Celebrate Public TV with JAO

JAO will be speed painting at various times throughout the day at the Twin Cities Public Television 50th year Annivesary Celebration.

August 4, 172 E 4th St, downtown St Paul MN, 10am - 5pm FREE

Found Gallery , Terrence Payne

You can find now find Terrence Payne's work at Found Gallery in Los Angeles.

JAO is coming to Baltimore!

Speed Painting at Artscape in Downtown Baltimore

Saturday July 21 and Sunday July 22

Both days: 1-7 pm, painting every hour on the hour

In front of the Maryland Institute of Contemporary Art

www.jaoart.com/

Tiny Showcase: Jennifer Davis

Are you hip to Tiny Showcase? Tiny Showcase offers affordable art from a varied group of artists by offering small limited-edition digital prints of their work.

Each piece is "around the same price as a CD, book or record..." and a percentage of each sale goes to the artists charity of choice.

They sell out super fast, (often within minutes of the art being posted) so you need to be quick. They are pretty hush-hush about who the artist will be and the print for sale (a new one goes up each Tuesday evening) , but I got a source and tonight it is our own Jennifer Davis.

Michael Sweere Unveils Mayo Clinic Mural

Michael Sweere's recent commission for the Mayo Clinic is now installed and on permanent display in the T. Denny Sanford Pediatrics Center, located in the Mayo Building, Rochester, MN.

Created entirely from recycled paper packaging, the mosaic mural depicts the four major natural biomes (environments) of Minnesota and the plant and animal life that live within each. They are: Forest, Prairie, Lakes and Wetlands. Over 100 living creatures are depicted - including several hidden surprises. Measuring six feet in height by sixteen feet wide, the mural took almost one year to complete.

click on images for the amazing details

Delightful Too Review

Pilot artists Jennifer Davis and Amy Rice opened a two person show in Atlanta this week at Young Blood Gallery
and received a favorable review in Atlanta's weekly arts rag, Creative Loafing:

Delightful Too: Mutual admiration
Minneapolis artists Amy Rice and Jennifer Davis

BY FELICIA FEASTER
Published 07.11.07

Delightful Too, the Young Blood Gallery exhibition of work by Minneapolis artists Amy Rice and Jennifer Davis, is infused with a friendly, two-peas-in-a-pod vibe. Like best friends sitting down to paint each others' toenails or to read racy excerpts from Harold Robbins novels, there is a charming sense of play and intimacy in this collaborative exhibition of two women who share a fascination with vintage advertisements, girl culture, birds and bunnies, sprinkle cupcakes, retro colors, and a snarky take on the past.

Favoring juicy hues of peach, melon, sea-foam green and salmon pink, Rice and Davis also share an obvious delight in riffing on each others' creations. Almost every work in the show offers a nod to the other artist, with one of Rice's artworks invariably "inspired by" one of Davis' and vice versa. The way the artists play off of each other's work evokes the bonds that often form in female friendships with their similar rhythms of back-and forth admiration and borrowing.

Rice's work is the more graphic and visibly street-art-inspired of the two. Rice works with spray paint, acrylics and the fat, black borders of stencils. Her paintings blend the look of ads from 1940s women's magazines; an irreverent, female take on street art; and a touch of Henry Darger kink. Though her clunkier technique and more garish palette can often compare unfavorably with Davis', at its best Rice's work offers poignant evocations of both the look and the emotional texture of the past. Her re-creation of the kind of barter system practiced in childhood in the self-explanatory "You Can Hold the Bunny If I Can Wear the Mask" is a good example of the artist's loaded content.

Davis tends to work on a smaller scale, using collage, painting and drawing to create surreal little vignettes. A popular motif is human bodies with animal heads and a visual style that seems to borrow from the 1970s at some moments and the '40s at others. A typically satisfying mix of color and content is the creepy "Birthday Party," in which Davis' bright, chirpy color palette extends to the seasick hues of the children's faces.

Davis' work is fascinatingly rich in both its cultural borrowings and its air of decadence mixed with preciousness.

Delightful Too. Through July 27. Young Blood Gallery, 629 Glenwood Ave. Wed. and Fri., noon-6 p.m.; Thurs., noon-7 p.m.; Sat.-Sun., noon-5 p.m. 404-627-0393. www.youngbloodgallery.com.

Modes of Disclosure At Form and Content Gallery

Modes of Disclosure

At Form and Content Gallery

210 N 2nd St

Minneapolis MN

Opening Reception: Thursday, July 12, 6-8pm

Pilot artist:
JAO
Artist and Athlete