Greg “Craola” Simkins is going bicoastal with his next solo show: “It Wanders.” The show features brand new paintings and begins in New York on Saturday, September 6th at Joshua liner Gallery. The end of the story unfolds in Los Angeles at Gallery 1988 on Thursday, November 6th. What, no love for San Francisco? Selected work from “It Wanders” will be featured in Greg’s upcoming storybook from 1988 Press. More info on the shows and book are forthcoming. In the meantime, Juxtapoz writes:
In Simkins’ large, finely wrought paintings, fantastical characters with symbolic accessories are arranged in quasi-narrative still-life’s that spread opulently across the picture surface. Simkins’ grotesque, sumptuous, and often humorous imagery is painstakingly rendered in the mannerist style of Arcimboldo and Hieronymus Bosch, but the contents of his dreamlike tableaux are lifted from the contemporary unconscious—nightmares of toxic landscapes, bioengineered nature, and pop-culture decadence. His blending of organic forms with the appearance of manufactured surfaces suggests technology run amok and a natural world in accelerated flux. Like other artists of his generation, Simkins honed his unique approach in the public arena as the West Coast graffiti artist known as Craola.
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