Happy Kitty, Dancing Pony and the Newspeak

by Jamie Bennett 

This gallery is an exploration of iconography and the basic language of form in communication. There is a fine line between Kitsch and Pop art – this was an attempt to cross and blur that line.

Happy Kitty, Dancing Pony: was created specifically to have mass appeal and a vintage flair. We wanted this aspect of the gallery to be easy on the eyes (pretty eye candy).

Newspeak: is a homage to Pop art. A fresh face on an old concept – for a new generation of art aficionados with a whole new and unique vocabulary.

This gallery space was created by Nia and myself using a vinyl plotter and floater frames. I love the way this process creates shadows under the glass and really makes the art pop (Pop art pops). If you read on I will post additional images taken with my phone and from the actual vector files. This way you can see the artwork a little better... I am terrible at taking photos of art on walls but trust me, the gallery is awesome.

The real inspiration for this gallery is the difference between Nia's and my own style of art. Nia's art is so beautiful and cute, where my own art is often harsh and scary. Some would even call it dark. So we each split white and black floater frames and quickly set about making as many finished pieces as possible. There were around 50 finished pieces created in 30 days. Talk about world wind! I even refaced an old Mountain Dew display to hold my Jart (jar art).

So above is an example of Nia's art and to the right is an example of something that I did. Now this example is purposefully scary but even if I were to draw a bunny, something about it would be scarier than Nia's cute little critters. It's hard to describe unless you see it first hand. Not that my art is bad but there is certainly a harshness to it and that's really what we wanted to showcase with this gallery. The stark difference between style and light imagery versus dark imagery.
 

Nia stuck more to Kitsch and critters while I stuck more to iconography and pop icons. I tried to dress down pop references but still allow the meaning to eke through. I was really trying to channel Keith Haring here. I wanted to create my own language with icons.

Please, come visit this gallery. It is easily some of my favorite work to date and I was even told this was the best show on the ArtWalk. Happy Kitty, Dancing Pony and the Newspeak is currently on display till October at Pacific University in downtown Eugene, Ore.