas 60 x 48 $950
In searching for the most universal word in all of human language, linguists were surprised to find it was Huh. Huh exists with minor variations on at least five continents and in 35 major languages. It is used most commonly to show that you have not heard or understood something in order to repair broken communication or express surprise. These expressions are at the heart of human vocal interaction. When David Conger found this out, he said, “Huh!” Conger refers to his style of painting as Organic Geometry. He enjoys the feeling of movement and space created by vibrant colors and dynamic shapes interacting with each other. Conger’s trademark swaths of color bring to mind the color blocking techniques of Piet Mondrian or Mark Rothko and the color palette of the UK’s former graffiti writer turned artist, Ben Eine.
David Russell www.davidkentrussell.com David Russell earned his BFA in Painting/Art History from the University of Tulsa. He then completed his K-12 Art Education teacher licensure program at Metropolitan State College of Denver. Russell received his MFA in Public Practice from Otis College of Art and Design in 2011. His thesis and work explore the modernization of the Los Angeles infrastructure, the politics of art in public space, ethical strategies of community engagement, and alternative pedagogical strategies. Russell currently directs the Mobile Mural Lab (MML) with co-founder Roberto Del Hoyo. The MML is a mobile art space that focuses on mural education and production in Los Angeles. (www.mobilemurallab.com)
Jim Dandy David Russell oil/enamel on canvas 41 x 167 $5,000
Jim Dandy was created by artist David Russell as a way to celebrate the community of Westchester in Los Angeles. After World War II, Westchester was a fledgling community just north of what would become Los Angeles International Airport. As a post-war model community, Westchester was originally designed for aerospace and defense workers. Ella Drollinger, a pioneer for women in community development, lobbied to obtain the rights to build a grocery store in Westchester, which she believed was the community hub of any thriving town. That grocery store was Jim Dandy. After the war, Ella was joined by her son, Howard, who was credited with establishing Westchester’s Central Business District, an area that was featured in Life Magazine as “a flourishing commercial district that was helping the surrounding residential area take root in the wake of World War II.” Westchester was the epitome of the American Dream: palm trees and sunny days; freedom machines (cars) to allow people to see the world; a thriving connection to the aerospace industry (Howard Hughes H-1 Racer was built at Charles Babb’s hangar at Grand Central Air Terminal just down the road); and one of the largest airports in the country in your backyard. Jim Dandy combines the nostalgia of mid-century travel posters with the eye-catching techniques of large-format murals. The interplay between the text and visual representations in the piece is reminiscent of some the greats in the travel poster universe: Joseph Binder, a Vienna-trained lithographer who created modern masterpieces for United Airlines and American Railroads; and a powerhouse group of British illustrators known as the “Big 5” (Frank Newbould, Tom Purvis, Austin Cooper, Fred Taylor, and Frank Mason), who were exclusively contracted to design travel posters for LNER (London and Northeastern Railway). Half of the proceeds from the sale of this piece will go to the Westchester Playa Historical Society.
Will Krieg @willkriegart @altitudemurals Will Krieg was born and raised in Evergreen, Colorado, and has been around art all his life. From an early age, Will tagged along to jobs with his dad, acclaimed muralist Chris Krieg. In his early days, Will fashioned an arrow launcher from a firewood stand and a rubber band, and shot an arrow through his dad’s latest work. His dad took the moment in stride and pointed out that the hole gave the painting a story, which is what his craft is all about. Will has carried the art of the story and written a great one for himself–spending time in New Zealand, Australia, and under the hood of more than one car. When Will began focusing on art, his goal became to tell the stories of the people, places, and brands that make the world work. His first ever piece, the Free Climber in Denver was the start of his own story, and inspired him to travel to NYC to learn from best and develop his raw talent in the mecca of the art world. During his time with Colossal Murals, Will worked for top brands such as Adidas, Guinness, and Gucci. Having grown up in Colorado and being an avid outdoorsmen, Will supervised the belay and mural for the North Face in Manhattan’s East Village. Will and the rest of the crew painted the entire mural on belay filmed by drone in the heart of the big city. Will’s time in NYC ran its course early in 2018, and he returned to Colorado where he began painting murals around Denver. Will, with his dad, started Altitude Murals in 2019 with the goal of continuing to tell the world’s stories and write another chapter of their own.
uNTITLED Will Krieg enamel paint on canvas 88 x 60 $3,005.74
The Neo-Pop movement of the 1980s was highly focused on the appropriation or transformation of everyday objects to make them works of art. However, artists like Jeff Koons, who is famous for replicating everyday objects like balloon animals or cracked eggs said, “A viewer might at first see irony in my work ... but I see none at all. Irony causes too much critical contemplation.” Koons’ crucial point is to reject any hidden meaning in his artwork. When questioned about his piece, Untitled, Will Krieg reacted similarly. The painting is part of a twopiece series, which Krieg undertook as a type of in-studio practice. Spending most of his days focused on large format work, Krieg says that the smaller format of pieces like Untitled allows him to hone his technique and track his progression as an artist. “I can put smaller canvases next to each other and compare how I’ve progressed from piece to piece,” Krieg says. The first piece in the series was inspired by a pack of cigarettes he found on the streets of Brooklyn. The L&M piece followed as an exercise in realism, and the practice of capturing light, reflection, and texture.
ESSE QUAM VIDERI Will Krieg enamel paint on canvas 56 x 78 $5,000
Esse Quam Videri is a Latin phrase meaning “To be, rather than to seem.” Its origins are traced to Cicero’s essay titled “Friendship.” Krieg started the painting with the eye, which stares at the viewer head-on, but was looking for a phrase with meaning to complete the piece. To be rather than to seem is perhaps the most representative quote of Word: Art Meets Advertising. Are you a painter? Do you actually practice your craft? Do you get up every day and put paint on the canvas working to improve your tehcnique, your ideas, your artistic life. Krieg is known amongst his peers for his days spent creating art...not talking about it.
The single word, with its unique visual graphic and auditory characteristics, became the sole subject of a number of the artist’s paintings and drawings. “Words are pattern-like and in their horizontality they answer my investigation into landscape. They’re almost not words—they are objects that become words.” https://www.artspace.com/magazine/interviews_features/book_report/ words-thoughts-and-phrases-ed-ruschas-literary-pop-paintings-54782
Amaury Pdilla @amaurypdilla Amaury Pdilla’s earliest childhood memory is of himself at the kitchen table drawing while his mother cooked. All his life, Pdilla has loved being creative. He was the quiet kid in class whose name no one remembered, sitting in the back drawing instead of doing school work. One of his first subjects to draw was a statue of St. Michael. Pdilla loved the saint’s stance, sword in the air with his wings spread wide open about to slay Lucifer. Pdilla’s mother had saint statues throughout their home. She is a traditional Latin woman devoted to faith and the Catholic Church. Growing up Pdilla spent Sundays at church sitting next to his mother, staring at the melancholy celestial faces of Catholic saints. Surrounded by candles, he felt the saints looking down on him, the light of the flames creating dramatic shadows on their faces. He was simultaneously afraid of and intrigued by the these figures. From those early memories grew Pdilla’s fascination for a Greco-Roman style of art with graceful, statuesque figures. He became fascinated by the sculptures of gods and goddesses, and he never tired of admiring these emotional and timeless pieces. Years later, Pdilla found himself in federal prison (for drug conspiracy charges). Alone, and seated for hours at a time, he began revisiting these childhood memories and visions. He was driven to sketch again—creating portraits for other inmates and painting with watercolors and acrylics. It was the first time in Pdilla’s life when he was able to make money off something he had created. Four years later upon his release, Pdilla decided to pursue his passion for fine art as a career. Today he makes his living as a working artist. Based on the belief that you can create anything out of something, Pdilla’s signature works feature distressed materials accented with watercolor or paint-washed illustrations and cryptic typography.
Jalen Amaury Pdilla multimedia on canvas 48 x 37 $4,200
Pdilla sculpts his canvases with different materials that sometimes resemble a subway or industrial decaying wall to add texture and balance to his graceful, sophisticated, godly figures. His artistic representations, and the visual elements he includes in his paintings, portray the streets of New York. Pdilla reappropriates wheat-pasted flyers that represent events in his environment, adds graffiti, and brings to life meaningful people from his life as classical figures. His work is an interplay between classical art and his daily life experience in the streets of Brooklyn. Jalen, the subject of this painting, and Pdilla worked together as servers at a Brooklyn restaurant/bar called Sweetscience. His conversations with Jalen went deep quickly, and the two shared insights about what it takes to make dreams come true and the challenges people encounter in life based on race or sexual orientation. Jalen had a hard upbringing: bullied so severely throughout high school that he missed his graduation due to fractured bones from getting beat up the night before. In spite of the adversity he faced, Jalen was very disciplined and while the rest of the staff went out after work, Jalen went home to work on projects. Eventually his persistence and focus paid off, and he began curating photoshoots for successful known fashion brands.
Isabella 002 Amaury Pdilla multimedia on canvas 14 x 11 $1,000
In his mixed-media paintings, Pdilla uses people he meets as the subject or muse. Pdilla created the Isabella, a multi-piece series that was inspired by his “muse and soulmate.” Three pieces from the Isabella series are displayed in Word. Pdilla brings his subjects to life with washed brush stroke techniques, and he incorporates hints of graffiti, pieces of newspapers or other urban ephemera to reprsent the culture he grew up in. “I still try to keep the graceful, semi-nude, statuesque aesthetic of ancient times, but I mix this with hairstyles, tattoos, and accessories of modern times.” Pdilla and Isabella’s story unfolds under each of the Isabella pieces.
ISabella 003 Amaury Pdilla multimedia on wood 24 x 18 $2,500
Upon Pdilla’s release from prison, on his very first night out, he was seated at a bar by himself— reflecting, enjoying his first whiskey drink in 5 years—while the rest of his friends partied on the other side of the club. A woman sat down next to him. She introduced herself as Isabella and asked if Pdilla was OK because he was seated alone with his head down. Isabella was dressed in an oversized men’s shirt with the side of her head shaved, hands full of large gothic rings and her mouth full of gold.To Pdilla, she looked strong and confident, filled with dominant energy, yet kind and alluring. Pdilla and Isabella immediately connected and talked for a long time. Eventually, Pdilla was pulled away by friends, and when he returned, Isabella was gone. Isabella’s image and the conversations from that night never left Pdilla’s mind. He returned to the same place every weekend hoping to see her again.
ISabella 005 Amaury Pdilla multimedia on canvas 48 x 36 $3,300
Two months later, Isabella found Pdilla on Instagram. They spent every day together: sharing the same passion for art, and discovering that they were like-minded in many ways.The two began dating, they moved in together in Brooklyn, and Isabella helped Pdilla find a job, secure an art studio, and introduced him to the art community in Bushwick, NY. They frequented museums and galleries together. Eventually, the couple decided to take time apart to focus on their individual careers, but they are still very supportive of each other. “Isabella believes in me so much and boosted my confidence. She helped me find myself as an artist, and I owe her so much. She is my soulmate and muse,� says Pdilla.
It is the interplay between the urban environment and the artists who see the city as one giant canvas that captivates the imagination. Never before have we seen public art reach such a scale as we now see. Schiller, Marc & Sara, Seno, Ethel (ED.) “Trespass- A History of Uncommissioned Urban Art� Taschen 2010 Pg. 10
Joe Broxterman www.speedwaygraphicsdenver.com/ Joe Broxterman grew up in Ohio. From an early age, he found himself drawn to race cars he saw at the track. What intrigued him most was the lettering and pinstriping on them. Broxterman had been visiting Colorado since the ‘70s, and in 1983 he moved here to attend the Rocky Mountain School of Art (now Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design) and enrolled in the Sign Painting program. After working at several sign shops, he finally decided it was time to open his own shop. Speedway Graphics was born. In the late-’80s the computer allowed for competitors to mass produce lettering by machine. This all but eliminated the demand for the time-honored skill of hand lettering. It was hard to compete, so Broxterman filled his time pinstriping cars for new car dealers. His shop’s website still says, “In the 1920s and ‘30s almost every car came off the assembly line with a hand-painted pinstripe. Hand-painted pinstripes are still the REAL THINGS. Get a piece of history… get something geuine.” Eventually in the ‘90s Broxterman began custom painting Harley-Davidson Chopper motorcycles. This work led to custom painting big trucks, and Broxterman even added hot rods to the list. These days, something new is always appearing in his shop for him to paint, but lettering and pinstripes will always be his favorite.
Speedway graphics truck panel Joe Broxterman enamel paint on metal 55 x 153 NFS
These panels were originally on Broxterman’s pickup truck, which he used as the shop vehicle for his company, Speedway Graphics. Originally, the truck was two shades of brown. Broxterman created 8-10 versions of original drawings before he settled on the design for the truck seen here. As a mobile advertisement for the business, the panels needed to be flashy, eyecatching, and perfectly executed. Broxterman hand painted every element of the truck: the base color, the black and yellow fade, the pink stripes, and the 3-D lettering. He also applied the gold leaf by hand. The art on this truck served as an advertisement for Broxterman’s business for nearly fifteen years.
Mark david baer www.markdavidbaer.com/ Mark David Baer is a Hollywood screenwriter, novelist, spoken word poet, video artist, humorist, entrepreneur, and painter. While Executive Director at the Museum of Monterey he saw a need for exhibits that could be easily installed, adapt to a multitude of spaces, and scale to budget limitations. To that end, Dance of the Little Bells—a movie for three screens—is part of an immersive multi-medium exhibit designed to be an overwhelming sensory and participatory experience. The show is about the making, meaning, power, and euphoria of art and the role of the artist in these turbulent times. Baer’s premise—imagination is a survival tool—lack of facility cannot be a deterrent—an artist must create a visual language clear enough to be understood—enticing enough to take an audience through the looking glass with them—and be unflinching, with the insight what is out there may also be in you. Dance of the Little Bells is the third installment of a trilogy which began with A Day in May – (The Goat Man Cometh) a contemplation on Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring followed by Another Faun Afternoon (Party at Smarty’s) inspired by the Ballet Russes’ Afternoon of a Faun.
Dance of the little bells Mark David Baer multimedia video
The Dance of the Little Bells is a 5 hour 45 minute movie made for three screens in 56 movements—part of an immersive art exhibit. The film is about a year of painting during the run up to the turbulent 2016 election and the aftermath—a rhyme of the news blended through the prism of the unconscious—a late 1930s road movie set in the near future. Baer’s premise— imagination is a survival tool.
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