Munch Gallery is excited to present ‘Upside Down Frowns’ by RADICAL! The exhibition features all new works, and site-specific paintings and installations. RADICAL! was recently part of the ambitious Living Walls Albany, 2011 and has within the past three years shown in New York, Washington, D.C., Oakland, California, London, Tel Aviv, Moscow, and Basel, Switzerland. His narratives are fragments of a larger urban landscape and never intentionally political, but one cannot escape the underlying social comment that seeps through the works and the characters involved. Needles and pills are some of the reoccurring objects and they act not only as symbols of mere violence, but also as metaphors for a social alienation, fear and lack of communication. The artists will be present at the opening reception friday October 21, 7-10 pm.

Artist Statement

Certain ideas are found in relation to how objects are found, for which ideas are to be placed upon. Working under the term RADICAL!, the gradual formation of ideas are heavily based on surroundings and social observation. This observation naturally results in some form of commentary, which is usually conveyed through various metaphors.

The seemingly heavy drug content of the work is never used in a manner to promote drugs. In previous works the subject matter of needles would be used in a way, where they would be protruding from, or attached to certain parts of a characters body that it used to interact in some way. The needles symbolize a fear, and so by having them replace or protrude from something used for interaction, they would provoke a fear of socialization and interaction no matter how cute and inviting their subject may seem. These needles have gone to take on more diverse meanings while still revolving around fear.

While questioning and exploring numerous subjects, an order has been established through the line work depicted through the paintings. Such line work is done to provide a sense of stability and serve as an act of refinement and checking in order to allow the imagery to continue to progress.