Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Destruction of Mu Flyer


"Destruction of Mu", a live shadow play by Monster Island

With psych honeymoon killers, UVU

Saturday Feb. 16 at 9pm, Zeitgeist Gallery

2661 Michigan Avenue, Detroit. 313-965-9192

www.myspace.com/monsterisland13
www.zeitgeistdetroit.org

In conjunction with " 3 The Hard Way ", New Art by
Tom Carey, Topher Crowder, and Dennis Jones

Artist's Reception 2/16, 7pm-Midnight.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Opening/Performance at the Zeitgeist Gallery


"Destruction of Mu", a shadow play by Monster Island will be performed during the opening of "3 the Hard Way", new art work by Tom Carey, Topher Crowder and Dennis Jones.

At the Zeitgeist Gallery, 2661 Michigan Avenue, 313-965-9192, www.zeitgeistdetroit.org

The reception for the artists will run from 7 pm to midnight, with music around 9pm. There will also be music and visuals by psych freaks UVU.


Photos by Monster Island vocalist Lee Ambrozy

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Upcoming Exhibition at Zeitgeist Gallery in Detroit


February 16, 2008:"3 THE HARD WAY"
Featuring new work by Tom Carey, Topher Crowder, and Dennis Jones.
Tom Carey is a painter and printmaker who creates absurd imagery in an expressionist vocabulary. He was born and raised in Detroit, MI. Tom showed an early interest in drawing, especially monsters and robots, although his mother preferred that he focused on portraits of the Christ and Roman Catholic saints. Despite this difference in aesthetic opinion, Tom's family encouraged his artistic endeavors. Tom attended Wayne State University, where he received his BFA in 1996. After tiring of the Cass Corridor Artist lifestyle, Tom moved to Philadelphia in 1998. While living in Philadelphia, he completed an MFA at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Art, showed his work at Spector and other local galleries, and had one of his hand-made books purchased by the Print Collection of the New York Public Library. Although he had contemplated the idea of becoming an academic painter in the Wyeths/Brandywine Valley School mold, Tom returned to his childhood love of drawing monsters and robots, focusing increasingly on relief prints. Back in Michigan since 2003, Tom continues to produce paintings, prints, and drawings of the creatures residing in the squishy fields of his sub-conscious.
ChrisTopher Crowder puts it this way: “I have always loved the concept of storytelling through images and have found inspiration in the animated Saturday morning cartoons from my childhood, vintage postcards, comic books of the 1960s and 1970s, and roadside billboards. I have chosen to capturing a collection of daily emotions and cryptic memories from my childhood, around the early 1970s, of giant illuminated beer-bottle billboards served up electric brews, smelling the pungent odor of grease paint and alcohol while being entertained by clowns in the front row at a Shriner’s Circus, Saturday mornings spent with H.R. Pufnstuf, and the televised pictures of the Vietnam War. My method, inspired by a Saturday-morning cartoon edited for commercials, a postcard received from a foreign location, a comic book with more than a few pages torn out, or a partial, high-speed glimpse at a roadside billboard, reveals my childhood memories and everyday emotions.
Dennis Michael Jones' "...work expresses a sense of play, wonder, delight and discovery. These thoughts and emotions are directly expressed with the varied presence of a child-like everyman. The figures suggest an innocence and hopefulness of childhood—they are my progeny—a metaphor for the creation and realization of ideas—and avatar for the artist as a perpetual child. I think of this body of work as a kind of memorial to these sentiments. With the realization the figures are also toys to be manipulated, or puppets to be controlled, an undercurrent of irony surfaces as the installation comments on the formation of identity and a creative process that has become corrupted, where innocence and naiveté are doubtful possibilities.
This show runs through March 22, 2008.
Opening night entertainment with Monster Island and UVU
www.zeitgeistdetroit.org

Monday, January 07, 2008

Rehearsal For The Destruction of Mu

I made and manipulated shadow puppets for a performance by Monster Island at the UFO Factory, Saturday January 5, 2008. Lo-fi photography courtesy of the love of my life, Mary Benjamins.







Rusty Nails to Cary Loren, Matthew Smith, Davin, Lee and Alicia, and the UFO Factory Crew.
Buy the Children of Mu Double LP! http://www.thebookbeat.com/
Monster Island: www.myspace.com/monsterisland13
UFO Factory: http://www.ufofactory.com/