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Reception: Saturday, July 10, 6:30
Giant Robot is proud to host Flirting with Disaster, a group art show featuring new work by Eric Nyquist, Louise Chen, and Munkao. Eric Nyquist is a Los Angeles-based artist who creates hyper detailed drawings of wildlife and industry. For the show, his work will be exploring cowboy culture--specifically rodeos. Celebrating the skills of cowboys and cowgirls, rodeos glorify the athleticism behind the cattle industry and have become synonymous with the American West. The pieces will contrast the ruggedness of rodeo events and characters with delicate framing and detail. He says, "It is a look at a culture that, for better or for worse, helped build America and is still trying to survive." Louise Chen, who splits her time between Santa Cruz and Los Angeles, draws, paints, and reimagines society's destructive and wasteful tendencies. In her newest work, oil spills, air pollution, and industrial byproducts ooze with "floral emanations"; telling an ironic tale, pairing bright botanical themes with colorless and empty-but-uniquely-beautiful decay. The seemingly subsequent drawings of desolate, cratered landscapes offer a lonely view of the aftermath under large, sweeping night skies littered with stars and galaxies.
Munkao is a Malaysian painter who depicts kaiju-inspired forms in destructive settings to address relationships, love, and sex. The tone of his work is almost always humorous but the solid craftsmanship belies serious skill, effort, and direction. Common themes in his upcoming work include space, science fiction, and taikonauts. The acrylic and ink on paper works will magnify his Chinese diaspora anxiety about China’s geopolitical relationship to sci-fi dimensions.