4/3
KILL YOUR IDOL: Ashes
BAR NANCY: Strange Bass
4/4
BAR NANCY: Hardcore For Punx
ARTS GARAGE: Art of Laughter w Joey Avery
NSU ART MUSEUM: Opening Reception Teen Exhibition Memory Soup
PROPAGANDA: Improv Comedy
4/5
REVOLUTION LIVE: G Jones, Hamdi, Chee, Sayer
MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: O, Miami Poetry
Showcase
RESPECTABLE STREET: Young Fiction & Ana Eclipse
LW PLAYHOUSE: Ragtime the Musical thru 4/21
BAR NANCY: Disco Af
BROWARD CENTER: Harry Potter in Concert
PROPAGANDA: Emo Night MySpace Edition
NORTON MUSEUM: Art After Dark, Totem Cave
CORNELL ART MUSEUM: Emoji Art by Matthew LaPenta Exhibition Opening
4/6
REVOLUTION LIVE: Live Dead & Brothers
RESPECTABLE STREET: Geishaz Takeover
MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: Women on the Drums ft Yissy Garcia & Bandancha
BAR NANCY: Johnny Dread
ARTS GARAGE: Stanley Jordan Plays Jimi
MTN SPACE GALLERY: Sebastian Ore Blas: Then We Do Everything Else & Jill Hotchkiss: Golden Hour Opening Reception.
THE PARKER: Broadway Series, Alan Cumming
BROWARD CENTER: Harry Potter in Concert
PROPAGANDA: Scream Queens & Friends
4/7
MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: Arts in the Parks w Gretell Barreiro
ARTS GARAGE: Philippe Lemm Trio
PROPAGANDA: ID Hip-Hop Variety Show
4/8
REVOLUTION LIVE: Saint Motel
4/10
STONZEK THEATER: It’s Only Life After All
KILL YOUR IDOL: Rick Guerre
BAR NANCY: Nicolle Chirino and Smurphio
4/11
RESPECTABLE STREET: Ghalia Volt
MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: MCD’S Miami Film Fest, The Performance
ARSHT CENTER: Gold Dust Lounge
SANDBOX STAGE: LoveFest
BAR NANCY: Stereo Joule, Scott Yoder
PROPAGANDA: Beeline, Like Harvey
4/12
RESPECTABLE STREET: Postcards from Paradise 2024 ft. SCOTT YODER (full band from Seattle), ISYA (St. Augustine), Zippur, Mr. Entertainment & the Pookiesmackers, Tiny Blips, Sweet Bronco, Bret Combast
REVOLUTION LIVE: The 502s, Daniel Nunnelee
1310 GALLERY: People Pleaser Satellite Art OnChain, an interactive blockchain workshop w Lindsey Mills, Artist Talk w Kelcie McQuaid
MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: MCD’S Miami Film Fest, Lady Like
SANDBOX STAGE: Always Lunes
BAR NANCY: Molly Takedown
ARTS GARAGE: An Evening of Chicago Blues w Wayne Baker Brooks
PROPAGANDA: Mount Sinai, Hot Seat, Cherry Soul, Ryan Bazail
NORTON MUSEUM: Art After Dark, College Night
4/12-5/24
CULTURAL COUNCIL PBC: 2024 Dina Baker Award for Mature Female Recipient
4/13
REVOLUTION LIVE: The Toasters, Spred the Dub, Big Skandal
RESPECTABLE STREET: Klub Nocturno: Goth Party
SANDBOX STAGE: Sid Stratton
BAR NANCY: The Kitchen Club
THE GROUND: Snow Strippers
CHOTTO MATTE: Miami Creole Food Festival
ARTS GARAGE: Free Fallin’, Tom Petty Experience
PROPAGANDA: MRSA, Beastplague, Mutilated Savior, Revelations
4/14
ARTS GARAGE: Harold Lopez- Nussa: Timba A La Americana
NORTHWOOD WAREHOUSE: Beats & Brunch
4/16
REVOLUTION LIVE: Benny the Butcher, Boldy James
4/17
MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: No Place for Hate (ADL) Showcase
KILL YOUR IDOL: The Mauraders
BAR NANCY: El Bando
4/18
REVOLUTION LIVE: Beach Fossils, Nation of Language
MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: North Beach Social, FOOM! & Friends
GRAMPS: Sextile, Donzii
RESPECTABLE STREET: American Sigh
BAR NANCY: Songwriters in the Round
PROPAGANDA: Hip-Hop Showcase w I’m Dru
4/19
1310 GALLERY: People Pleaser
Closing Party w Nervous Monks, Lindsey Mills, Sweet Bronco
RESPECTABLE STREET: Miss Michigan, The Boas, The Lab
MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: Unclassical, Celebrating Miamis Musical Diversity
REVOLUTION LIVE: Be Our Guest
SANDBOX STAGE: Silhouettes Party
BAR NANCY: Yacht Rock
ARTS GARAGE: Nestor Torres
THE NORTON
4/19-6/22 CULTURAL The 4/20 RESPECTABLE a RESOURCE SANDBOX BAR MMJ ARTS PROPAGANDA: Cassidy, CANYON
4/21 REVOLUTION May MIAMI OLD Concours ARTS PROPAGANDA: 4/24 REVOLUTION KILL BAR
4/25 REVOLUTION RESPECTABLE PROPAGANDA: OLD Wind, 4/26 ISLAMORADA: REVOLUTION SANDBOX April BAR
THE ARTS Those NORTON Arab 4/27 ISLAMORADA: Venezonix REVOLUTION The RESPECTABLE SANDBOX BAR ARTS PROPAGANDA: 4/28 ISLAMORADA: Stella REVOLUTION ARTS White, 4/30 REVOLUTION Void PROPAGANDA: 5/1 KILL 5/2
GRAMPS:
THE PARKER: Rodrigo y Gabriela
NORTON MUSEUM: Art After Dark, Las Nubes
4/19-6/22
CULTURAL COUNCIL PBC: Beyond Blossoms: The Power of Pollinators
4/20
RESPECTABLE STREET: New Dawn Fades presents tribute to Joy Division and New Order
RESOURCE DEPOT: Catwalk, Student Fashion Show
SANDBOX STAGE: Johnny Dread
BAR NANCY: Main Street
MMJ HEALTH WPB: Grand Opening!
ARTS GARAGE: Nestor Torres
PROPAGANDA: Straight Jacket, Goat Rope, Young Cassidy, Killed by Florida
CANYON AMP: Sour Mash
4/21
REVOLUTION LIVE: Asking Alexandria, Memphis May Fire, The Word Alive, Nerv
MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: Earth Day Celebration
OLD SCHOOL SQUARE: 3rd Annual Delray Beach Concours D’Elegance
ARTS GARAGE: Bold City Classics
PROPAGANDA: School of Rock Showcase
4/24
REVOLUTION LIVE: Libianca
KILL YOUR IDOL: Soul Travelers
BAR NANCY: Burlesque
4/25
REVOLUTION LIVE: Flipturn, The Hails
RESPECTABLE STREET: Dominic Delaney
PROPAGANDA: EC Underground
OLD SCHOOL SQUARE: HOT BRASS: Earth, Wind, and Fire Chicago Tribute Band
4/26
ISLAMORADA: Afro Roots Fest ft Jean P. Jam
REVOLUTION LIVE: The Veronicas, Jessie Jo Stark
SANDBOX STAGE: Lemon City Trio. The Lab. April Nicole
BAR NANCY: Alexa And The Old-Fashioneds
THE PARKER: Asi Wind
ARTS GARAGE: One Hit Wonders: A Tribute to Those Great Songs from the 60s and 70s
NORTON MUSEUM OF ART: Art After Dark, Arab American Heritage Night
4/27
ISLAMORADA: Afro Roots Fest ft Cortadito, Venezonix & San Juan
REVOLUTION LIVE: Social Distortion, Bad Religion, The Lovebombs
RESPECTABLE STREET: The Flirt, Yardij
SANDBOX STAGE: Industria
BAR NANCY: Nil Lara
ARTS GARAGE: Mitch Grainger Blues Band
PROPAGANDA: Melvinator
4/28
ISLAMORADA: Afro Roots Fest ft Manny Swagg, Stella Fusion
REVOLUTION LIVE: Mariah the Scientist
ARTS GARAGE: Noah Haidu, Buster Williams, Lenny White, Celebrate Keith Jarrett’s Standards Trio
4/30
REVOLUTION LIVE: Erra, Make Them Suffer, Void of Vision, Novelists
PROPAGANDA: See You Next Tuesday
5/1
KILL YOUR IDOL: The Apostoli Floyd Encounter
5/2
GRAMPS: Bodega
BEYOND BLOSSOMS
by AMANDA E. MOORE
Artist couple Jeff Schmuki and Wendy DesChene want to talk to you about the birds and the bees. But don’t worry — it’s a family-friendly conversation, courtesy of Beyond Blossoms: The Power of Pollinators, a free public exhibition happening this spring in Lake Worth at the Cultural Council for Palm Beach County, with artist-educators Schmuki and DesChene curating.
You’ve heard ’em before, the Facts of Life, but maybe not like this. Schmuki and DesChene have enlisted more than 40 local artists to help illuminate the intricate biological weave created by hundreds of thousands of pollinating species. It’s a celebration in art of the unsung heroes of the natural world — the pollen-toting bats, beetles, geckos and more that create and sustain our planet’s biodiversity. “Butterflies get all the attention,” DesChene tells PureHoney, when in fact, as Schmuki points out, “Moths are more efficient pollinators.”
Along with arresting tidbits like these, there will be photography, collage and mixed media works, and a menu of sub-events and special occasions — like lending a hand to the Wheat Paste Mural Installation on April 6 — to encourage repeat visits between April and June. Schmuki and DesChene also plan to send gallery-goers home with kits and guides to let them test their newfound knowledge about pollination, food production and life itself.
Creators also of a satirical platform, PlantBot Genetics Inc., that tweaks Big Agriculture, the couple aims to “expand the ‘knowledge of the moment’ by highlighting the connection between the natural world and individual actions,” DesChene says. They link artistry, science and sustainable practices, drawing on DesChene’s indigenous roots and Schmuki’s nature-immersed childhood, and “using the power of art to create social change,” Schmuki says.
It’s never too early or too late to learn. Teaching kids about pollinators helps to make nature part of their worldview, the artists believe, and gets parents to see their surroundings with fresh eyes. After a few trips to Beyond Blossoms, the couple promises, “You’ll want to invite your whole neighborhood to your backyard.”
Beyond Blossoms: The Power of Pollinators runs April 19-June 22 in the Main Gallery of the Cultural Council for Palm Beach County in Lake Worth. palmbeachculture.com
NEWCOMB “LAST CALL”
DANIEL
FLIPTURN
by TIM MOFFATT
In all things, there is a sweet spot — the point in a journey where the prologue rewards the future with a look at the progress made and the promise that it will only continue to get better. That’s where Flipturn are at this moment in time; let’s call it in media res.
The Florida band formed in Fernandina Beach, just outside of Jacksonville, in 2015. Dillon Basse on vocals, Tristan Duncan on guitar, and Madeline Jarman on bass coalesced as a crew in Jarman’s garage after high-school hours to flesh out the shimmery anthems that would make up the group set.
Flipturn would record and tour in a relentless pursuit of artistry that would produce an impressively organic number of followers. They have been making their name on the scene the hard way, by bringing their dreamy anthems to the people. This has proved to be a successful approach as they have been included in the lineup of multiple festivals including Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Shaky Knees, Hangout, Sunfest and Levitate.
The attention garnered from playing the festival circuit helped to catch the eye of Dualtone Records, who signed the band, making them label mates with June Carter Cash, Chuck Berry, and the Lumineers Currently, they are on the road in support of their debut album, Shadowglow
The album is a cinematic indie rock exploration of 20-somethings’ challenges. It’s the sound of a band figuring themselves out by exploring the highs and lows of life’s dark and light parts. It is a journey that these friends get to do together while making sun-drenched music inspired alternately by introspective nights.
While these weathered road dogs are just starting, they have found a sweet spot to marinate in for a minute, where the songwriting process has been refined to the point of explicit purpose. Casting off teenage hopes to revel in young adult realities. Sometimes, that’s a dark place to land, but Flipturn are exploring the future with open eyes and elucidating their experiences through music.
Flipturn w The Hails: 7pm Thursday, April 25 at Revolution Live in Fort Lauderdale. flipturn.band Listen to “Burn” via CURIOUS EARS 138 - PUREHONEY MAGAZINE on Spotify
AMANDA
LAFERRIERE
NATION OF LANGUAGE
by AMANDA E. MOORE
Singer Ian Richard Devaney of Nation of Language didn’t know it at the time, but in the origin story that makes the rounds today, his path was set by a childhood car ride with his father listening to “Electricity” by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. From this 1980 track — nostalgic and prescient from the day it arrived, bopping like a chiptune and warning of environmental folly — Devaney would go on to conceptualize a new project. A raw, relatable moment from his youth, deconstructed and imbued with his own ideas about music, became Nation of Language in 2016.
With a following of more than 360,000 Spotify listeners and sold-out shows wherever they go, Nation of Language are modern-day synth-wave stars. But even with Devaney’s wistful ingenuity, success took time. A number of well-received singles showed promise, and then came Covid. Nation of Language released their debut album, Introduction, Presence, in May of 2020, and instead of disappearing into the chaos of the pandemic, it found a following. With people across the planet scared, melancholic and wallowing, Nation of Language offered a comforting familiarity in the literal and figurative dark.
Nation of Language’s lyrics gently touch on androgyny, open love, ruminations on normalcy and explorations of sensuality. The songs reflect on the past while pondering the present and future — extending to listeners a powerful sense of understanding and connection, of feeling seen and heard in life’s vast expanse. Nation of Language are, all at once, the solace of a gentle hug, the warmth of a crush-induced blush, and the longing for what once was or could have been.
From OMD beginnings, Nation of Language are augmenting their style of synth-pop and infusing it with their own darkwave and post-punk influences. They’ve taken an especially hauntingly beautiful turn with their latest album, Strange Disciple. To paraphrase Devaney himself, though Strange Disciple isn’t a dance album he can’t help but move to the music and hopes that listeners will, too.
Nation of Language w Beach Fossils: 7pm Thursday, April 18 at Revolution Live in Fort Lauderdale. nationoflanguage.com
Listen to “Too Much, Enough” via CURIOUS EARS 138 - PUREHONEY MAGAZINE on Spotify
SHERVIN LAINEZ
BODEGA
by ABEL FOLGAR
Brooklyn’s arty punk commentators BODEGA have snaked through their short existence, hitting the requisite punk rock notes of personal challenges, sociopolitical woes, and the ever-changing landscape that surrounds them. A scatter chart shows a favorable likeness to longrunning art punkers Wire, but where the latter evolved into an angular concept for punk experimentation, the former has turned introspective and rather lethal when dealing with matters of the heart.
Put that on the creative partnership of guitarist and vocalist Ben Hozie and singer Nikki Belfiglio who have taken the in-your-face ferocity of 2018’s Endless Scroll and worked their way into engaging – even provocative – material for their sophomore release, 2022’s Broken Equipment. To further clarify their process, both these releases have enjoyed the archival-driven necessity of supplemental material left behind during the recording process in the forms of the live album Witness Scroll and studio session leftovers for Xtra Equipment
On their third and most recent album, Our Brand Could Be Yr Life, Hozie and Belfiglio take the lessons learned on their first offerings and the supplemental materials released in tandem to revise 2015’s Our Brand Could Be Your Life when they performed as Bodega Bay. Before they’re faulted for revisionism, it should be pointed out that Hozie is also a writer, director, cinematographer, editor, and producer, and brings a historic sense of directorial “reimagining” he’s previously likened to the great Alfred Hitchcock and the revered Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu.
The band — rounded out by guitarist Dan Ryan, bassist Adam See and percussionist Adam Shumski — are on an ambitious tour of the U.S. and Canada before hopping over the pond for a thorough showing of their wares throughout the United Kingdom and select spots in France. How funny would it be if in a full meta, full-circle punk rocking coinkidink, they end up on a bill with the aforementioned Wire – bringing a weird credence to their appropriation of Michael Azerrad’s polarizing chronicling of the American 1980’s punk rock scene, Our Band Could Be Your Life
BODEGA play 8pm Thursday, May 2 at Gramps in Miami. bodega-band.com
Listen to “City is Taken” via CURIOUS EARS 138 - PUREHONEY MAGAZINE on Spotify
POONEH
GHANA
SEXTILE
by TIM MOFFATT
Breathing new life into death rock may sound like an oxymoron, but the genre has successfully evaded mainstream viability since Berlin hit the top 10 with Take My Breath Away. What kind of self-respecting goth and goth-adjacent purveyor of the many shades of black can get their groove on to the most prominent hit off the Top Gun soundtrack?! I mean, come on? Tom Cruise is the least dark dude and the most prominent poster boy for teeth whitening and jogging on God’s green Earth.
Death rock never disappeared; it just festered and waited for the perfect concoction of post-punk sexy sleaze and danceable beats for the downtrodden soul. These days, the genre is resurfacing with acts like Twin Temples, Vision Video and Sextile Each one of these acts takes the idea and runs in a different direction, resuscitating death rock from its crypt.
Sextile lean into the danceable and dark attributes, prompting industrial party vibes that provoke the aroma of a smoke machine in a dark club with PVC and leatherclad humans sweatily grinding to the tunes. Taking cues from synth-punk and dark wave with an indifferent sneer, founding members Brady Keehn (vocals, guitars, electronics) and Melissa Scaduto (drums, vocals, guitars and electronics), along with Cameron Michel (guitar and keyboards) and Lia Simone Braswell (drums), might have been right at home in the heyday of Chicago’s Wax Trax or the halcyon days of Brooklyn’s early aughts electroclash revolution.
The point, dear reader, is to get you moving with the joie de vivre of being young, sexy and moody. Living for today, for tomorrow, we die vibes, a complete Dionysian oeuvre on display. Sextile are less of a band and more of a contingent, a cult put to music, the promise of eternal life as sexy dark monsters moving through the night, devouring the willing and unwilling alike. A primal sound that scares the straights and arouses the kooks, equal parts Brian Eno, the Cramps and Christian Death, shake and strain into a cocktail coupe of Italo disco.
Sextile w Donzii: 8pm Thursday, April 18 at Gramps in Miami. sextile.bandcamp.com
SARAH PARDINI
SCOTT YODER +POSTCARDS 2
by ABEL FOLGAR
Against the changing tides of tastes and major label-driven drivel, Postcards from Paradise returns for a serious dose of incredible indie music. The music “festival” — a quirky sister of sorts to West Palm Beach’s Bumblefest (both presented by PureHoney) — comes back strong with one of last year’s headliners leading the charge.
Scaled down to one night from 2023’s twoday event, Postcards presents Scott Yoder with a full band in tow, a contrast from last year’s intimate solo performance.
“I tried a new thing in 2023 by touring solo with backing tracks, a self-controlled light show, and a guitar,” Yoder tells PureHoney. “Completely out there, on my own with nowhere to hide. It was a bit frightening of course, but I was in a place where I had to take ownership of my songs and see how far I could go with them on my own.”
Yoder exists on an astral creative plane bridging the visuals and sounds of glam era rock and a heartfelt saccharine pop informed by the quiet distances of the Interstate Highway System. He is one of the hardest working musicians anywhere, and though he’s been regaining pre-pandemic momentum, the forced hiatus left its mark.
“I had about a year and a half without playing shows,” Yoder says. “So, my process was limited to brief, socially distanced recording sessions with one other musician/producer, Bryant Moore. Together, we completed my third album over the pandemic, and I released it without a tour, which was very alien to me. This newer album was much more traditionally conceived: demos, rehearsals, a little mini tour with a band to flesh it out.”
The albums are 2022’s Wither on Hollywood & Vine and the recently released Scooter Pie. For the former, Yoder took to the old basement/home studio approach to recording by revisiting pre-Covid singles, a process he found “fulfilling” as the album took shape. “I got to make them fit together like I always intended to, but it was a place that felt I had already been before,” he said.
For Scooter Pie, Yoder took a maximalist approach for the new batch of songs that he developed during a West Coast tour with a full band backing him and by recording it with numerous musicians he had never worked with before. The result is a fully fleshed slab of infinitely enjoyable and transformative music that pushes and pulls correctly through bouts of joy, nostalgia, and self-reflection echoing a golden era of the listener’s choosing.
Even the cover art evokes Laverne and Shirley’s madcap supermarket spree and Agent Dale Cooper’s favorite things about the town of Twin Peaks. The truth is far more innocuous: “Scooter Pie” was the childhood nickname Yoder’s mom bestowed upon him.
“I never adopted a stage name and that was done with intentionality,” he said. “I have to paint my face and wear a fanciful outfit to feel like I am truly being myself. Touring is where I get to be that all the time, onstage with my band and the audience or offstage with the various missions and challenges of being on the road.”
Now hardwired into his identity, Yoder is embarking on a relentless, show-per-night schedule that has him and the band hitting every major market in the US from mid-March through the end of April. His work ethic, unbroken by global situations and strengthened by an ability to adapt quickly, is as much a part of his identity as his stage look. A trait he says, that “can’t be wiped off.”
New to a South Florida stage — but not new to South Florida audiences is St. Augustine’s ISYA, the harsh electronic experimental industrial punk rock solo noise project by Jake Brown. Brown, formerly of 238, Moments in Grace, Decahedron, and more, brings 18 years of tried and true, on-the-fly, performance-driven audio terrorism, creating a controlled chaos of sights and sounds that have on numerous occasions melted the faces off the esteemed lions guarding St. Augustine’s historic bridge on the Matanzas River.
Delray’s Zippur joins the fun with a snotty, sarcastic take that is more interested in deveining psychedelia’s sacred cows than myth-building — a refreshing dose of rock that reigns in excess while coasting on a melancholic wave of chaos at a frenetic pace.
Also on the bill will be Wilton Manors’ pop balladeers, Sweet Bronco, South Florida via Delaware lo-fi indie soul popsters tiny.blips, and the raucous cavalcade of antifolk psychedelia as presented by Hollywood, FL’s King of Civic Duty and Action, Mr. Entertainment and his revered Pookiesmackers
Postcards from Paradise, presented by PureHoney, feat Scott Yoder, ISYA, Zippur, Mr. Entertainment & The Pookiesmackers, tiny.blips, Sweet Bronco, 8pm
Friday, April 12 at Respectable Street in WPB. scottmatthewyoder.com
Listen to “Sweet Breath of Love” via CURIOUS EARS 138 - PUREHONEY MAGAZINE on Spotify
DAVE HARVEY
SCOTT YODER
KELCIE MCQUAID
by KELLI BODLE
If you’re reading this publication, you’ve probably already encountered local artists Kelcie Mcquaid and Lindsey Mills in one form or another. You may have met Mcquaid while attending an exhibition by ShangriLa Collective, art-walking in FATVillage or buying art supplies at Jerry’s Artarama. You may have encountered Mills while listening to her play bass in Surfer Blood, going to shows at Respectable Street or learning to play an instrument at School of Rock.
Together, they’ve paired up to create People Pleaser, a ingenious multimedia exhibition at 1310 Gallery in Fort Lauderdale that runs through April 19. (The opening is 7 p.m. Friday, March 22.) The exhibition features 105 portraits of local art luminaries accompanied by notes, photographs, and correlated NFTs offered through an exclusive online community.
The show is anchored by a trio of Mcquaid installations: Chaos Pendulum, comprising abstract portrait paintings, an LED light tower and manipulated mirrors; Fragments and Echoes, a wall-mounted ceramic installation of over twenty pieces; and Radical Self-Acceptance, a pepper’s ghost illusion.
In tandem with the opening, Mills offers an hour-long presentation on “the ways that blockchain can empower artists of all media to own their work and connect more directly with their fans and collectors.
“I see a huge opportunity for independent artists here in the local scene to get into this while it’s still a nascent technology,” Mills tells PureHoney. “There’s so much space for creativity and exploration of blockchain as a new medium.”
If you miss the March 22 opening (with live painting by Mcquaid and live music by Ashley Reda and tiny.blips Psych Soul Party featuring Laura Atria) you can attend an additional free NFT workshop on April 12 at the gallery or online where you’ll learn about smart contracts, copyright in the age of AI and controlling creations using blockchain.
Mcquaid, for her part, says, “I’m writing a thank you letter to my community.” After a difficult personal experience, Mcquaid relied heavily on her local community of fellow artists and creators, and it was those friends that she chose to immortalize in trippy washes of color.
“It’s pretty trippy,” Mcquaid agrees. “It’s like a sensory overload, I would say. So, that is exclusive to these two large-scale abstract pieces that will be on the second floor. It’s a three-story gallery, so there’s a lot of room to play here.”
With Chaos Pendulum, she says, “Basically, you stand in the center and see yourself with all these lights moving around on your body. It’s an interactive element where people can maybe capture full images of themselves or see themselves in different lights.”
“I had some dysphoria after the traumatic experience, and some things came up for me,” Mcquaid says in discussing her portaits. “I think a lot of people, when they see a portrait of themselves, it’s hard for them to claim it or see themselves in it. People get very picky about the way they look in portraits. My style is very lucid and not a classic portrait. I expect people to have these confrontations in the space with their image.”
“But then, the other people in the space [who] are such good people — some of them know each other — will say, ‘Wow, look how beautiful you are.’ I want this to be a bit of a social experiment. All these people are in the same room. For me, it’s about capturing the real, authentic expression and seeing how the subjects engage or interact. I feel these portraits, in particular, are very empathetic because these people have been there for me when I needed them.”
Mills, for her part, is focused on artistic independence: “When I discovered blockchain, I felt like this was an opportunity for artists who have remained independent and haven’t sold out and given the rights to their work away. You now have this chance to capitalize on that ownership and have a greater community. We’re a community of people spread out over this space, and I’d like to bring us all together and get empowered.”
VIP OPENING: Friday March 22nd 2024 7pm-10pm
Performances by Ashley Reda + Tiny.Blips Psych Soul Party ft Laura Atria
ART ONCHAIN: Friday April 12th 2024 6pm-8pm
Interactive Blockchain Workshop w Lindsey Mills + Artist Talk w Kelcie McQuaid
CLOSING PARTY: Friday April 19th 7pm – 10pm
Performances by Nervous Monks, Lindsey Mills + Sweet Bronco @kelciemcquaid and @chillylmilly on Instagram
