BOOTY & THE BEAST Food One/King Gum limited edition art print

Since we're both on a constant mission to bring you the freshest in freshness, Jim Mahfood (aka Food One) and I have joined forces to rock a brand new collaborative art print.

Aptly titled "Booty & The Beast," this limited edition giclee will be premiering at the New York Comic Con, in two weeks. Food One and I are doing a super-limited run of these, so don't sleep. We're currently accepting pre-orders for all you early birds and those who won't be attending NYCC.

For more details and a look at the sparkly fruits of our inky labor, visit www.hiredmeat.com

"'Course you can but you don't wanna... 'course you want but you can't have it."
- Dave Crosland, aka King Gum

Frazetta Drink & Draw Works

"Destroy #1"

"Attack"

"Rising Doom"

These are my three pieces from the Remembering Frazetta Memorial Drink & Draw, last Friday night. Thanks to Jack Shen for organizing the event, and to Leef of Mission: Comics & Art for letting us rock it in his space. Mad love to Jamaica Dyer and Josh Ellingson for being my drawing buddies, that night. Thanks to Rebel Yell whiskey for keeping me on even keel.

And infinite respect for Frank Frazetta. Rest in peace, and thanks for the incredible legacy you left the world with.

"I circle like sharks, while you panic. I cruise the Atlantic."
- The Gum

New Commission in the Werks!

This is an early stage of a commissioned piece I'm creating for a collector in San Francisco. Fun times with violence, nudity, and heavy machines!

"... son is on a midnight run, like Deniro."
- King Gum

New Work in PAPER PUSHERS @ Gallery1988SF

"Morning Study Tina" (uncut)
8" x 14" / mixed media on watercolor paper

"Bedlam" (uncut)
8" x 14" / mixed media on watercolor paper

"Stone Faced"
4" x 6" / mixed media on watercolor paper

"Those Things'll Kill Ya."
4" x 6" / mixed media on watercolor paper

"Grimace and Bear It"
4" x 6" / mixed media on watercolor paper

"Devil Exhale"
4" x 6" / mixed media on watercolor paper

These six, brand-spaking-new pieces will all be on display in Gallery1988SF's PAPER PUSHERS exhibition, which opens up TONIGHT! It's their annual group show of works created on paper. My submissions display the new "King Gum" style I've been developing in my paintings, sketches, and drawings. Feels nice to finally get some of this stuff out into the world!

I'll be in attendance at the reception, along with a good number of the artists involved. Come kick it with some real live creative folk, and get your Holiday swerve on! I promise not to touch you... unless you want me to.

Nya-ha-ha!
- Dave from the poop deck

ps -- See flyer image below or visit www.gallery1988.com for details!

At last, UNDEFEATED Artwork and Photos!

Hey-hey-hello! At long last, I've uploaded photos and shots of the artwork for my current solo exhibition, UNDEFEATED. Sorry this was so long in coming for all you fine peoples who aren't able to see the show in person. My life took a fairly extreme flip the week the opening. Since then, I've been in the process of moving The Bunker to a new location, and terribly preoccupied with all the wonderful details that go into apartment/studio hunting in a big city. But, ultimately, the show must go on! So enjoy the photos below.


The guys at D-Structure were great, and let me just fill up the space however I saw fit. I'd created these large wooden-cut-out characters, and gotten them mounted on a few walls. And while I was locked in for an all-nighter before the day of the opening, it dawned on me to rock this mural over the paintings, from the front of the store to the back. It really helped tie everything together.

"Undefeated"
house paint on wood

"Title Bout"
house paint on wood

The Angel & The Brute going head-to-head!

"Victory"
house paint on wood

The Angel marches ahead, to do battle with The Brute
and his horde of mutated pugilists.

Winged children -- the followers of The Angel

Warped & Twisted Adults -- subjects/victims of The Brute
*** It's about here that I actually fell off of the ladder
I was working atop of. Luckily (fueled by coffee, Red Bull and
Pop Tarts) I landed on my feet like a kitty cat!***


The Brute & His Horde

For this exhibit, I really wanted to break out of my regular "illustration mold" and challenge myself as a painter. I feel like I learned a lot making this much work, and on such a variety of scale & style. And I'm already starting to implement those lessons in pieces for a charity show in SF this September, a group show in LA in January, and a new body of work that will take me well into 2010. So below, for your viewing pleasure, is the first step in an exciting new direction for my fine arts, illustration and painted works.

"A World Without Good"
oil, acrylic, and collage on canvas

"Bookie By The Bay"
oil and acrylic on canvas

"Bring It"
oil, acrylic, and collage on canvas

"The Unavoidable Conflict of
Plus Versus Minus"
oil, acrylic, and collage on wood

"Awakening"
mixed media on illustration board

"Call To Arms"
oil and acrylic on wood
SOLD

"For Love Or The Gun"
acrylic on retired silkscreen

"Booty & The Beast"
acrylic and collage on wood

Hope you enjoyed this little virtual tour of my show. Please feel free to comment and let me know what you think. My imagination is already rolling and tumbling like a monster-sized cement mixer for the next exhibit... cooking up something even bigger and wilder than UNDEFEATED. So, as always, stay tuned to this blog and hiredmeat.com for more updates, sneak peeks, and hooty-hoos!

In the meantime....

BUNKER OUT!

UNDEFEATED Press Release

Below is the press release for my solo show. Feel free to copy the text, grab the flyer image and re-post, email, and share the living hell out of it all. I'm hoping to get as much press as possible for this exhibit. So by all means, feel free to help me spread the gospel of the Hiredmeat!

With mad love for all my Bunker Folk,

- Bunker, out.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

“UNDEFEATED”PAINTINGS AND RECENT WORKS BY
DAVE CROSLAND
www.hiredmeat.com

AUGUST 7 THROUGH SEPTEMBER 2
OPENING RECEPTION FRIDAY AUGUST 7, 8 – 11PM
with DJ’S TRIZZAE, KERO ONE, GREEN TEA, and THE TONESRSVP AT www.going.com/undefeated

D-STRUCTURE SF 520 HAIGHT ST.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117
415.557.2431
www.d-structuresf.com

Dave Crosland’s UNDEFEATED is a visual story following the eternal conflict of Good versus Evil, characterized by The Angel, a giant in boxing gloves, and The Brute, a beastly wolf-headed boxer. This solo exhibition features these nemesis behemoths as they face off for the fate of all humanity. The Angel battles with love, nature and creation – the essence of life. The Brute employs fury, vice and destruction – the keys to mankind’s undoing. Along with the giant pugilists, these new works also focus on ordinary people caught up in the sway of the fight. From innocent children heeding the call of The Angel, to mutated adults warped by the dark promises of The Brute, Crosland illustrates a world that balances brooding ferocity with childlike hopefulness. At times colorful and controlled, at others raw and explosive, these paintings, drawings and large wooden cut-outs represent classical themes while reaching beyond black and white archetypes. The end result is an exciting tale told in paint, pencil, ink and wood that will capture viewers’ hearts and imaginations. In dark days like these, it’s easy to think that Evil has the forces of Good on the ropes. But they’re not out of the fight yet. Not by a long shot.

Dave Crosland is an independent illustrator based in San Francisco’s Lower Haight district. UNDEFEATED is his third and most ambitious solo exhibition to date. His previous works include comic art for Image Comics and IDW Publishing, character designs for Cartoon Network and Disney, and album art for Blueprint and Gym Class Heroes. Since the start of his career in the year 2000, Crosland’s original artwork has been enjoyed by private collectors of all ages, both in the USA and abroad.For more info, visit www.hiredmeat.com and www.d-structuresf.com.

The Demolitionist lurks...

Behold, my Thought Processor -- The Demolitionist -- in all his cut-out, folded, glued-together glory! Tingle with fear, as he survey's the landscape of another foreign moon, looking for lifeforms and inanimate objects to bring to extinction!

The Thought Processor gallery show opens Saturday, June 6th. It'll be on display all day long, with the opening reception starting at 7pm. Check the flyer and www.super7store.com/ for all the nitty-gritty info. If you're in the San Francisco Bay area, come out and join us for a night of art, conversation, and little paper robots!

- Bunker, out.

Thought Processor!

Friend and fellow illustrator, Phoneticontrol, invited me to take part in the San Francisco leg of his "Thought Processor" traveling art exhibit. For the show, a lucky band of local artists are each designing their own version of a paper color-way (fold-up toy) of one of Pho's little robot characters. Then we're doing paintings that correspond with our designs. Both the 2-D art and the finished, constructed paper figures will be on display at Super-7 Toys in S.F.'s Japantown, this June. I'll post the info on here soon, so keep an eye out!


Yes, that's my very own color-way design, up at the top. He's The Demolitionist, based on the gun-toting dude in "Business As Usual" (shown above). I saved myself some time by making the toy suit a painting I already had done and ready for display. I can still hear Mr. Groff's words echoing in my brain... "Work smarter... not harder... wooooo."

Okay, so the "woooo" is a little adlib... I'd imagine a ghost of a memory making, well, a ghostly boo noise... or something.

I'm off to draw big things, again!

- Bunker, out!

S.A.D 08: The Death of Ignorance!

Sorry this sketch is late. It was done, last night, at Nickie's (a bar near The Bunker). Some friends met my lady and I there, for Inaugural Celebration drinks. The other kids were downing "Obamapolitans," but I stuck with my Racer 5 IPA. Two pints of that stuff will do ya right!

But I got home, ate a late dinner, and realized I was way too faded to operate a scanner. Much less, type out full sentences. So here's my eigth Sketch-A-Day piece.


I'm working towards a big solo show, this August, called "We Can Be Heroes." The exhibit will be about elevating the mundane to new heights... it's "genre" work, but for our modern times, and with a healthy dose of fantasy. I think one of the things we've forgotten, socially, is how to imagine... how to crack open reality and dream outside of it. So I want this show to do that -- to crack open reality.

One of the characters I'll expose in some of the pieces, is Ignorance. More specifically, he represents African-American ignorance. This guy is a constant plague of my fellow black people. I first sketched him last year. Basically, he's an ink-black, lanky, nude man in a crooked Ku Klux Klan hood. When he puts his mojo on his victims... well, I think I'll save that creepiness for another post.

For now, the sketch at hand is of his demise. I imagined him being struck down by a spear of light, harnessed by people trying to stamp him out. I guess the glut of Inauguration love inspired this one. Yesterday was the first time I'd ever even thought to illustrating Ignorance being destroyed. There's also some "Christ Stamping Out Evil," inspiration in there too. I've seen that depicted in a few classical paintings (*There's a really good one at the Columbus Art Museum near CCAD*). I'm sure that will play into my final composition for the piece.

-Bunker, out.

Back From The Depths!

Holy hot damn! I'm back, people. Don't worry... I wasn't kidnapped by terrorists. After Thanksgiving, I was simultaneously tackled by a flu bug and a mountain of deadlines. Since we last spoke, I've rocked a wedding invitation for two LA friends/collectors, two new comic strips, a piece for Mad Magazine, and 13 new paintings for the four fine art shows I'm in during December. Simply put, life has been fucking insane.

But now that things have slowed a bit, I have time to update the blog. Dig some of my new stuff below!

"Urban Flight" - one of four recent pieces where
I've collaged a sketch onto wood and made a painting out of it

"You Don't Know What The Hell You're Talking About"
- an example of how I've been using a lot more collage, lately

"Donkey Punch" - the boxer pieces just keep getting
curiouser and curiouser.

"Nat Narwhal" - I've been making a series of Animal Alliteration pieces.
It's fun art for all ages, and totally takes me back to Sesame Street and
all the other cool creative learning devices of my childhood.

"Uva Unicorn" - another of the Animal Alliteration pieces.

"John & Jenny's Wedding" *done after the classic Bill Seinkiewicz "Elektra" cover

Also, to anyone who's ordered books or commissions, sorry for the shipping delay. Now that the work clouds have cleared, I'll be taking care of your orders tout de suite! And I'll be putting some extra treats in there... a little tangible apology for my tardiness.

All the info for the December exhibits is posted on my site, www.hiredmeat.com, along with a bunch more new art. If you're gonna be in The Bay Area between now and mid January, come to San Francisco and check 'em out!

I'm getting a head start on my paintings for 2009, so look for samples of that stuff as we get closer to the year's end.

Happy Holidays,
-Bunker, out.

Double Dutch Live Art!

Hey yo! Check out these pics from my Double Dutch live art show a few weeks back. The piece is called "Caffeine Angelica." I just went for straight-up painting here, from raw under-painting to fast, thick glazes of color. Liquid blast-off!


-Bunker, out!