My Cross To Bear is a collection of 14 all new collage-based art pieces by Portland-based graphic designer and online personality, Nubby Twiglet. After a three year hiatus from art, Nubby’s return is most notably marked by an abundance of black and white pieces which feature motifs bearing her trademark graphic style.
A visual continuation of the acclaimed 2007 series Black & White Graphic Insight, My Cross to Bear presents a more refined artistic direction, featuring typographic elements seamlessly woven with fashion magazine mash-ups. These themes are often merged with self-portraits to create a modern collage style that walks a fine line between graphic design and fine art.
On the surface, My Cross To Bear is an homage to the symbolism of the red cross which often plays a starring role in Nubby’s design work. On a deeper level, it also delves into the transformation that takes place when a shift from obscurity to notoriety begins to take hold. With much of our lives now splashed across digital mediums without a second thought, the line between what we consider our private and public selves is consistently blurred. In this evolving social landscape, nothing is considered sacred. This is our cross to bear.
Each piece of art is a Nubbytwiglet.com original and will be available exclusively at Sequential Art Gallery beginning December 1, 2011.
In November we welcome writer and photographer Jaret Ferratusco, presenting his photography exhibition entitled “Black Portraits”. Through his work Jaret presents both photographic and literary considerations of unsuspecting individuals who are struggling with overwhelming and drastic changes in personality through what may be termed clinical depression.
He says in his show statement, “When your mood has shifted for the worse, when you are paranoid yet unmoved, the field of dreams scatters as if exploded, raining down again in a mess; commonly it’s unvoiced, unattended to. It burrows and grows silently.” Black Portraits will open November 3rd as part of First Thursday, with special musical guest Myrrh Larsen performing ambient rock throughout the evening. All photographs shot on 35mm film.
Jaret Ferratusco was born in New England in 1977. Having been a tour photographer on the road with various indie bands from one side of the country to the other for over ten years, he is the longtime proprietor of Corpse On Pumpkin Photography, an independent photographic production company, as well as its newer, sister company, the fiction publishing endeavor PATIENT, FOLDED HANDS. He is the author of two books, 2009′s ‘I Grew Up In Amaltherey Hill’ and the recent summer release of ‘Please Don’t Leave Me’, a collection of dark fiction.
You are not alone (so they say). A person may experience in their repetitive days, boldly recurring times of overly personal interior doubt that tends to weigh ungraciously heavy. It can be kept well hidden, in these times, hovering behind unvoiced doubts that shiver within you like a vague chill you barely notice. But when you do notice, when you can’t let it go, it starts a spiral downward, when these occasional times begin not to separate themselves but to take over seemingly everything. Emotionally antagonistic great weights will sit on your shoulders, the burdens and daily crosses to bear will follow you around, tugging at you from behind, holding you back. Your private, locked eye-to-eye contact in a bathroom mirror will bark out the personal impressions of yourself as you perceive all purpose in you degrading. The constant worry and wonderment over fragile contact will seem too much to handle; the incalculable mystery of your friends and family will frustrate you; your trust, those who trust you or those who don’t, those who can’t and those who won’t. When your mood has shifted for the worse, when you are paranoid yet unmoved, the field of dreams scatters as if exploded, raining down again in a mess; commonly it’s unvoiced, unattended to. It burrows and grows silently. In such cases where it may be examined, it’s merely voiced-off and considered part of the human condition. That’s just life. Depression, overwhelming sadness and discouragement, it’s “just life.” You’ll say this because they’ll say it, and outside everyone agrees. But what of it on the inside. What if it’s not a commonality after all. What if it’s really just you.
In October we are proud to host Jon Ascher’s original work from the new graphic novel, NeIL. Jon spent over a decade writing, painting, and arranging the book, until he felt he achieved a balance of laugh-out-loud high jinks, disturbing morbid existentialism, and tear-jerking redemption. We watch the troubled character of Neil look for meaning in his life… until he starts to break down into a paranoia and suspicion that may–or may not–be justified.
On display will be the original paintings from the book, each measuring 20-by-30 inches. All art will be for sale, and copies of NeIL (published by Cackling Imp Press) will be available for purchase as well. 50% of profits from all sales of NeIL will go to benefit the National Foundation for Suicide Prevention. The show opens First Thursday, October 6th, and runs through the 29th.
Jon Ascher is a starving illustrator living in Portland, Oregon. With NeIL complete and published, Jon is now working on a short story for Tales of Hot Rod Horror, Volume 2. The rest of his day is filled with illustration and design work, and serving as Media Director for the non profit group Portland Hearing Voices, advocates for people with mental conditions causing the phenomenon of hearing voices and other extraordinary experiences.
