Trick-or-Treat, Bitter and Sweet
Kids don’t trick-or-treat much anymore, and Halloween has become
more of an excuse for adults to dress up in slutty costumes and get
bombed—which is exactly as it should be, really. All this stuff with
little vampires and Ninja Turtles going door-to-door begging for
fun-size Snickers was just an American perversion of what Halloween was
meant to be. Halloween has its roots in the pagan festival of Samhain,
an annual rite to mark the end of the harvest and the onset of the
cold, hungry season. People believed that the barrier between the
living and the dead broke down on Oct. 31, so they would put on masks,
set fire to stuff, slaughter animals and dance all night to placate the
restless spirits. So come Friday night, when you’re dressed in a
French-maid outfit and puking in the gutter, know that you’re part of
an ancient, noble tradition.
This year, two Costa Mesa galleries
are presenting Halloween-themed group shows at which artists offer up
some tricks and treats for grownups. “Blood Work,” the exhibit at the
Lab’s ARTery Gallery, is the more impressive of the two, with nearly 20
artists crowding the walls with their disturbed imaginings. But the Box
Gallery’s “Penumbra,” while only featuring three artists, boasts its
own share of icky, sticky delights.
“Blood Work” offers a
dizzying profusion of styles, from the cartoony, lunchbox-ready
cuteness of Ali Sabet to the dark, detailed, wonderfully twisted work
of Kristen Ferrell. If there’s a surprise here, it’s that a lot of the
pieces in this show are so . . . well, girly, for lack of a
better word. It’s not like boys have a monopoly on monsters or
anything, but you don’t go into a Halloween show expecting quite this
much estrogen. Artists such as Aileen Holmes and Natasha Buruato have a
determinedly femme and childlike sensibility, while Kendra Binney’s
characters are such vulnerable little nothings they look like Caspar
the Friendly Ghost could beat them up with one wispy arm tied behind
his back. This is not to suggest, however, that the show has no bite;
Brooke Kent and Ferrell are both ladies you wouldn’t want to tangle
with in a dark alley, and Jeff McMillan butches things up with the
welcome return of the white-furred, horned gorillas that are ubiquitous
in his work. (I’m guessing that when McMillan was a kid, he was
traumatized by the deadly mugato from the original Star Trek.)
There
are a few would-be Frankensteins here who never quite manage to bring
their monsters to life. Sam Oak, for instance, introduces himself as an
artist, author, composer, producer and musician, but based on the
evidence in this show, I’m afraid I have to go for the obvious (if
mean) play on words and suggest that he probably shouldn’t quit four of
his five day jobs. But even if some of the individual contributors to
“Blood Work” don’t look so hot, you’re overwhelmed by the show as a
whole and the sheer number of colorful, ghoulish sights. The exhibition
only runs until Nov. 9, so be sure to make it over there before
midnight this Saturday (Dia de los Muertos!), or you’ll make the
spirits angry.
* * *
After you’re done with “Blood
Work,” flutter into the night sky on your little bat wings and make
your way a few blocks over to the “Penumbra” show at the Box Gallery.
Matthew Price is back with his waifish, big-headed girls. (Seriously,
this guy turns up in local shows more often than some of us remember to
floss our teeth.) This time, he’s brought along the Night Gallery’s own
Goth ceramicist Robert Brown, as well as Mickey Edtinger (a.k.a. Mikey
ME), a transplanted Austrian who paints his flowery yet disturbing
visions in shades of brain green, mucus yellow, dried-blood brown and
crow’s-feather black. Brown’s such a pro he’s proven that he can even
make a teapot look sinister, while Price and Edtinger have something of
the gawky charm of teenagers filling their looseleaf notebooks with
page after page of horrible little things.
The show runs through
Dec. 13, so you’ll have time to swing by and get a jolt of evil energy
when you need a break from all the gooey, false cheer of Christmastime.
Christmas is when we try to act like the decent souls we wish we could
be; Halloween’s the time when we get to act like the monsters we know
we really are.
“Blood Work” at the ARTery Gallery at the Lab, 2930 Bristol St., Costa Mesa, (714) 966-6660; www.sobeca.net. Call for hours. Through Nov. 9; “Penumbra” at the Box Gallery, 765 Saint Clair St., Ste. B, Costa Mesa, (714) 724-4633; www.boxboxbox.com. Call for hours. Through Dec. 13.
January 12, 2009
