|
|
 REVIEW Comics and Characters Bwana Spoons and Martin Ontiveros findinspiration for their art in toys,comics and childhood memories. BY KATE BONANSINGA |
|
An Homage to Toys by Two Dorky Boys American Institute of Architects Gallery 315 SW 4th Ave., 223-8757 Ends Dec. 23 A few years ago, Brandon Spoons' wife affectionately nicknamed him Bwana, after an ape at the San Francisco Zoo. The name stuck, and 28-year-old Spoons adopted it for his art career. The artist is probably best known for his 'zine, Ain't Nothin' Like Fuckin' Moonshine, each issue of which is based on a theme. The current one, No. 13, is about luck. Issue 12 explores insects and inventions, and No. 11, complete with LP, focuses on monkeys and bananas. The only obvious connection between the 'zine and the paintings and three-dimensional vignettes in Spoons' current exhibition with Martin Ontiveros are the characters he calls quintopussies. These friendly creatures, who resemble octopi with three fewer legs, adorn the cover of issue 13 and appear in the largest of several staged scenes in the gallery. They float over the scene, with their legs of rubber fishing lures and their heads of colorful fimo, carrying paper umbrellas. Quintopussies are the most common of the inhabitants of Mogwab Island, a tropical locale that existed only in Spoons' imagination until it took physical form in this vignette. When Spoons talks about Mogwab, its complex cast of characters comes to life. There's Captain Angry, an orange-horned, black-cloaked figure who controls both a ghost (via remote) and the threatening Alphabot, whose neck is made of dice. King Gogoda, a one-eyed spiritual leader, rules the island from the liqor [sic] store that he manages by day and from his tree hut by night. (Despite the name of the 'zine and the story's multiple allusions to alcohol, Spoons doesn't drink.) Mogwab's protector, an elephant, continuously swims around the island and is the subject of one of Spoons' paintings. Each of the vignettes is demarcated by bright blue rocks like those found at the bottom of aquariums. It goes without saying that Spoons' art has a childlike quality. His most creative act is the fabrication of the story itself, a fairy tale complete with villain, hero, fairy godelephant and underwater elves. Like fairy tales, his work is both fantastically fun and has the potential to make a statement about the human condition. Spoons relocated from northern California to Portland in 1995 after traveling around the country in search of the best place to spend his adult years. The final deciding factor was finding two toy stores on West Burnside Street that carry micronauts--tiny plastic spacemen with movable parts. It's toys that brought Spoons and Martin Ontiveros together. In the winter of 1997, Spoons hosted a toy sale, where he sold toys that he had purchased from thrift stores over the past few decades. Ontiveros showed up at the sale, and the two have been art-making pals ever since. Ontiveros, 29, received his B.F.A. in experimental animation from the California Institute of Arts in 1996. He had been on hiatus from making art between his graduation and the time he met Spoons. "I had nothing to say," he remembers. "I was tired of racking my brains to make smart art." Meeting Spoons freed Ontiveros from this self-imposed and stifling expectation. Now his main drive is, in his words, "to rediscover my childhood." One of Ontiveros' current projects may help him in this pursuit: He's illustrating Ricky Ricotta and his Giant Robot, a children's book by Eugene author Dav Tilkey, to be published by Scholastic Books. His most intriguing works in the current exhibition are silk-screened images of Ultraman, a Japanese TV superhero from the 1960s. The work of Ontiveros and Spoons represents an upswing in the creation and representation of comic-book, television and video-game characters by Portland artists in their late 20s and early 30s. Last summer, James Yu's highly successful show of paintings featured Super Mario, a video-game character, and at the Mark Woolley Gallery, Jacob and Arnold Pander had an exhibition of their original illustrations for Secret Broadcast, a comic published by Portland's Oni Press. The trend is not limited to Portland. Twenty-three-year-old Marcel Dzama's solo exhibit in Los Angeles consisted of 500 drawings, many of which include images of televisions or television characters. The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago is currently hosting a solo exhibit by Moriko Mori, 31, who photographs herself dressed as otherworldly, comic-book-like characters. (A Mori photograph is also currently on view at the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle.) These artists are drawing upon their experiences and, in so doing, questioning the barriers between pop and high culture. Ontiveros puts it well: "I'm a TV baby. I grew up watching sci-fi and horror on a daily basis. That's what I know best. And there's nothing wrong with having fun."
- - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
|
