Lowbrow Vs. Pop Surrealism: Whoever Wins, We Win Too!

We've been delinquent.

Show after great show keeps arriving at Roq La Rue, and we keep not telling you about them. We could list excuses, but they're mostly varieties of "we should learn how to effectively use a to-do list."

Case in point: the current show, featuring Yumiko Kayukawa (whose Princess of Darkness is pictured) and Ojimbo, opened October 12. We should have promoted opening night. But the show's still open, the art's still there, and the gallery's worth visiting even without the "creepy treats and beverages" of opening night.

In the meantime, check out this interview with Roq La Rue owner Kirsten Anderson on MyArtSpace, where she goes into more detail about the differences as she sees them between lowbrow and pop surrealism. It's an issue we asked her about a couple of years ago.

As time went on and interest and inspiration of this art started to grow, new artists began to appear and they often brought a more "refined" sensibility to the genre. Also- the artists who'd been working in the scene started to grow and explore as well. A good example of this is someone like Mark Ryden being so quickly embraced. Artists started working with more fantastical imagery and the work started to become more dream-like and surreal, and personal. The work started to become more "beautiful" and have more palatable imagery. To me, this new form of work is "Pop Surrealism"- I would use Ryden, Marion Peck, Alex Gross, and Eric White as examples of what I'm talking about. If you compare their work with artists who I would put in the "Lowbrow" genre like Anthony Ausgang, the Pizz, XNO, Van Arno, and Shag you can see that they are very different.

(By the way, next month? One of our favorite artists, Ryan Heshka, will be in the house, along with Brian Despain and Scott Musgrove. Be there Nov. 9!)