The word 'cartoon' initially described a full-sized preliminary drawing. It later mutated to mean a graphic satire and then to mean a drawing simplified for a comic. Eventually 'comix' developed, and the graphic novel was born. Since Frank Miller's 'Dark Knight' versions of the Batman saga, graphic novels have been pushing visual narrative to the extreme. In addition to influencing the world of illustration with their bold innovations, graphic novelists, cartoonists and animators have also had a profound impact on the contemporary fine arts. In particular, their experimental graphic strategies and mechanisms have been extensively adopted by fine artists to interrogate more traditional modes of visual representation and communication.
Having grown out of an avowedly 'high art' practice, how are the modes and mores of the contemporary 'cartoon' currently feeding their influences back into the arena of the 'high-brow'? Rather than examing the terrain of the 'low-brow', as it is sometimes called, Cartoon Networks considers the ways in which three young painters fuse their own concerns with innovative graphic and representational strategies, and asks how the co-option of these strategies impacts what the paintings concerned say, and how they say it.
The works of these artists disrupt and reinvent the conventions of the 'comic' - whether this be the conventions of the graphic novel, of the most recent anime developments, of Mad Magazine style cartooning, or of Marvel-esque monthly instalments. In the process 'comic' styles, tropes, and visual conventions are re-aligned within a fine art context. The references to the cartoon and its many relatives are explicit. But the 'welds' of what may be termed 'high' and 'low' that these artists' perform suggest that it is not so much explicit narrative communication that is intended here, as it is a play of hermetic discourse and cultural signifiers.
Featuring Thuy Le, Mark Mulroney and Andrew Schoultz. David French in the North Gallery
February 4th thru February 25th, 2006
Artists' Reception
Saturday
February 4th, 2006
7:00pm - 10:00pm
RAID Projects
602 Moulton Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90031
(323) 441-9593
