PUREHONEY 122

11/25

RUST & WAX: Record Store Day Black Friday, 8am-7pm *DJ’s and vendors in the courtyard!

RESPECTABLE STREET: Welcome To The Black Friday NORTONParadeMUSEUM OF ART: Art After Dark

REVOLUTION LIVE: Andy C GUANABANAS: Joey Calderaio

11/26

RUST & WAX: Small Business Saturday, 11am-6pm *DJ’s and vendors in the courtyard!

REVOLUTION LIVE: I Prevail, Fit for a King

MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: JoJo Myer’s Nerve

RESPECTABLE STREET: Electric State of Mind GUANABANAS: Funkin’ Grateful BAR NANCY: Nil Lara

11/27

MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: Jody McDonald’s Thanksgiving Tea Dance 11/28

REVOLUTION LIVE: Dayglow, Ritt Momney

12/1 BAR NANCY: Birdman Open Jam

7 SEAS MOTEL: Pocket of Lollipops

12/2

REVOLUTION LIVE: Completely Unchained –Van Halen Trib, Jaded – Aerosmith Trib NORTON MUSEUM OF ART: Art After Dark GUANABANAS: Innavision BAR NANCY: Disco AF MATHEWS BREWING: Spred the Dub

12/3

RESPECTABLE STREET: Slothrust, Palomino Blond

CULTURE ROOM: She Wants Revenge MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: Richard Bona NFT Basel Experience REVOLUTION LIVE: Shrek Rave

GUANABANAS: Harper BAR NANCY: Mad World Orchestra

MATHEWS BREWING: 5 Yr Anniversary Party w/ Jose Almonte, Sandman Sleeps, Maximum Friction, One Rebellion, 45 & Tool, Subliminal Doubt ARTS GARAGE: Ann Hampton Callaway

7 SEAS MOTEL: Bitter Lake, Winded, Squidsacks, Mr. E, Nightly Closure, Jay Thomas, Ghostflower

12/4 REVOLUTION LIVE: Moonchild, Raquel

Lily GRAMPS: Drab Majesty MATHEWS BREWING: Bryan Smith ARTS GARAGE: Kat Riggins

12/7

RESPECTABLE STREET: Secrets, Palisades BAR NANCY: Juice Open Decks

12/8

REVOLUTION LIVE: Bobby Shmurda, Rowdy Rebel, GS9 Gino aka Fat Tony BAR NANCY: Stereo Joule

12/9-11

MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: North Beach Music Festival

FRIDAY: Moe., Brandon “Taz” Niederauer, Lemon City Trio

SATURDAY: Lotus, Dopapod, Trouble No More, Doom Flamingo, Keller Williams, Melt, Shira Elias

SUNDAY: Lettuce, Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe, Antibalas, Neighbor, Cool Cool Cool, Guavatron, Afrobeta

12/9

RESPECTABLE STREET: Gimme Gimme Disco SUBCULTURE ALLEY: American Sigh, Toledo, Guy Pal, Lavola

REVOLUTION LIVE: Cyclops Cove Pre Party NORTON MUSEUM OF ART: Art After Dark GUANABANAS: Waist to Chest Christmas Special BAR NANCY: Obsidian, Bleeth, Mold! MATHEWS BREWING: The People Upstairs ARTS GARAGE: Family Tree

12/10

REVOLUTION LIVE: Girl Talk, Hugh Augustine REVOLUTION LIVE: Cyclops Cove After Party RESPECTABLE STREET: Respects Xmas party

THE PEACH: Jazz Night ft. Yvette NorwoodTiger & Band GUANABANAS: Dr. Bacon BAR NANCY: The Kitchen Club

MATHEWS BREWING: 56 Ace Band ARTS GARAGE: Otis Cadillac

12/16

GUANABANAS: Surfer Blood, Miracle Roy

RESPECTABLE STREET: D.R.I.

MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: Miami Beach Rock Ensemble

NORTON MUSEUM OF ART: Art After Dark

PROPAGANDA: American Sigh

BROWARD CENTER: A Day To Remember, Wage War

BAR NANCY: Yacht Rock

MATHEWS BREWING: The Chili Poppers

ARTS GARAGE: Dick Lowenthal’s Big Band ft Lisanne Lyons – Broadway, Blues & Beyond

LAGNIAPPE HOUSE: Bòfré

12/17

RESPECTABLE STREET: Ordinary Boys

REVOLUTION LIVE: Schism – Tool Trib, Lavola Radiohead Trib, Humanity Gone

GUANABANAS: Souljam

BAR NANCY: Fire & Ice

PROPAGANDA: Francois Dillinger-Pablo FunkCtrl+opt

MATHEWS BREWING: Friday at Five

ARTS GARAGE: Anthony Geraci & The Boston Blues All-Stars

EPOCA BREWERY: Humboldt Paxton, Vulgent

LA TROPICAL WYNWOOD: Bòfré

12/18

REVOLUTION LIVE: Thievery Corporation, Emancipator

3RD & 3RD:Y: American Sigh

BAR NANCY: Swamp Rats

MATHEWS BREWING: Jose Almonte ARTS GARAGE: Gianni Organ Trio 12/21

BAR NANCY: Alexa Lash 12/22

MATHEWS BREWING: Spider Cherry

ARTS GARAGE: Tap Dancing Through Auschwitz 12/23

NORTON MUSEUM OF ART: Art After Dark

RESPECTABLE STREET: Litmas

BAR NANCY: Chris Clark

MATHEWS BREWING: The Dark Side of Sol (Pink Floyd Tribute)

ARTS GARAGE: Love and Joy – The Sounds The Bahamas Featuring Togetherness Band 12/24

RESPECTABLE STREET: Goblin Kings Fantasy Ball

ARTS GARAGE: Tap Dancing Through Auschwitz 12/28

BAR NANCY: Amateur Open Stage Burlesque 12/29

RESPECTABLE STREET: Fame on Fire

BAR NANCY: Baraja, Fuakata 12/30

RESPECTABLE STREET: Pride Event

GUANABANAS: The Resolvers

MATHEWS BREWING: The Shake & Products Rage 12/31

MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: Magic City Hippies

RESPECTABLE STREET: Emo Night Brooklyn New Years Eve

GUANABANAS: Spred the Dub

MOONCHILD

by Olivia Feldman

Take three musicians who met studying jazz at college in Southern California, add some sparkling earth-fairy vibes, and you get Moonchild, a trio making intimate R&B and establishing themselves as 21st Century altsoul greats. In ten years together these indie darlings have notched five LPs including this year’s cameo-dotted “Starfruit” and one very delightful NPR Tiny Desk Concert from 2019 with over 4.5 million YouTube views.

Moonchild’s influences are hard to miss: Lead singer Amber Navran’s velvety vocal turn on “Money,” from the Tiny Desk set and the group’s 2019 album, “Little Ghost,” immediately evokes neo-soul songstress Jill Scott — who might feel the same, as Scott has praised the group and brought them tour in 2020 as her opener. The lyric speaks eloquently to hustle culture and Millennial burnout: “There’s coffee in the coffee maker / You’ve always got so much shit to do / Still paralyzed by expectations / A dream’s supposed to get you through.”

Judging by their live-in-studio gigs for Tiny Desk and a Brownswood Basement session in London in 2017 for DJ and record label owner Gilles Peterson, Moonchild love playing live and working together. It’s a treat to watch Navran sing joyfully, keyboardist Andris Mattson lean into his classic Fender Rhodes tones, and triple-threat Max Bryk — keys, reeds, percussion — jamming on another keyboard with a saxophone dangling from his neck, waiting to go.

Aware of themselves as white musicians working in a black idiom, Moonchild also make a point of linking to black-owned businesses through their website and supporting anti-racist organizations including The Bail Project, Theory of Enchantment and Color of Change “Starfruit,” an album about love and its trials, adds guests to the jazzy mix for the first time. Lalah Hathaway, daughter of soul music icon Donny Hathway and an established singer in her own right, adds quiet smolder to Navran’s airy confidential on “Tell Him.” Another next-gen talent, Alex Isley, is a vocal soulmate to Navran on the heartfelt “You Got One,” and rapper Ill Camille drops a candid cameo on the rapturous “Need That.”

Moonchild and Raquel Lily perform 7pm Sunday Dec. 4 at Revolution Live in Fort Lauderdale. thisismoonchild.com

ADAM ALONZO

LOCOS POR JUANA & MIAMIBLOCO

by David Rolland

Miami Beach’s Rhythm Foundation and kindred concert promoters have a twofold mission in South Florida: to support local musicians and expose local audiences to music from across the globe. A pair of upcoming shows at a Rhythm Foundation anchor venue, the recently renamed Miami Beach Bandshell, checks both boxes.

First up is Miamibloco’s Brazilian Social (Dec. 12), a Bandshell Laboratories presentation of “an authentic night of what Rio de Janeiro feels like on any Carnaval night: Dancing, cachaça and friends vibing to the roots of Samba culture.” The music starts with DJing by the Miamibloco OG’s followed by a contingent of percussionists to “hold down the groove all night and transport us to Rio de Janeiro for the evening.”

Up next, Rhythm Foundation presents the return of Miami Latin fusion band Locos por Juana (Dec. 15), who for over two decades now have served a bouillabaisse of rock, hip-hop and reggae stirred into a hearty base of Colombian rhythms like cumbia, champeta, mapale and chande. The current iteration has frontman Itawe Correa backed by guitarist Mark Kondrat, drummer Javier Delgado and bassist David Pransky. For this Bandshell show they also promise some of Miami’s “best horn players, guest vocalists and percussionists”.

Five years ago Locos por Juana had a superstar guest vocalist in hip-hop icon Talib Kweli join them on the song “For the Ladies.” When I spoke to Corra back in 2017 about the collaboration, the singer was over the moon about working with one of his favorite rappers: ”I grew up listening to him in the hip-hop era. Talib’s work with Mos Def in Blackstar changed my life.”

“We sent him the song, and there were no compromises,” Correa said. “He liked the message about how beautiful women can be in any size, any shape, any color.” The band’s newest single, “Redemption,” has a reggae vibe with lyrics sung in Spanish and is just a hint of what’s to come off a forthcoming new album — which Bandshell concert attendees can dance to at this free show.

kicks off 7pm Monday, Dec. 12. Locos por Juana perform 7pm Thursday, Dec. 15. miamibeachbandshell.com

Miamibloco

Brazilian Social

LOCOS POR JUANA

BLACK VIOLIN & STEVEN BANKS

by Carly Cassano

The Kravis Center in West Palm Beach is hosting two amazing acts in December with unconventional approaches to their instruments: Black Violin at Dreyfoos Hall and saxophonist Steven Banks in the Rinker Playhouse

Black Violin are a Grammy-nominated hip-hop duo from Fort Lauderdale that will fill up your emotional cup while expanding your mind. With the vibes of an intimate club or studio, or a classroom, or a main stage like they’ll have with Dreyfoos Hall, Kevin “Kev Marcus” Sylvester on violin and Wilner “Wil B” Baptiste on viola and drums are mixing classical, hip-hop and jazz in exciting new ways.

Like some awesome fusion of soul musician Esperanza Spalding and aleatory maestro John Cage, the sounds are both unexpected and heartwarming, building on the old to create something new. In September they dropped “We Are One,” a hauntingly beautiful collaboration with Grammy-winning gospel group Blind Boys of Alabama, co-written and produced by R&B artist Phil Beaudreau.

Black Violin offer the kind of live experience that goes by in a flash and stays with you long after. Their playing evokes hope and joy — a product of the music as well as the energy that Kev, Wil and their supporting players bring. They are educators as well as entertainers, collectively performing for thousands of schoolchildren since they joined talents in 2004, and introducing classical styles, sounds and instrumentation to young audiences.

Steven Banks is another beautiful rarity: a classical saxophonist with a repertoire of works first written for other instruments. Introduced in the 1840s, the sax is not traditionally a part of symphonic writing or classical ensembles. But it’s one of the most feeling of instruments, and a wonderful conduit in Banks’ hands for the eerie softness of a Romantic piece — an oboe sonata by Saint-Saëns and a cello sonata by Rachmaninoff — and the energetic lilt of Baroque — a flute partita by J.S. Bach. Banks will have exemplary accompaniment for this performance in pianist Xak Bjerken

The Kravis Center in West Palm Beach presents Black Violin, 7:30pm Monday, Dec. 12, and Steven Banks with Xak Bjerken, 7:30pm Wednesday, Dec. 14. kravis.org

MARK CLENNON

BLACK VIOLIN

THIEVERY CORPORATION

by Amanda E. Moore

With their particular genius for universally profound, aptly named and culturally diverse songs, Thievery Corporation are quite possibly an argument for the existence of teleportation. However you migrate, meditate, emulsify or otherwise mind-meld into their music, you’ll find yourself entirely inside of it, fully experiencing these intentionally curated, philosophical dance anthems that circle the planet on currents of soulful yearning and existential wonder. From the poetic production of the Portugueseand Brazilian-inspired “Saudade” to the Francophone dreamscape “Decollage,” Thievery Corporation conjure aural medicine and mystic bossa nova for the transcendental global set.

It’s a sound synonymous with dim-lit, refined nightclubs designed for those with eclectic palates, so it’s no surprise that the Thievery tandem of Eric Hilton and Rob Garza emerged from one such hangout, the beloved Eighteenth Street Lounge in Washington, D.C., where Hilton was a co-owner when he and Garza met in 1995. A record label named for the venue soon followed. From there comes nearly three decades of recordings and remixes in Thievery Corporation’s own psych-dub-ambient vein of EDM and, in their own words, “incendiary live performances” — a claim regularly backed up by concertgoers posting raves afterwards.

A setlist that landed online from an gig in August in California offers a hint to what might be on offer for this winter tour. Songs from the entire discography could pop up, including fan favorites such as “Shadows of Ourselves,” “San San Rock,” “Forgotten People,” “Lebanese Blonde” and “All That We Perceive.” Thievery Corporation will also sound welcomingly familiar to fans of lounge- exotica. The duo exudes vibes and affinities with artists such as Brazilian singer Rodrigo Amarante, French psych-rock band La Femme, French singer Gillian Hills and Belgian-Egyptian artist Tamino as well as the Father of Exotica himself, Martin Denny

Hailing from Portland, Oregon, the DJ Emancipator (aka Doug Appling) is a compatible opener for an evening where trance pulses, psy-chill audio and intelligent dance will mingle in immmersive, recombinant ways.

Thievery Corporation and Emancipator perform 7pm Sunday, Dec. 18 at Revolution Live in Fort Lauderdale. thieverycorporation.com

JEN MALER

GIRL TALK

by Tim Moffatt

Greg Gillis, better known to most of us as Girl Talk, once studied biomedical engineering with a focus on synthesizing animal tissue, and he went with his educated self into the working world fully prepared to contribute in that space. Lucky for us he decided instead it was more fun and interesting to engineer controversy — primarily as a DJ testing the boundaries of sampling, fair use, copyright and intellectual property.

Gillis’ deejaying and music-making landed him in hot water and in the arts pages of The New York Times, lending credence to the outlaw nature of producing mashups for rappers while also recruiting them for his own output. His Girl Talk discography goes back to 2002 — with artwork lifted from a kids’ board game — and he’s worked with dozens of artists in that span, on their records and his. Good collaborators help each other hear things differently, and with Girl Talk the result is genre-defying music that pulls from multiple sources. Gillis’ newest release, ”Full Court Press,” features Wiz Khalifa, Smoke DZA, and Big K.R.I.T. These rappers get the music leaning into trap territory, as is the style du jour for the weed-and-beats set. Whatever your pleasure, the songs are laid back with thick grooves to keep bodies swaying and heads bopping.

Creativity is a form of learning — finding or fabricating the connections between things and ideas in order to acquire new knowledge and expand possibilities. Hip-hop and mashups are as much about locating a shared language across disparate sounds as they are about creating one — the reason here being to summon a new hybrid entity that makes people want to get up and dance.

Girl Talk’s credo continues to be that collage and creative license can come from almost anywhere in music. And with the protections of fair use plus the inclusion of free use samples, there’s no shortage of opportunities to invent without hearing from lawyers at an investment firm that paid millions to monetize an artist’s catalog.

Girl Talk and Hugh Augustine perform 7pm Saturday, Dec. 10 at Revolution Live in Fort Lauderdale.

JOEY KENNEDY

MAGIC CITY HIPPIES

by Abel Folgar

Magic. City. Hippies. Seems innocuous enough when split three ways – and definitely not three words you’d use to describe Miami of late. The magic that once made this city special in quirky ways has been bought, demolished and built over by unscrupulous developers reconfiguring the place for newcomer crypto bros. This rollover raises the dystopian prospect of elites living in clouds above the trash can fires of the locals below.

Maybe nothing so extreme has happened yet, but soaring real estate prices certainly point the way. So it kinda makes sense that in 2015, as the gentrified assault gathered force, a Web-literate band with an anachronistic streak would emerge to level the local musical playing field and embody the Miami we had before CryptoWorldCon and FTX Arena

Because that’s what Robby Hunter, Pat Howard and John Coughlin did. As the Magic City Hippies, the trio has distilled Floridian Tropicalia of yore into a modern alt-funk indie pop experience that sounds as good over brackish bay waters sloshing into hulls as it does in a living room with cocktail ice quietly melting away.

With their latest release, “Water Your Garden,” the trio’s physical displacement across the U.S. during the pandemic yielded a delightful platter of thematic tunes about nourishing oneself and those we love. Being the modern outfit that they are, these enterprising hippies leveraged Spotify to signal-boost the album, issuing monthly singles in the nine months preceding the January 2022 release, and using the app’s native tools to grow their monthly listener count from the middle six figures to more than 1.2 million.

The band’s tech savviness is more than album sales; it’s how you grow and nurture a fan base – one that is very excited for their upcoming 2023 U.S./Canada tour. Before then, Magic City Hippies will treat their hometown to a proper New Year’s Eve bash and a sound that tips locals to the possibilities of a future that can still be rewritten.

Magic City Hippies with The Hails and Cannibal Kids perform New Year’s Eve, 8pm Saturday, Dec. 31, at Miami Beach Bandshell in Miami Beach. magiccityhippies.com

PAUL CITONE

SECRETS

by Tim Moffatt

Secrets are a post-hardcore and metalcore band from San Diego, formed in 2010, with the distinction of getting “extreme” — their word — music on to the Billboard 200, a chart feat not often achieved by bands of their stripe.

But I don’t know if we should trust these guys. Are they keeping secrets? What kind? Secrets amongst friends are bad — secrets want to be told. They must be told! To keep one is to have the weight of the world on your chest. What are they up to, these secretive fellas? Because hoarding information is rarely a good sign.

Here’s what we do know: Secrets have experienced enough turnover across five albums to require a spreadsheet to make sense of it all. It’s like an undercover operation that presents music as its public face while on missions to retrieve things, and each outing requires new personnel. That may lean a little heavy into conspiracy, but the pieces fit.

Secrets fifth and latest LP, “The Collapse,” on Velocity Records, consists of pre-pandemic and mid-pandemic material addressing the full circuit of “anxiety, depression, addiction, loss and hope,” to quote the band. “We wrote this album in one of the most confusing times we’ve ever experienced,” they explain, “but we believe that the best art comes from times of struggle and this collection of songs proves that.”

The closing track, “Fade Away,” mourns singer Aaron Melzer, a bandmate in 2013-2015 who passed away in 2020. It’s a powerful reminder that band relationships are among the closest a person can have. Being a working band is hard. Time on the road can take its toll. Add external relationships and other competing needs that complicate musicmaking, and troubles often follow.

So perhaps Secrets are being radically transparent, sharing the joy of playing music with as many like-minded individuals as possible while the opportunity is there. They aren’t keeping secrets; they are the secret. Theirs is the longevity found in durable relationships. Tell us more — maybe don’t keep that a secret!

Secrets with Palisades and Archetypes Collide play 6pm Wednesday, Dec. 7 at Respectable Street in West Palm Beach. secretsofficialband.com

SHE WANTS REVENGE

by David Rolland

The post-punk Southern California duo She Wants Revenge arrived in 2004 on the short list of aughts bands daring to flex sentence-length names such as We Were Promised Jetpacks and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. With their dark atmospherics and (comparatively) terse moniker, singer/guitarist Justin Warfield and multi-instrumentalist Adam Bravin drew comparisons to Joy Division and Depeche Mode. But it was Warfield’s sinister rat-a-tat-tat lyrical delivery that really set them apart in the mid-2000’s indie rock boom.

She Wants Revenge’s 2006 self-titled debut album was sci-fi noir told in twelve chapters with beats you could dance to; its dozen songs sounded both futuristic and as if lifted out of a time capsule from a goth club in 1980. The titles wore their influences on their black sleeves: “Tear You Apart” recalling the Joy Division’s touchstone, “Love Will Tear Us Apart”; “Out of Control” invoking Joy Division’s “She’s Lost Control.”

Their 2007 followup, “This Is Forever,” had hypnotic moments including the opening instrumental, “First, Love,” and the driving “Written in Blood,” but didn’t capture the zeitgeist like their debut, though it is well worth hearing today. The long absence that followed left the Joy Division space uncontested for Interpol to fully occupy. SWR’s most recent album, 2011’s “Valleyheart,” found Bravin emoting more like Bono than Ian Curtis, which could be taken as criticism or praise depending on how firmly you believe that Warfield’s dire monotone was the beating heart of She Wants Revenge’s sound.

It’s been almost a generation since “She Wants Revenge,” the album, came out, and its tunes inspire their own nostalgia harking back to flip phones, MySpace and Netflix mailers.

For the current comeback tour the duo has expanded to a quintet to give the songs the full replication of what was once heard on compact disc — from back when musical obsessions were more up close and personal, cyberstalking was still a novelty, and those “… Trail of Dead” guys from Austin, Texas were the original champs of the extended band name.

She Wants Revenge and D’Arcy perform 7:30pm Saturday, Dec. 3 at Culture Room in Fort Lauderdale. shewantsrevenge.com

TYLER CURTIS

BUNKT_ IS BRIAN WAGONER

by Veronica Inberg

Brian Wagoner, known in the art world as Bunkt_, is no stranger to the brutal and ugly parts of life. His artist statement online cites a litany of personal demons — “addiction, anxiety, depression, Crohn’s disease, cancer, divorce, etc.” — and says, “These experiences nearly broke me.”

Then, a few years ago at age 44, he discovered art. “Through destruction, building things from ruin, taking trash and making it whole, I have found a way to heel [sic] and to express myself,” he writes. “My end product is often ugly, bruised and beaten. But I feel they are also whole again, mysterious and interesting.”

With his pursuit of this passion and no previous forays into the field, this self-taught outsider, the PureHoney featured artist for December 2022, draws closer to the ever-moving targets of happy and healed. “Art is limitless,” Wagoner says in an interview with PureHoney. “It helped me discover a whole new part of myself and makes me feel free.”

A teacher and counselor by education and professional training, Wagoner previously spent time as a wilderness counselor for children who struggle in standard school environments. He was good at his job, skilled at reading people and building relationships. But the work was often grueling: Kids working through their own demons would spit on him and kick him, using Wagoner as a punching bag. The emotional, physical and psychic demands of his role led to burnout and fueled other pathologies.

As a new dad and husband he at one point found himself with a stark choice between family and addiction. Art that reflects on his battles helped him find a path to sobriety and stability. His portfolio is populated with dementedlooking, monstrous figures which represent his own demons and ours. Some of these monsters are symbols of politics, religion and the tug of war around basic human rights that plays out daily in our intensifying culture wars, Wagoner says. Others embody greed, power, fear, and things that haunt and chase all of us through our lives.

One concern represented in his work is the threat to his young daughter’s right to her own body posed by the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, which established abortion as as right. Jagged-toothed creatures chasing each other in his canvasses express his fear of the country’s direction and his anxiety about political disagreement turning violent.

This focus on aggression and systemic breakdown is further manifested in materials that Wagoner breaks apart, tears up, burns, rips, and then staples and glues back together. Oftentimes these repurposed materials are old paintings that no longer have any use to him and become part of something new. Wagoner finds things that he forgot about altogether then reuses them for finished pieces; in a nutshell he creates visual representations of how he feels about his experiences and his environment. “I hit rock bottom in life and am picking up those pieces to rediscover myself as a creative person,” he says. “I find the ugly pieces and do something interesting with them — it is a thrill for me to rebuild myself.”

The process of rebuilding a life ripped apart is not pleasant or pretty, which is why Wagoner’s work aims to be the antithesis of those characteristics. Tempting though it might be to aim for beauty and perfection, its opposites are often where art produces insights. Wagoner has said he is not interested in viewing, or making, art that doesn’t have something important to say beyond its aesthetic likability. And why would he? Wagoner is drawn to messier things, like the crumbling walls of Boston’s street art scene that spoke to him even before he became an artist himself. Wagoner finds his best work is done in chaos, blasting the music of the punk rock trio Minutemen in his studio.

Where there is pain and trauma, there is also opportunity for catharsis. Viewing a Bunkt_ allows the viewer to work through their conflicts, finding power and meaning in the cardboard scraps and rescued trash repurposed as elements of art. We’re invited on this journey with him, through suffering, despair and — ultimately — recovery. The work and the story behind it are his own, but they resonate with us all.

Find Bunkt_ at bunktartstudio.com and instagram.com/bunkt_