This month I am starting a recurring post theme that will continue as long as needed, each month. I want to support NYC area Fine Artists. I want to help sustain their practices and build interest in their work. I will, at first, highlight the Fine Artists I have met throughout the years and worked with in Brooklyn. I may expand this to include other artists outside of the NY area, but for now these will be the parameters ( I have some other parameters that I am not explaining, right now). The format of writing for each artist will depend on the artist, and may include essays, poetry, lists, links, etc...
I start with a Fine Artist who could not be any more visually different than I am in my present work (at least on the surface).
Nine thoughts on Mike Estabrook and his Fine Art work
1. The first reaction to the work is usually: smile and laughter, and then you realize how important the Fine Art statement is.
2. He uses a lot of post-consumer cardboard in his work, which acts in two ways (both literally and conceptually): it reuses a possible toxic material that would take a few months to break down in a landfill, and it inverses the corporate by-product against social and political corporate cultures.
3. His work consists of drawings that have intimate characteristics that can not be seen from a “big picture” viewpoint. This intimacy is crucial to the prospering work.
4. He creates fragile, ephemeral, large, robust, Hollywood-esque, Bollywood-esque, fantasy, realist, political, social, ornate, delicate, broad, hard, unique, fungible, heterosexual, homosexual, demonic, angelic, universal, local, lovely, scary, funny, sad, dramatic, comedic, jokey, serious work.
5. He does many human(itarian) acts and protests that are not seen within a Fine Art context, but are needed by more Fine Artists.
6. Mythology, Magic, Market-uprising, Message, Metaphor, and Monsters all start with the letter, “M.”
7. A Fine Artist who fully embraces the 21st century, and all of the (Fine Art) histories of all previous centuries.
8. The Welsh rock music band, Super Furry Animals, preached the long running slogan, “non-violent, direct action” I would equate his work to the music of the band, as well as to this statement; but to be more specific for both Super Furry Animals and
Mike Estabrook, I would add to this: Severely non-violent, direct Psychedelic action.
9. I am not
Mike Estabrook's spokesman, and neither are you.
Next week you can experience
Mike's work in the 32 below group show, Brooklyn, NY
http://openingsny.com/?page_id=664
Right now you can also experience
Mike's work in collaboration with Ernest Concepción:
Shining Mantis in the The Kangarok Epic show, Champaign, IL
http://www.kam.illinois.edu/exhibitions/current/Kangarok.html
See documentation, images, etc... of his work here:
http://www.mikeestabrook.com
