Roq la Rue + BLVD Openings Tonight!

If there's one thing you can say that the artists whose shows opens tonight at Roq la Rue have in common, it's that they both really like women. Esao Andrews, an NYC-based artist, likes to contort the feminine form into the oddest situations: stuck inside the bowl of a flower vase, riding a giant swan, or with a head blasting hot air into the sack of a hot air balloon. Japanese artist Fuco Ueda is a bit dirtier: many's the knock-kneed girl in a, shall we say, suggestive situation, whether stroking a unicorn's horn or sleeping while a shrimp swims by, emitting a blooming cloud of semen.

That said, the visual appeal of comely young lasses is only part of these artists' subject. Andrews follows in a long line of surrealists who use a refined, almost photo-realistic, style to give verisimilitude to their reality-bending work. Fuco Ueda's style is more relaxed and expressionistic, with the feeling of a watercolor. Her young women wander about a phantasmagoria with their strange pet sea-creatures, tentacles and all. Certain images seem to fascinate Ueda (scissors, umbrellas, string tied around a hand) and surface throughout her work. The new series on display takes the chrysanthemum as its dominant image, which hardly suggests Ueda intends to tone down the erotic play.

Also tonight, "Combine, A group show of Cut Paper, Collage, and Assemblage" opens at BLVD, featuring the work of about eleven artists whose work explores the limits of traditional art, and who freely mix elements to create new experiences in the same way Robert Rauschenberg did with his "combines" in the 1950s.

Esao Andrews & Fuco Ueda @ Roq la Rue // 2312 Second Ave. // opening 6-9 p.m. // free!
"Combine" @ BLVD // 2316 Second Ave. // opening 6-10 p.m. // free!

Esao Andrews' "Guadinia" courtesy of Roq la Rue.