PUREHONEY 125

3/1

KRAVIS CENTER: Sarah McLachlan >>>

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BAR NANCY : Juice! Open Decks

PROPAGANDA: Queen & King Reggae

3/2

KRAVIS CENTER: Janice Carissa

BAR NANCY : Hardcore For PUNX

3/3

RESPECTABLE STREET: Thelma & the Sleaze, Hijas De La Muerte, Tracy City

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KRAVIS CENTER: Alonzo King LINES Ballet

THE PEACH: Victor DiPilato Art Opening

STUDIO 6 at The Peach: “Jawbones & Other Delights” by Dott Schneider

MIAMI BCH BANDSHELL: Children’s Voice

NORTON MUSEUM: Art After Dark

KILL YOUR IDOL: Vision Video, Secret

Shame, Obsidian

GUANABANAS: Brett Staska

ARTS GARAGE: Frank Del Pizzo

PROPAGANDA: Bottomfeeders, Existence has Failed, Snake Father, Yosemite in Black, Grasping at the Shadows

3/4

KRAVIS CENTER: DRUMLine Live

MIAMI BCH BANDSHELL: Global Cuba Fest

RESPECTABLE STREET: Mustard Plug, Stop the Presses, Spred the Dub

THE PEACH: March Art Walk> Live Music, DJs, Vendors, Upcycle Party & Swap Meet

CULTURE ROOM: Queensryche, Marty Friedman, Trauma

ARTS GARAGE: Anthony Nunziata

BAR NANCY: Bliss / Pandora Party

PROPAGANDA: Luxrem, Exigent, Moment of Violence

3/5

ARTS GARAGE: A Tribute to James Brown

3/6-12

VIRGINIA KEY: Virginia Key Grassroots Festival of Music & Dance ft Donna the Buffalo, Dayme Arocena, Marlow Rosado, Ram Haiti, Jorge Glem, The Bones of JR Jones, Munir Hossn, Cortadito, Eva Peroni, Pepe Montes Conjunto, Richie Stearns, Machaka, Jose Albizu Jazz Sextet, Tand, The Resolvers, Cosmic Collective, Afrobeta, Miami Bloco, Fabi, Matthew Sabatella String Band Tamboka, Rebel Love, School of Rock N. Miami, Living Arts Dancewave, Vicious Fishes, Maddy Walsh & Miami Whizzdom, Don Martyr >>> READ IN PUREHONEY

3/7-12

KRAVIS CENTER: Pretty Woman

3/7

CULTURE ROOM: Less than Jake

3/9-10

KRAVIS CENTER: DREAMERS: Magos

Herrera, Brooklyn Rider

3/9-12

HISTORIC HAMPTON HOUSE: Haint Blu

3/9

RESPECTABLE STREET: Texas Hippie Coalition

REVOLUTION LIVE: Epik High

BAR NANCY: Stereo Joule

PROPAGANDA: Headfoam, Rude Television, Ruffans, Bloom Dream

3/10

MIAMI BCH BANDSHELL: Cuban Classical Ballet

RESPECTABLE STREET: Psyclon Nine

NORTON MUSEUM: Art After Dark

ARTS GARAGE: Nestor Torres

BAR NANCY: Otto Von Schirach, Bermuda Triangle Family

PROPAGANDA: Darkwave Disco Party

3/11

HOLLYWOOD ARTSPARK: The Soul Rebels, Erica Falls

MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: Miami Beach

Youth Music Festival

RESPECTABLE STREET: MegaRave

CULTURE ROOM: Nonpoint, Blacktop Mojo

ARTS GARAGE: Nestor Torres

BAR NANCY: The Kitchen Club

PROPAGANDA: Butterbrain, Fuakata!, Hijas

De La Muerte, Billy Doom is Dead

3/12

ARTS GARAGE: Veronica Lewis

BAR NANCY: Blues Jam

3/14

HARD ROCK LIVE: Cheap Trick >>> READ IN PUREHONEY

MIAMI BCH BANDSHELL: AFROROOTS

Fest ft Amadou & Mariam, Cortadito, DJ LeSpam

3/15

CULTURE ROOM: They Might Be Giants

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KRAVIS CENTER: Bernadette Peters

BAR NANCY: Alexa Lash

3/16

CULTURE ROOM: They Might Be Giants

MIAMI BCH BANDSHELL: Kaylan Arnold

BAR NANCY: Ricky Valido Country

3/17

RESPECTABLE STREET: Clan of Xymox, Bellwether Syndicate, Astari Nite >>> READ IN PUREHONEY

MIAMI BCH BANDSHELL: J-Boog >>> READ IN PUREHONEY

KRAVIS CENTER: Jerry Seinfeld

NORTON MUSEUM: Art After Dark

THE PEACH: Doug Motel Artist Seminar

CULTURE ROOM: moe.

3/18

CULTURE ROOM: Pepper, Joe Samba

ARTS GARAGE: Latin Groove Project

BAR NANCY: Mary Karlzen

3/19

KRAVIS CENTER: Zurich Chamber Orchestra

ARTS GARAGE: Beautiful Loser, Bob Seger Trib

3/22

REVOLUTION LIVE: Skid Row, Buckcherry, No Resolve >>> READ IN PUREHONEY

BAR NANCY: Natures Fury, Loui Daniels

3/23-24

KRAVIS CENTER: Mark De Clive-Lowe: MOTHERLAND

3/23

MIAMI BCH BANDSHELL: New Found Glory, Leanna Firestone

BAR NANCY: 898 Life : Lamebot

3/24

RESPECTABLE STREET: RiZe, MRSA, Re-Birth, World Eater

NORTON MUSEUM: Art After Dark

CULTURE ROOM: Guster

BAR NANCY: Breaking Sound

3/25

RESPECTABLE STREET: Weeping Wound, Downswing, Enox, Sever the Memories

CULTURE ROOM: The Winery Dogs

ARTS GARAGE: Steve Leslie Sings James Taylor

BAR NANCY: Roxx Revolt and The Velvets

PROPAGANDA: Vitalis, World I See, Not Enough Space, Viscaya, Further North Further South

3/25-26

KRAVIS CENTER: Matisyahu

3/26

MIAMI BCH BANDSHELL: Miami City Ballet

CULTURE ROOM: Mod Sun, Stand Atlantic, Tom the Mail Man

ARTS GARAGE: Nick Schneleben

3/27

MIAMI BCH BANDSHELL: Devendra Banhart

>>> READ IN PUREHONEY

3/30

REVOLUTION LIVE: Unwritten Law, Authority Zero, Mercy Music

3/31

RESOURCE DEPOT: WORN Artists Reception

RESPECTABLE STREET: SUBMISSION

ARTS GARAGE: Dirty Work (Steely Dan Trib)

4/1

MATHEWS BREWERY: 561 Music Fest 2

4/14-15

PROPAGANDA & RUDY’S PUB: Postcards from Paradise ft. FRANKIE

ROSE (Ex-Crystal Stilts, Vivian Girls, Dum Dum Girls) SCOTT YODER (Ex-Pharmacy) plus Donzii, Haute Tension, Spirit the Cosmic Heart, Room Thirteen, Liquid Pennies, Sagittarius Aquarius, Zippur, The Dreambows, Rude Television, Za Za, Nervous Monks, Thorns, Gold Dust Lounge, The Honeycreepers, Spred the Dub, Man Made Weather

>>> READ IN PUREHONEY

SEND YOUR EVENTS! PROMOTE! events@purehoneymagazine.com ads@purehoneymagazine.com

J BOOG

by Amanda Moore

The rise of J Boog in contemporary reggae is a story that makes you think America’s melting pot is still bubbling. Born to a Samoan-American family in Long Beach, California and raised in the tough precincts of Compton, the young Jerry Fealofani Afemata grew up on reggae, hip-hop and the streetwise ska-punk of Sublime before charting his own path. Working 12-hour shifts at one of the oil refineries that still dot greater Los Angeles, Afemata pursued music in his off hours, singing at local dives and recording demos of his own tunes.

It took a vacation trip to Hawaii for his break to materialize. There, he met the Fijian singer and actor George “Fiji” Veikoso, a cultural hero in the Polynesian world and a Hawaii institution. Impressed by Afemata’s demo, Fiji helped him make his first album as J Boog, 2007’s “Hear Me Roar,” and from then on the rest of the world tuned in.

J Boog has honed an upbeat, new-age style of reggae over three full-length albums and three EPs, combining a sultry island vibe — Caribbean and Polynesian — with strains of hip hop and soul. J Boog’s most-streamed Spotify track, “Let’s Do It Again,” sounds like a summit: Picture Kygo’s remix of the Marvin Gaye classic, “Sexual Healing”; Shaggy’s “Angel” (itself a dancehall mashup of classic rocker Steve Miller and singer-songwriter Chip Taylor); and a dash of American reggae band Soja. Close listeners might pick up on similariites to the French-Canadian reggae band Kaliroots.

From the raspberries that greeted Soja’s Grammy win in 2022, when they bested a field of nominees from reggae’s homeland, we know it’s not universally accepted that non-Jamaicans might lay claim to a genre associated with anti-colonial struggle. But the Samoan oil rig worker from Compton seems well clear of that dispute. As of press time, the J Boog winter tour schedule was a flurry of blinking “sold out” and “low ticket alert” banners, and fans online were already clamoring for extra dates and cities, and age waivers on 21-and-over venues.

J Boog and opener Likkle Jordee perform 8pm Friday March 17 at Miami Beach Bandshell. jboogmusic.com

Trick were essentially pop rock punk, before The movie cover was an introduction for many rockers with punk, pop and power ballad stripes for decades. Their songs are all over film and Trick play covers — like Fats Domino’s “Ain’t variation on Big Star’s “In The Street” for “That

From humble beginnings in Rockford, Illinois were acclaimed as the “American Beatles 1970s — a mania that boomeranged back live album, “At Budokan.” With their visual spent the next decade bobbing up and overtook them. Even then, they kept at through lineup shuffles — for a loyal base that thriving on oddball energy, snappy songs music supervisors and video game programmers

In 2016, Cheap Trick entered the Rock & Roll and memories at the induction ceremony Robin Zander promised, “You can write ‘retirement’ performed on “The Late Show with Stephen album, “In Another World.” (They also wrote here they are in 2023, on tour and true to Cheap Trick perform 8pm Tuesday, March cheaptrick.com

CHEAP TRICK

by Amanda Moore

Eighties and nineties babies will remember “I Want You To Want Me” being performed by alt-rockers Letters to Cleo on a high school rooftop over the end credits of “10 Things I Hate About You.” Channeling the song’s authors, Cheap Trick, the closing scene from that much-loved ’90s indie romance also captured something essential about that ’70s band: Cheap before the term was even coined.

many viewers to Cheap Trick. But these legacy stripes have occupied the collective playlist and television soundtracks. And when Cheap “Ain’t That a Shame” or their self-interpolating That ’70s Show” — they make more hits.

Illinois to a sensation in Japan, Cheap Trick Beatles” in the Japanese press in the late back to the U.S. with the band’s milestone visual pairing of freaks and geeks, Cheap Trick and down the charts until trends eventually it, recording and touring — sometimes that added new admirers, a veteran band songs and a back catalogue that Hollywood programmers like.

Roll Hall of Fame, and amid the thank-yous from the four founding bandmates, singer ‘retirement’ on my tombstone.” In 2021 they Stephen Colbert” to promote their 20th studio wrote “The Colbert Report” theme music.) And their word.

14 at 8 pm at Hard Rock Live in Hollywood.

upcoming sh ows

march 9

EPIK HIGH

march 22

SKID ROW & BUCKCHERRY

THE GANGS ALL HERE TOUR WITH NO RESOLVE

march 30

UNWRITTEN LAW WITH AUTHORITY ZERO & MERCY MUSIC

april 2

LUCKI WITH EMM TRIPLIN

april 8

COLD WITH DIVIDE THE FALL, AWAKE FOR DAYS, SYGNAL TO NOISE & DEATH WALLEY DREAMS

april 10

SKINNY PUPPY THE FINAL TOUR WITH LEAD INTO GOLD

april 11 WAGE WAR AT THE BACKYARD WITH NOTHING,NOWHERE & SPITE

April 12

ELLA MAI AT THE BACKYARD

april 16

WHITECHAPEL WITH ARCHSPIRE, SIGNS OF THE SWARM, & ENTHEOS

april 19 MAC AYRES

april 20 THE PLOT IN YOU WITH HOLDING ABSENCE, THORNHILL, & BANKS ARCADE

april 21 BE OUR GUEST DISNEY DJ NIGHT

may 1

VV NEON NOIR TOUR

may 7

may 10

100 GECS AT THE BACKYARD 10,000 GECS TOUR 2 WITH MACHINE GIRL

VALLEY WITH AIDEN BISSETT may 16

VOIVOD WITH IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT may 25

HIPPIE SABOTAGE THE TRAILBLAZER TOUR

THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS

by Olivia Feldman

“For everyone who only just arrived / A quick synopsis / If you came late and missed the commotion / And you wonder what was all that / Here’s the recap.”

As promised, “Synopsis of Latecomers” — from the 2021 album, “Book,” by the brainy Brooklyn-born duo They Might Be Giants —- goes on to mention various occurrences of the film-at-eleven or please-shelter-in-place variety. Though it never explains them, “Latecomers” also works as a crash course for anyone who might only just now be coming around to They Might Be Giants.

Forty-one years along, undefeated eccentrics John Flansburgh and John Linnell are avatars of what used to be called “college rock,” but they’re much more than that. They’re artists who have never lost their capacity for humor or wonder. Anyone who grew up in the ’90s might have watched their goofy videos on Nickelodeon or heard them wailing “Boss of Me,” theme song of the dysfunctional family TV sitcom “Malcolm in the Middle.” Their lyrics can be delightfully corny, but never so much to make you roll your eyes, or unsettling, like on “Synopsis of Latecomers,” but never so much to creep you out. On their current tour, they’re playing every track of their 1990 album, “Flood,” best known for a bopping update of the 1950s mnemonic ditty, “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” and the unabashedly nerdy “Birdhouse in Your Soul,” the latter containing a proposal that perhaps only TMBG could have pulled off: “Not to put too fine a point on it / Say I’m the only bee in your bonnet.”

Album tours are all the rage, but TMBG have more standing than most bands to indulge a little affectionate nostalgia. Plus they’re promising a two-set performance with plenty of fun and games, and a survey of their entire discography. While tufts of gray are sprouting on the coifs of both Flansburgh and Linnell, their energy is still undeniably youthful. Their clever wordplay and can’t-miss hooks resonate with music fans young and old — Millennials, Gen-Xers and even a few grumpy Boomers. They Might Be Giants perform 7pm Wednesday March 15 and Thursday, March 16 at Culture Room in Fort Lauderdale. theymightbegiants.com

by “Freak genre. it’s

few chords, and some heartfelt lyrics to sing. all kinds of possibilities open up.

Early in the 21st Century, Devendra Banhart a freak folk movement. His first pair of releases have a bit of an outsider artist element to The Moldy Peaches. And Banhart’s rule breaking Me Oh My” extended to just about everything released two months apart, totaling 46 tracks just under five minutes. You couldn’t count verse-bridge-chorus structure to a Devendra almost always something catchy to every that kept your interest.

As the years and musical catalog progressed, dropped a bit of the freak. His pretty voice were showcased in more conventional templates. Elliott Smith or, when he let his freak flag fly

The singer spent some of his formative years dot his wide repertoire. Banhart made news the U.S. State Department’s “Do Not Travel” Fest in the city he once called home, Caracas. that economic and political hardship didn’t saw these kids … they basically created their didn’t meet a single person that didn’t have inspiration for new songs — whether they’re Devendra Banhart with opener Maye performs Beach Bandshell. devendrabanhart.com

THE BARDOS

Global Cuba Fest

SAT

DEVENDRA BANHART

by David Rolland

“Freak folk” is such a wonderful name for a genre. Everyone knows what folk music is; it’s a guy or a girl with an acoustic guitar, a sing. You add “freak” to the description and

Banhart got singled out as one of the leaders of releases in 2002, with their lo-fi boom hiss, did to them reminiscent of Daniel Johnston or breaking on “The Charles C. Leary” and “Oh everything presentational: two full-length albums tracks that ran anywhere from 12 seconds to count on there being a traditional verse-chorusDevendra Banhart composition, but there was one of the songs that dripped out of him

progressed, Banhart leaned more into folk and voice and solid guitar playing and songwriting templates. He began sounding more like fly into psychedelia, Donovan in Venezuela, and Spanish-language songs news in 2022 when he and his band ignored Travel” advisory for Venezuela to play Cusica Caracas. Banhart told NPR he was impressed didn’t stop Venezuelans from creating art: “I their own, like, hyper-individualistic culture. I have their own band or brand.” It sounds like they’re freaky or not is up to him.

performs 7pm Monday March 27 at Miami

Afro Roots Fest:

Infusing blues riffs and melodic pop hooks into traditional Malian music, creating rich sonic tapestries that are intensely joyful while retaining the muted cool of indie rock.

TUE

THU

by A heart may well-known causes

singer of the consoling anthem “Angel” is rescue ad campaign from the ’00s (which camping-themed Super Bowl ad for Busch

Born in Canada and raised by adoptive parents, as a pre-schooler and signed her first record model citizenship ever since. McLachlan

“Fumbling Towards Ecstasy” in 1993 and “Surfacing into Lilith Fair, a festival tour of women artists founded and championed.

Conservatory-trained, she went on to open offering free instruction to at-risk kids. During for food banks and the Red Cross, and put Canadians after a man went on a shooting Nowadays the honorary notation “OC OBC British Columbia — trails her name almost She hasn’t released a new studio album since tour, going by recent set lists, will be a greatest-hits “Ice Cream Song”) and moody light rock there’s no doubting that this Canadian attractive music and helps people and pets, zeitgeist. If she just wants to play fan favorites, wait, and anyways McLachlan once said particular religion.”

Sarah McLachlan plays 7pm Wednesday Hall in West Palm Beach. sarahmclachlan.com

SKID

by Being generally present recording the aren’t on duress

Consider imagine are then have abrasive

band can survive its metal-ness, and Skid Row

Skid Row used to be fronted by the leonine Bach hasn’t been in that band since the ’90s. primal version of the group that made the nuggets such as “18 and Life,” “I Remember

Skid Row’s new studio album, “The Gang’s All amalgamation of ’80s guitar rock a la Sunset slathering of AC/DC boogie. The riffs drive and of a good time is drinking beers and raising hell, your party mix with this new clutch of tracks.

Skid Row founders Rachel Bolan and Dave “The decades and multiple singers. Say hello to wielder Erik Grönwall, who replaces ZP Theart replaced Bach. In 2023 Skid Row look to be sound and aesthetic. For a band that didn’t punk enough to be grunge, and were too glam crowd, Skid Row may have finally found their Skid Row and Buckcherry play 7pm Wednesday Fort Lauderdale. @officialskidrow

SARAH MCLACHLAN

SARAH MCLACHLAN

by Tim Moffatt

A pop-rock singer with gold records and a heart to match, Sarah McLachlan may or may not also be a saint. But she is surely as well-known today for pet rescue and other causes as she is for music. The writer and also the caring narrator of an iconic pet (which she sportingly sent up this month in a Busch Light beer).

parents, McLachlan started playing music record deal in her teens. It’s been music and McLachlan broke through with a pair of albums, Surfacing” in 1997, and parlayed the latter artists and female-fronted bands that she

open a string of music schools in Canada

During the pandemic she played fundraisers put her music online to console grief-stricken shooting rampage in her native Nova Scotia. OBC” — for Order of Canada and Order of as often “Grammy winner” precedes it.

since 2016’s “Wonderland,” and her current greatest-hits lap of wistful piano pop (“Adia,” rock (“Building a Mystery,” “Possession”). But lady with the velvet voice, who makes pets, has a claim on the singer-songwriter favorites, we’re there. Formal canonization can in a Reddit AMA, “I don’t adhere to any Wednesday March 1 at the Kravis Center’s Dreyfoos sarahmclachlan.com

SKID ROW

by Tim Moffatt

Being in a band can be difficult. There are generally several different personalities that present themselves in the practice room, recording studio or tour bus. And that’s just the bass player … Seriously, though, why aren’t sociologists doing longitudinal studies on human interaction and creativity under duress by watching bands?

Consider Skid Row, formed in 1986, and try to imagine the ups and downs there. Bandmates are like lovers and sometimes love is hell and then it’s just gone. And while metal doesn’t have a monopoly on grandiose, volatile or abrasive personalities, it’s still metal. But a Row are proof.

leonine screamer Sebastian Bach but, news flash, ’90s. What Skid Row is today, is actually a more charts way back when with headbanging Remember You” and “Youth Gone Wild.”

All Here” — their first in 16 years — is a decent Sunset Strip-era Mötley Crüe with a healthy and the backbeats pound, and if your idea hell, you could do a lot worse than to refresh tracks.

“The Snake” Sabo have hung tough through to former Swedish “Idol” winner and umlaut Theart, who replaced Johnny Sollinger, who be moving into the boogie-rock, biker outlaw fit with the poodle-metal scene but weren’t glam for the new wave of British heavy metal their happy place.

Wednesday March 22 at Revolution in

TRACY CITY

by Abel Folgar

A self-described “gang of salty broads revving the engines of garage rock,” Tracy City from New York, New York by way of South Florida are a punch in the nose of anyone who ever thought, in the band’s own words, that “women over 40 can’t f*ck things up.”

Frontwoman Katrina del Mar is best known as a photographer and underground filmmaker. But the chaotic state of the world — and a movie project — led her to form a band. She recruited guitarist Monica Falcone, bassist Betsy Todd, and South Florida legend Genny Slag — of Slag and Pank Shovel fame — on drums. Tracy City is del Mar’s first band.

“It’s kinda crazy after all this time,” del Mar tells PureHoney. “When I was younger, it seemed like practically everyone I knew was in a band except me.” She turns out to be a formidable lead singer even if she’s too humble to say so: “I know I’m not a good singer, but I have a little bit of style and performing is fun for me.”

Del Mar’s transition to performing was eased by meeting Slag. While living in Delray Beach, del Mar was fresh out of rehab and Slag was her entree into South Florida’s thriving underground. “I’d been to the hardcore matinees at CBGB’s, copped drugs in Tompkins Square Park, drank with Joey Ramone, so you know, they all thought I was hard as fuck, but these kids scattered around West Palm went really hard.”

Slag has had a resurgence from the Gen Z punks rediscovering a demo tape of her hardcore namesake. Slag recollects performing with just about everyone in South Florida, rattling off a long list of local greats including LOAD, Chickenhead, Livid Kittens and Postface. “South Florida’s always had an amazing and diverse music scene,” Slag tells PureHoney. “There are a lot of cool people making cool music and no one sounds the same.”

Tracy City perform 9pm Friday, March 3 at Respectable Street in downtown West Palm Beach with Thelma & The Sleaze and Hijas de la Muerte; and 9pm Saturday, March 4 at the Poorhouse in Ft. Lauderdale with Cool Hand Luke. tracycityband.xyz

CLAN OF XYMOX

by Abel Folgar

Finding inspiration and sustaining passion for music are more than just professional obligations to Clan of Xymox vocalist and guitarist Ronny Moorings. For this Dutch icon of darkwave, they’re part of who he is.

“To me music is as important in my life as breathing,” Moorings says in an interview with PureHoney. “There are always songs boiled-up inside of me waiting to come out. I write and record as I go along and see where it takes me; if it gets too hard to do, then it means it does not inspire me to continue. It should come easy, and nothing should be forced.”

Founded in Nijmegen, Netherlands in 1983 by Moorings and classmate Anka Wolbert, Clan of Xymox have carved out a legacy within gothic music as darkwave pioneers. In 40 years together they boast numerous albums and singles, and enough road wear to circle the globe a few times.

One reason for this durability is a capacity for change. “You have to be innovative and introduce new elements into your music but without losing your own identity,” says Moorings. “Without shying away from your roots but building upon them. Passion for music is also an important factor you should never lose; if that happens you better stop altogether. We never really repeat ourselves but have managed to keep the feeling of melancholy intact.”

The band is finally embarking on a highly anticipated North American tour that was derailed more than once by the Covid-19 pandemic — the only time in its history that the band has really taken a “break” from the road. The current iteration includes Mojca Zugna on bass, Mario Usai on guitar, Sean Goebel on keyboards and Daniel Hoffman on effects and sequencer.

“I love playing live and meeting our fans, it is such an important part of making music to me,” says Moorings. “We have to play our songs live in order to see what affects our fans and we always strive to add new live elements to our show.”

Clan of Xymox with the Bellwether Syndicate and Astari Nite perform 8pm Friday March 17 at Respectable Street in downtown West Palm Beach. clanofxymox.com

SHANE DRINKWATER

by Veronica Inberg

Modern design seems to demand that artists make a hard binary choice: minimalism or maximalism? Are you drawn to simple lines and color palettes or do you find yourself dreaming in textures, patterns and shapes? It’s a lively debate with no perfect resolution, and for this month’s PureHoney featured artist, Shane Drinkwater, the answer is a little bit of both.

Born on the Australian island of Tasmania, Drinkwater says he takes inspiration from the “heavens and earth” to create his work. He developed his passion for drawing at age five and spent most of his school years in the art department (to the detriment of his other studies), and he enrolled in art classes outside of school. Practicing painting, and for a short while sculpture, he was inspired by artists Antoni Tàpies (for textures), Odilon Redon (for emotions), and Colin McCahon (for incorporating text into his work).

Even with such strong influences, Drinkwater has forged his own path in developing an art form that combines elements of these masters as well as his recurring interest in astronomy, archeology, ancient maps and manuscripts. Employing lines, dashes and dots, Drinkwater creates “a universal language,” as he tells PureHoney, that balances the aforementioned stylistic poles. He describes his aesthetic as “a minimum repertoire of visual elements, aiming for a maximum intensity.”

With lines, numerals, bold shapes and repeating colors, Drinkwater’s work is a cartographic collection of faraway galaxies and unknown constellations — things never before seen. They read like transcendental treasure maps, with clues hiding somewhere in the space that he creates. His color palette evokes that of old manuscripts in order to “maximize the impact of the drawn line,” he says.

Drinkwater shuts down any notion that his work contains secret codes waiting to be cracked. “Lots of people want to know,” he says, “but sorry, there is no special meaning in the numbers. Since childhood I’ve had a fascination with numbers; perhaps because of a mild dyslexia, I was less interested in words and letters.” More visual vocabulary than anything else, these numbers also become a sort of meditation for him when he is working.

Taking in Drinkwater’s work all at once is its own meditative experience, and not an uncommon way to engage with modern art. In 1967 the Rothko Chapel was built in Texas for the sole purpose of viewing Mark Rothko’s work — an experience some viewers still consider sacred, filled with enlightenment and philosophical truths. And what is art for if not to expand the mind and illuminate the world?

It all begins with the base of what makes Drinkwater’s work so unique: the paper he uses. Utilizing old dress patterns — which remind him of old manuscripts — Drinkwater dyes the paper to add texture. On top of that he often collages painted shapes, and moves everything around until his universe is spinning properly. Whether he is setting out with an exact image in mind of what he is making, or waits for new ideas to appear, he takes pleasure in the journey and doesn’t race to finish line.

Very few things are universally agreed upon - or we wouldn’t be arguing about minimalism versus maximalism in art. But one truth that holds up through generations, cultures and time is our desire to look up at the stars and project ourselves into places only imagination can reach. Drinkwater’s mystical maps look beyond what we know to be true and posit places that may or may not exist. They are part science and part fiction, and human enough to spark the desire for discovery. They let any viewer momentarily suspend belief in what is real and — to quote Rothko — “extend myself beyond what I thought was possible.”

Drinkwater currently lives in Queensland, Australia and works as a decorative painter creating customized paint finishes — a trade he took up while working at a 17th Century chateau in Normandy for six years. His work has recently been exhibited at such places as The Painting Center in New York, The Copenhagen Outsider Art Gallery and Boom Gallery in Victoria, Australia.

Find more Shane Drinkwater artwork on Instagram @shane_drinkwater and at pulpholyoke.com/shane-drinkwater