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KRIS ASKEW
60's Rock
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Opening Reception: Thursday September 3, 5-7 pm
at Prisms Gallery (PCL)
189 Liberty St. NE Salem, OR
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Opening Reception: Thurs. Sept. 3rd, 5-7pm
Bring your favorite 60's rock album to spin!
Thanks to: Prisms (PCL), ArtWorks (CEI), OUTPOST1000
Kris Askew does not dwell on the past, though judging from the overwhelming numbers of his drawings, paintings and comic sequences which use 60’s and 70’s pop culture as their source, you could be forgiven for thinking so.
“These are things that were here before me and also when I was growing up, what I like is that I am here now but I can remember” says Kris.
An amazing aspect of Kris’s preoccupation with 60’s culture is his interest in once widely known personalities now obscured by time and his concern with reproducing minute details of the decade. In one drawing, Paul Kantner and Marty Balin of the seminal San Francisco psychedelic rock band Jefferson Airplane are seen as a dapper duo standing hand in hand, both sporting up to the minute late 60’s fashion chic. In this drawing his attention to detail, bejeweled headbands, paisley and tied died shirts, a maxi coat, fringed buckskin vest and batik bellbottoms and moccasin boots serve as a tribute to the color laden multicultural style of the era.
Paul Kantner and Marty Balin are not the only ones who benefit from Kris’s restaging’s. Sly Stone, Peter Frampton, Nicholette Larson and Dennis Doherty of the Momma’s and the Papa’s are but a few of those immortalized by Kris’s pencil. Kris also creates tributes to television and movie stars of the day. In an homage to television’s The Mod Squad, the series 3 stars are portrayed but while Peggy Lipton’s hand lettered name is recorded beneath her in garish pink and yellow, her two co-stars (Clarence Williams 3rd and Michael Cole, for the record) remain nameless.
Underlying all of this is an artist who is gifted with an ability to draw beautifully crafted, witty, lurid and outright funny representations of lives lived in an era which continues to resonate and inspire.
Professional Summary:
2018 Storming the Academy, Oregon State University (group exhibit)
2018 Salon: Corvallis Arts Center (group exhibit)
2016 Rock N Roll Art Works Hall Of Fame, Happy Trails Records, Corvallis, Or (solo exhibit)
2015 "60's Rock" Prisms Gallery, Salem OR (solo exhibit)
2015 "Funny" Majestic Theater, Corvallis OR (group exhibit)
2015 "Paradise" (Ugly Art Room), Poptart, Corvallis OR (group exhibit)
