Attaboy shares:

“After the election I found myself obsessively painting mushrooms, the way my ceramicist Grandmother used to when I was a child. I painted 125 of them on cardboard and started planting them in my town. I think it was to spread unexpected glimmers of surprise, to remind people to still pay attention to the little things around them. I then sent them to friends in NYC, Portland, Ohio and elsewhere. These paintings evolved into paintings on wood and pieces for this show, which have become just as much sculptures as paintings. In a way, I’m now building paintings, with sometimes dozens of layers of wood, into 2 1/2 D reliefs. Up until this year, I’ve never enjoyed painting, it would frustrate me to no end but now I’m addicted in figuring out these pictorial puzzles, with themes of mortality, mutation and rebirth. Much like a mushroom, who grows on the decay of dead matter, it’s an artist’s job to deconstruct and build upon old ideas, into new ones.”

About Attaboy:
Daniel “Attaboy” Seifert’s is an internationally shown artist, creator and toy designer whose work is seen in galleries, museums, toy boutiques, magazines (Newsweek, Wired, Juxtapoz, Clutter, Playtimes, etc.), calendars, and art books. After years of creating, recreating, and inventing award-winning and best-selling toys for Hasbro and Milton Bradley, he went AWOL to create his own art and licensing studio. His art work has been licensed to Dark Horse, Last Gasp, Tower Records, Kiss, the Dixie Chicks, Sony, and many more.

Attaboy is most known for being the co-founder of the critically acclaimed Hi-Fructose magazine, which has become the best-selling art magazine at Barnes and Noble and has spawned popular hardcover books and a large presence online. Hi-Fructose features interviews and exposes with a growing echelon of pop and visual counter culture artists, such as Mark Ryden, Chris Ware, Jeff Soto, and Tim Biskup. The magazine was recently honored with a touring retrospective, entitled “Turn The Page: The First Ten Years Of Hi-Fructose,” which was exhibited at the Virginia MOCA, Akron Museum of Art, and The Crocker Art Museum.

Attaboy is also the author of several children’s books and adult children books. His influences include Jack Kirby, Syd Mead, Alexander Calder, Marvin Glass, Orson Welles, oxacian sculptures and his wife and fellow artist Annie Owens.

“Witnesses” Lauren Marx

“Witnesses,” the new body of work from Midwestern traditional artist Lauren Marx, centers around the beginning stages of creating her own “religion.” Marx shares:

“I am pulling from various scientific and faith-based understandings of the natural world, as well as my own life experiences, to create a comfortable place for myself when dealing with the reality of mortality. These five pieces depict animals entering sainthood with references to medieval Christian symbols of faith, saints, and martyrdom. The concept for this series of artworks will continue, in more depth, in future works.”

About Lauren Marx:
Lauren Marx is a Midwestern traditional artist with pen and watercolor artworks focusing on flora and fauna with a macabre twist. Her work has always centered around natural work, with references to scientific illustrations, medieval symbolism, and renaissance compositions. In 2014, Marx graduated from Webster University with a Bachelors of Fine Arts and has been a freelance artist since. Marx currently resides in St. Louis, Missouri.

Realm – “Peculiar Tales” 

Through nature, distinctive features and intriguing use of hair, Relm, a self-taught NYC-based oil painter, is able to create a unique world of magical beings through her eyes. For her new show, entitled “Peculiar Tales,” Relm shares:

“I incorporate creatures, plants, and all kinds of life through the use of patterns and textures into the hair of my girls. My goals are to show the powerful relationship between humans and nature, whether it be good or bad. All the while simultaneously creating a new story with each piece. It’s the equivalent to writing a fairy tale through imagery. Each piece is individually telling and indicative of what the subject has experienced all the while remaining seductive in their physical beauty.

My pieces have always had some form of a twist, I want to continue to push those boundaries through the use of my surroundings. My concepts will change as I grow and I will change as an artist with it, but the need to share a story through my work will always remain the same.”

About Relm:
A self-taught oil painter raised in New York City, Relm is inspired by colors, patterns and attention to detail. Her pieces are influenced by her background in fashion design and the intricacies of nature coupled with her own life experiences. She takes that exact attention to detail and finds a way to apply it to the subject instead of having it simply fade away into the background. Relm shares, “My upbringing and moving from one extreme setting to another helped fuel my need for constant change in my work. I started my artistic journey in NYC but take great influence from my Balkan-Bosnian background as well as my few years of living in Germany and travels through Europe as a young teen. I don’t always create new worlds in my art but also draw from my intense love of history and recreating worlds that have already existed. I now create out of my home in Canada.”

Patrick Faalafua – “Le Pe’a Teine”

Patrick Faalafua is a self-taught mixed-media artist whose new exhibit, entitled “Le Pe’a Teine,” combines ancestral tribal tattooing and urban graffiti with non-traditional mediums to create one-of-a-kind pieces of art. Influenced by his Polynesian roots of honoring family and respecting culture within the realm of tribal tattooing, he applies his vision to unconventional canvases such as dolls and figures.

About Patrick Faalafua:
Faalafua grew up in the South Bay area of Los Angeles, raised by a Filippino mother and Samoan father. His love for all things Disney started at a young age and continues to this day. His earliest artistic endeavor was as a cartoonist for his high school newspaper, but his political and social statements did not go over well with school administrators. A foray into graffiti art ended with a suspension from school and a learning experience at home.

Influenced by graffiti artists such as Slick Tempt, Seen and Risk, as well as tattoo artists like Horiyoshi III, Oliver Peck and Chris Nunez, Faalafua sought to combine these different styles and apply them on a new medium. First venturing into Sticker Art, he grew a worldwide following as the artist “Sheik.” Needing a new artistic challenge, he continued to experiment with other media.

Faalafua found his calling while collecting vintage Kewpie dolls. He envisioned applying the storytelling art of Japanese full-body tattoos to this new canvas. He found the texture and material used to produce the original Kewpie dolls offers an excellent canvas to accept the ink. By a unique blending of Sharpie colors and his unorthodox creative process, a series of Kewpie Doll Yakuzas were brought to life. The response was immediate and this collection was immediately purchased by a Japanese art collector and displayed overseas. Soon Faalafua was being commissioned to create one-off personalized dolls for private collectors.

Faalafua discovered that Disney Princess dolls offered similar canvas opportunities as the original Kewpie dolls and this allowed him the opportunity to re-tell the stories of these characters in tribal tattoos, thus opening the door to his newest collection. Each doll takes approximately two weeks to complete with his painstaking attention to detail.