Yes the moment has come and the time is nigh. Come lose your mind with us at the opening of my newest solo exhibition... "Excorrigia / The Scourge" premiering at Superchief Gallery (@Culturefix, 9 Clinton Street at Houston, in New York City's Lower East Side). The opening, hosted by myself, Carolyn LeBourgeois (who made the cross country trek with me) the whole crew from Sueprchief, Ed Zipco, Billy, and Tricky Yooth aka Patrick, as well as the owners of Culturefix and their rad gallery manager Josh Allen, will commence at 6pm and go until 10pm, Thursday, April 3rd 2014. 
The work is hung and I am so proud of this one. The works themselves are ready to be experienced as a full on visual narrative following The Scourge in the world of Unstoppable Tomorrow, individually to be felt and walked around inside of with the eyes and minds of the audience, and they are very ready to find homes here in NYC and beyond. 
Also Joel St. Julien, one of my family from the Bay Area, has helped me co produce a sound piece of intensely demonic and frightening soundscapes and textures that will no doubt bring the whole thing together, finished by a (human) sacrificial altar piece installation in the 2nd floor street window of the gallery space. Needless to say, I feel really good about this one and cannot wait to see what kind of response we get! See you there! 
Exhibitions
More Images From our Cross Country Adventures.
Look Back to BRIC "Art Into Music"
So I just realized as I am getting ready for the show at Superchief show that I never put up the final images from the BRIC Arts Media House show I created an Installation for in February... there is some great press coverage on it from Fecal Face and Juxtapoz from the show and the opening. Many thanks to the trio at BRIC of Jenny Gerow, Elizabeth Ferrer, and Eric Araujo for making it all happen, and Space Meow for performing live inside the piece at the opening. The Juggs Band with Kareem Bunton will be performing at the close on April 27th. Here are pics of the final product and the opening.
The Journey of The Scourge...
So Carolyn Lebourgeois and I packed up the car a week ago and hit the road. Destination NYC... We drove a straight haul from California to El Paso, through Arizona and New Mexico in 20 or so hours and then crashed. Ate steak, then crashed again... then it was onward to Austin for BBQ with Terry Addison at Rudy's, to Houston to hang out with Bob MaCready and go to the Screwed Up Records store, to New Orleans to hang with amazing Chef Nathanial Zimet who started Boucherie for the most amazing meal of all time, through East Texas, to Mississippi for slammin fried chicken, through Alabama, through Northern Florida, through Georgia, to South Carolina and South of the Border, through my home state of North Carolina for Bullocks BBQ, up through Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey and finally to NYC from where I type this for you!!! Here are a few images. There will be more in depth images and stories in the weeks to come but the show is dropping this coming Thursday so all roads lead to Excorrigia I The Scourge!!!
And like that... He's Gone...
We are embarking on our journey today! Carolyn and I are getting ready to pack up the car, get the supplies, get the stickers, get the zines, and head to the FFDG "Salt the Skies" group show that I am in, and then we are offffffffff to the great unknown and wide open that is the reverse frontier. Well its known, but it is definitely wide open!
So first off we will be going as far as possible toward Arizona before we pass out. Then we will be gunning it to Austin, Texas to see Terry Addison from Old Crow, one of my bestest homies and favorite people I have ever worked with. We apparently going to hit WhattaBurger and eat some ribs at Salt Lick... or maybe not... we will have to see. Anyway, its time to pack it up... New York City here we come!
Click on the link below to see the video trailer for Excorrigia I The Scourge @ Superchief.
TONIGHT! Feb 19th "Art Into Music" @ BRIC in Brooklyn, New York City
So tonight I am in a group show at an AMAZZZZIINNGGGG art institution called BRIC Arts Media House on Fulton Street in Brooklyn's Fort Greene (my favorite place in the world) neighborhood. I am so honored and feel so blessed to be a part of this show and to be given the opportunity to come back to NYC to give back to the city that raised me after a long journey of transformation and change. The piece I created is in fact called "Gratitude and Transformation(s)", fittingly enough as I have been hoping and praying for an opportunity to give back to this place, especially this area of Brooklyn where I spent so many important years, for a long time. Many thanks to Elizabeth Ferrer and Jenny Gerow at BRIC, and huge thanks to Eric Araujo, whom I have known through this art life struggle since 2006, for getting the ball rolling and getting me into this historic event at BRIC. I am one lucky cat and I went Hard. As they say in the Bay Area, I WENT HELLA HARD! Hahahahha. The piece took about a week to create. It is made with mostly reclaimed and repurposed materials from Brooklyn and Queens and truly is a living act of gratitude to this place.
Also a special performance by my friends Space Meow will occur on the stage built into the installation. I have been looking forward to working with Space Meow for some time now and it is going to be EPIC! They go on at 9pm. At the end of the show my good friend Kareem Bunton's awesome blues rock band The Juggs will also perform and they always throw down!
The Opening is tonight, Wednesday Feb. 19th, from 7-9:30 pm. BRIC is at 647 Fulton Street and will be awesome. We will be heading to Frank's Lounge afterward for an intimate after party with the artists and friends and such! Gonna be awesome so swing by. The show will run through April 27th so make sure to check it out if you are in the area. Here are some photos of the production of my site specific installation, I can't wait to drop the images with the Space Meow set up on the stage...also the press release is attached at the end of this blog post.
Also I got the chance to hang out with Ken South Rock's Ken Minami and Adam Amram last week as well as Matt Reilly from Japanther. Here are some photos of their forest cave in Bushwick with treehouses, mini ramp, silk screen set up, and all...It's been an amazing trip. I'll be back in a few days with a NYC wrap up!
BRIC ART INTO MUSIC PR 021414_FINAL
Thanks for tuning in!- JFAIII
Back at SFO headed to JFK...Traveling and Watching.
So here I sit, back at SFO. 9 months ago I was literally sitting in the same part fo the same terminal getting ready to embark on my amazing trip to Japan.The photo above is from "Bright on Time" with my buddy Kyok Chan. It is now 8:24 PST and I will be flying into JFK at 7:50 EST should everything go according to plan. I just ate some sushi, forwent the fries and burger, no soda but instead green tea, and here I sit not wasting my time staring off into space nor blankly looking at instagram. And to think all of this was in no way possible less than three years ago. Why?
Three years ago I couldn't even get to the airport without being loaded on any number of alcoholic beverages and an array drugs. I couldn't sit in the airport, nor on the plane without ingesting a continuos flow of booze to numb the inherent fear that I lived in and keep the detox in all of its demonic glory far far away. I never honestly knew that there was a different "way to fly" back then, and more importantly didn't understand that this was not a way to live but rather a way to die.
This is from Twist's Mid Career Survey at BAM.
So now here I sit, typing to you the reader, thinking about my first steps when I arrive in the city that raised me. Mike's Coffee Shop or John's Donut? How will I react to the cold? Where will I stay tomorrow night, Pete's house or Mikey's? The issues needing solutions that arise today are in no way even close to ones I once faced, and amazingly enough every single decision I make now brings me further along in a life that I could have never imagined. The life I live today is truly beyond my wildest dreams and I sometimes have to stop and breath it in to make sure I am not dreaming.
That's my dog Sammie Doodle in North Carolina at the homestead
Tonight D Young V, Hugh Leeman, and Eddie Colla have a spectacular group show at 111 Minna. A triumph in its own right because 111 Minna does not play when it comes to their art shows. They are fortunate to be there and 111 Minna is fortunate to have them. Chris Burch just had his show in St. Louis open a couple weeks ago and big ups to him and all of the Screwed Arts Crew. Also Mike Giant is having a spectacular opening tonight at Fecal Face Gallery, and I wish I could be there to meet him and hang with John and Rachel and everyone there. Lots of amazing things happening, but I am so blessed and so grateful to go home and show Brooklyn that I am ready and willing to give back something great to its history of art and culture. BRIC here I come, Eric Araujo and I are going to make a truly memorable installation piece. This year is really off with a bang and I hope to see everyone I know doing like a Raekwon and "Striving for Perfection".
Over and Out! -John Felix Arnold III 02/07/2014
It's insane that this picture is from REAL LIFE!!!! This is the in the 2KM long Okuno-in graveyard on Koyasan Mountain in Japan. These are statues that pray for the sould of dead children. This place is magic. Life is amazing.
Full Circle
New Astroknot drawing 2013, for Shooting Gallery solo show in 2014
Life is a trip you guys and gals. Three years ago pretty much to date I was sitting exactly where I am right now working on my website, getting ready for a couple big shows coming up in the spring exactly as I am right now. I was sober at the time, but a couple relapses away from real sobriety as some would say. I was digging my heels in and grinding my teeth and typing furiously at press emails and blog posts and copying and pasting show descriptions in art site calendars like FecalFace.com and Impose magazine.
Panels for my exhibition at the SFMOMA Artist Gallery 2013
I was still a virgin to Hi-Fructose and Juxtapoz and was with my girlfriend (now ex-girl) at the time who lived a block from the cafe on Mason & Washington that I am typing from. I had opened Unstoppable Tomorrow Vol.1 at Old Crow with Chris Burch and D Young V not 20 days before, and was freaking out as my show Past From the Blast was coming up at Queens Nails in just two months. Life felt electric and on fire, and as I sit here typing this for you to read it still feels electric and on fire, a bit more so now to be honest. The intensity is different, the short term gratification has given way to long term hustle and a much bigger vision and state of mind, which coincidentally demands a much deeper, and fully sustaining sort of internal electric source and fuel for a much hotter and longer lasting fire.
Piece for Unstoppable Tomorrow Vol.1 in the works...2010
The world and the gods have been good to me as I have continued to dig in my heels, hoist up my sleeves, make, write, draw, copulate, glue, talk, laugh, cry, hunker down, take little breaks, get excited and continue to explore this epic world we live in together. It really blows me away at how funny this moment is and how special it is as French lounge music plays in the background and the cable car dings and roars by with its San Francisco history soundtrack following it everywhere it moves.
Skull and handle bars detail from The Great Debate Sculpture in the studio 2012
I am really lucky and really grateful to have made it past that moment three years ago. It proved to be very much a major hurtle, a major proving ground for where my life would go. I had fought and surrendered my way to a new type of life so different than the one I had become accustomed to for so many years, and it really was those events in 2010 and 2011 and the people who remained in my life and the new ones who became a part of it that shaped the path for where I am going now.
Flyer for Unstoppable Tomorrow Vol.1 2010
I have never had disdain for the holidays, and I am lucky for that. So as I sit here and sun is going down and I can here the kids outside and the parents in the Chinatown meets Jackson Heights area of San Francisco, I can only imagine how many stories I am surrounded by. All those stories give me energy. All those stories to build the fabric of what so many of us create from. Bus drivers, business women, art school kids, swaggy street kids, skateboarders, old chinese ladies with 20 plastic produce and dim sum filled bags, the crazy man on the block with the cart of hoarded newspapers, yuppies, tourists, wanna be thugs, real gangsters sitting in their blacked out Mercedes' with the windows down dragon tattoos wrapping around their arms with cigarettes in their mouths, new parents pushing strollers, old parents of every race with their grown up kids in town for the Holidays, they all pass through leaving freeze frames of motion and character in my mind.
Past From the Blast 2011
This post goes out to the ether. To the powers at work outside of our tangible vision that make the movements of the universe ebb and flow. To all the artists in the Bay and New York and Japan, to the South, Europe and beyond. The world is happening all over all the time. I am glad this moment in the massive fabric of time has happened for me where I can suddenly have a sort of deja vu memory trip. A moment where I can sit in the same place I was three years ago fighting for my life in a very different pair of shoes, and where I gathered my energy for a great Hadouken and went for it.
Makenzi James from a modeling shoot for painting reference images 2013
It feels good to sit here right now and look back on all that has happened in the last three years and be thankful as Christmas is approaching that I have the capacity to work hard and stay creative and dig deep within myself to contribute what I can to this world of ours. Much love to everyone! IPD, 57, RTS, The Basement, Screwed Arts, Doppel, and every one that is busting that ass and making it happen. #makeworkson
Bright on Time Collaborative installation piece with Koutaro Ooyama of Doppel at Spes-Lab 2013
Upcoming...
in Exhibitions
So there is a lot coming up...first off I have some older and newer works going into a show at the Ian Ross Gallery which opens on the 27th. There will be a V.I.P. opening on the 26th that I will be attending, but I won't unfortunately be able to make the big opening on the 27th due to a trip to the East Coast for my cousins wedding...I will post the info about the show at Ian Ross Gallery soon.
In other news, Triangle Magic is looking great. I am almost finished with all the works, just doing the details at this point and getting ready for my week of insanity that will ensue in New York City. Expect a lot of photos from this trip as always. The show will also be Littlefield's representation for the Gowanus Open Studios. I am very, very proud to have been hand picked for this exhibition and to be representing Littlefield for the Gowanus Open Studios. Thanks Julie Kim! Here are some images and press info on the show (downloadable press release is at the bottom of the this post). It is at Littlefield (622 Degraw St.) in Brooklyn just at the foot of Park Slope. http://littlefieldnyc.com I am really excited...
The work for Triangle Magic is a very new a fresh direction for me. While it does completely exist within my world of Unstoppable Tomorrow, using signs and signifiers from my body of ammunition, the way in which the narrative aspect is portrayed, the idea of relics that are actually, or were actually used in ceremony, and the entire approach to the thinking and making of them shows a new turn and a new re-inventing of my process. I am very proud of them and feel that they are a great first step into a widening of my scope of creation, and an expansion of my intention and thought behind my art. The intention that lays within the making of them is a bit different from my hard hitting, figurative, representational work. I truly enjoy how the viewer really can continue to make their own experience out of them with more freedom (much like, and more so even, than the work in the SFMOMA) than the highly spoon fed narrative work seen in "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" and previous shows in that vein. This is a departure from representation, and an emergence into abstraction and chain of thought steeped in process and ceremony. See you there...more to come! IPD 
For Downloadable Press Release Click the Link JFAIII Triangle Magic
Tomorrow, May 10, is the Official Opening of "Bright on Time" @ Spes-Lab Gallery in Ebisu, Tokyo!
Spes-Lab Gallery Presents : John Felix Arnold III X Koutaro Ooyama aka Mon
Bright On Time
"Bright on Time" is a collaborative Residency Project from John Felix Arnold III (USA) and Koutaro Ooyama aka Mon (Japan). The opening of the exhibition is the culmination of three weeks of intense thinking, work and collaboration between the two artists. Transcending language and cultural barriers the two artists have created a beautiful, fully interactive, and multi disciplinary environmental installation.
The piece utilizes the entire gallery space, in which you are invited to sit, lounge, stretch out, and relax on the sculptural structure, floor, anywhere. Enjoy the collaborative painting that wraps around the whole room, and zone out to the atmospheric sound work that will fill the space. Viewers are invited and encouraged to enjoy the Moss (Koke') pillows that have been hand crafted, and enjoy a state of introspective calm and creative relaxation inside of a world that is inspired by Japan's Koyasan Mountain and the idea of the ancient meeting the future to create a multi layered present.
The project provides the viewer a world in which you can have a moment away from the hyper activity of Tokyo to reflect and enjoy peace of mind and interaction with the artwork and one another. We encourage interaction, conversation, comfort, and any activities that one may feel inspired to enjoy in the space, so that you the viewer will become part of the artistic statement and larger piece rather than simply a "viewer". Please come and become part of our world. The artists will be at the event to entertain any dialogue and questions you may have and the night will be aurally graced by sound work made by "Felix" and "Mon". Drinks and snacks are also available and we anticipate a strong reception and party.
Reception and Party Begins at 7pm and goes until ?
Spes-Lab is located @ Mita 2-3-20 2F, Meguro-Ku, Tokyo, Japan 153-0062
Any press inquiries are welcome. This event is free.
Here are images of production of the event...
Japan is Crazy...
I have been so busy with the organization of this trip and residency, and the traveling, and now the actual project work that I have not had a chance to get to my blog...So my apologies to everyone out there in blog land....I will be returning in the morning with a more in depth post about the travels, visions, and work going on with "Bright on Time" at Spes-Lab!!! Good to be back in touch with you...
Onward!
Man, life comes at you fast. I feel like yesterday I had just gotten back from Japan and I was trying to get back in the swing. In what feels like no time I have grown a lot as a person and an artist, I have walked through a lot of things with my head still attached and my feet still on the ground (loosely lol), and am still completely charged and stoked about the future and my present being on this planet with all of ya'll. I am getting really amped up about the SFMOMA project coming up, largely because I received a studio visit and real deal critique from Renee DeCosio (program director for the SFMOMA Artist Gallery) who came through with the awesome Alfonso Cosio recently. Man it was the best, most honest, intriguing, to the point, helpful, and explorative, no kid gloves critique I have had in a longgg time (since Pratt actually). It gave me some new juice to make an incredibly in depth new series for the first installment of the SFMOMA windows in June (also part of the Yerba Buena Alliance art walk) where I am really exploring some foundations, the origin and the architecture of the Astroknots, and by doing so really revisiting and dealing with a lot of things that were going on when I first moved to California in 2006. I have really dove deeply back into process and am exploring some of my core basics and letting things happen without a presumed outcome again. I am quite honestly the happiest I have been making art in a long time in creating these new pieces and the series that I see coming from it.
With amazing art work generally comes a lot more under the surface. Of course this comes at a time when things in my personal life are pretty intense, yet I do feel my feet are still planted firmly on the earth. It is amazing to feel such a sense of presence and compassion for things happening that I am involved with that the old me would have reacted to out of serious personal fears and insecurities, but rather now see how I can help and how I can maintain my balance in the face of some heavy stuff. To everyone in my life right now I say with huge words, I love you all and you are all very dear to me, thank you all for being you and exploring life here with me and not being afraid to get real with those you care about. And to finish this one off, I am going to Japan for my residency in less than two months. I will be doing a six day meditation pilgrimage before I get to work in Tokyo for three weeks! It's going to be, as Kenichi Minami from Ken South Rock says, a Huge Volcano!
Work For SF MOMA June 8th...
I stand before you today to tell all of you how excited it makes me to say this. If you have been following my sparse internet presence as of late, you have heard hints here and there of the news that I am going to be featured in the SFMOMA in downtown San Francisco. The SFMOMA Artist Gallery (their more contemporary and larger artist representation wing located at Ft. Mason) is in charge of curating the windows that face Minna St. and Natoma St. on the sides of the Museum itself in Downtown San Francisco. After making a personal goal years ago to myself of getting my work featured in these windows someday, it is happening. I have them for a year, and the first installment in a four part saga that runs from June 2013-June 2014 begins this June 8th. Beyond my wildest dreams this has become a reality.
This above shot is from my Birthday Performance Art Show at LeQuivive Gallery in Oakland January 16, 2013.
I will be running my programming in the three window bay units on Minna St. and using the Natoma side here and there as a background for performance work and possibly for intimate special engagements and explorations in new installation environments from the world of Unstoppable Tomorrow. The three pieces for the first installment of the Minna St. windows are complete. I may add some smaller relics and mixed media pieces to the windows as the date moves closer, but for now, these are the pieces. Two are brand new, and both as of yet un-named fully, and the third is in fact from July 2011. It is called Event Elation and has only been shown once here in the Bay Area (it was out of my grasp for a year due to unforeseen issues with a curator but is now happily back in my hands). So without further adieux here are images of these 8'x4' Mixed Media on Wood Panel Pieces!!!!
And on this Day to Come, January 16th, 2013, I Celebrate Another Year on This Earth! IPD!
So there are these things called "the promises" in this arena of study I am engaged in that are spoken of often and are a guideline that people work toward.
Some may call "the promises" simply a better life in whatever way and shape it comes to you. A better life that one can be thankful for, can appreciate every atom of, and one that is fulfilling and enthralling because the one experiencing it is willing to put forth the work it takes to change things, be willing to accept the world as it comes, and do what it takes to better themselves and seek a future of productivity and appreciation for all things. At the age of 32 I am beginning to understand, or comprehend some semblance of this search, this journey for these promises. 
2012 was the best year I have ever had, I mean that. I, for the first time in my life, felt what it meant to see years of hard work reach people, communicate on many platforms with people all over the world, create a better living situation for myself, and in turn afford me opportunities to continue to grow and learn and love the world I am a part of. Throughout 2012 I felt like a Phoenix finally exploding out of the grime and filth and sludge, the chaos and friction and anxiety and self hate, the self imposed fears and restrictions and bars that I had to evolve out of in order to get the perspective on my place in the world I have now. Suddenly things made sense, and the knowledge that so many things will never make sense became something I could swallow. I didn't have to wake up paralyzed by anxiety and fear of life everyday. The ability to be okay with the world no matter how one thinks it "should" be reconciled, to have ideas and opinions but be able to love life regardless of "if" those ideas and opinions matter or not and simply let life be what it is no matter the outcome is perhaps the biggest "promise" of all.
It is the difference between breathing or suffocating, loving or hating, being enveloped by fear of the unknown or embracing the unknown because it is what we are born from. And it took over a quarter of a century to have this way of seeing beaten, massaged, sliced, explained, recommended and finally born into my psyche. On the Wu-Tang albums I grew up listening to they call this "knowledge of self God". Thank you RZA and the rest for setting a young framework for generations to be influenced by.
So this all brings me here. It isn't even about me, but for intensive purposes I am the one writing this as I turn to a year further in the development of my spirit in the universe, as my body gets one year closer to its end. I really feel that the end of the physical will only be the beginning of a higher stage, but I will do the very best I can with this life as it is all I know and as I work toward a relationship with all things. I feel my physical being, every inch ounce hair fiber cell tingle. Getting older has been amazing thus far.
I have work up at the Shooting Gallery in SF right now as part of their Winter Group Show and I am honored to be a part of their movement in the art world as it helps to define, reinterpret, investigate, and communicate with the world we are a part of. I have work up at LOAKL Gallery in Oakland as well, and I am proud to be a part of the early stages of Ken Harman's new addition to the Bay Area art world as well as he will continue to thrive and spread amazing things to so many people. I will be in a group show at Ocean Avenue Tattoo in SF with my good friend SALEM on January 26th. In March I will be a part of a group show curated by Michael Cuffe who runs Warholian. Then it is off to Japan for a Month long residency at Spes-Lab in Tokyo.
And then in June the first installment of a year long program I have at the SFMOMA opens with three more series of work in the SFMOMA space going up each three months until June 2014. I will finally be having a huge solo show in the Fall of 2013 that will be my last big exhibition of the year and coincide with the second (fall) program I am installing at the SFMOMA. All of this is really happening now, and if not for every bit of life I have survived on this planet leading up to now, none of it would be happening. I am more grateful now for the life my parents created that I have become than I ever knew was possible. Many more updates to come very soon! -John Felix Arnold III, 01/15/2013 IPD FOR LIFE!
SF Weekly Article and New Updates.
So first and foremost I would like to thank Kate Conger at SF Weekly for doing an awesome article and interview on yours truly and the world of "Unstoppable Tomorrow". It feels really good to open up about some of the finer and darker points of my life that has sculpted my art making to what it is today! She is a great writer, really made me dig deep and I do thank her for the opportunity to do this piece. It feels good to spill your guts sometimes in print. Here is a link, click on the image below...
Lastly, I have amazing news. I will be doing a residency at Spes-Lab in Tokyo in April of 2013, and then when I come back it is time to do my first installation of a year long program of the SFMOMA windows in downtown San Francisco. More on this to come!!! Things are looking good!
"Found in Darkness" @ Book & Job Gallery : Friday Nov. 9 : 2012
Christopher Burch and I descended on the new Book & Job Gallery on Wednesday, November 7th to begin our install of our Fall 2012 two man show "Found in Darkness". Exploring our own personal mythologies that comprise the focus of our work we embarked on this show in August of this year. Examining respective narrative architectures and linear framework, we began creating installations that reflect real environments within our imaginary worlds, both dealing with different reflections of contemporary issues of social problems, race, the environment, and a proposed future of humanity in our own tales.
We were able to create a conversation through our mixed media forays that not only blended and melded together well in the space but also pushed one another's practice to a new level of intricacy. Chris dealing with his modern day reinterpretation of the Br'er Rabbit Folk Mythos and myself dealing with all the legends and myths of the world of "Unstoppable Tomorrow" that I have created, we embraced the Book & Job Gallery with energy, drive, thought, and a sense of community and challenge. Our drawings and paintings spoke well with one another as our installation works tied the environment together into a dialogue of two strong minded individuals exploring their own tangible realities in this world together through imagination and practice.
Guy Culver also helped organize a wonderful show of musical talent. Chris Danko of Religious Girls performed an awesome piano solo. Then Guy Culver and his drummer Ringo performed their punk influenced, electronic, synth heavy, hard hitting electro fuck fest of beats, noise, and beautiful screamo moments of chaos as Laughters.
Carson Lancaster, the man behind Book & Job Gallery, did a great job of orchestrating the evening and the install and was a pleasure to work with as well!!! I recommend working with him to any other artist that may be interested in contacting Book & Job. All in all it has been a great experience. Thanks again to Chris for inviting me to be a part of Book & Job and creating yet another killer show with me. -Felix
Friday, November 9 : "Found in Darkness" @ Book & Job Gallery : Christopher Burch & John Felix Anrold III
So here it is. My last show of the year. And what a year it has been. In brief, Christopher Burch and myself will be exploring our own narrative mythologies that run through out our respective bodies of work, coming together at the Book & Job Gallery in San Francisco to allow them to create a conversation within the space. Paintings, drawings, sculpture, mixed media, and collaborative installation work will bring the viewer on a journey through the space that illustrates how past and present allow us to construct our own mythological tales that will continue to evolve well into the future. I am very excited to work with Chris again, especially after he just did a major project in St Louis and is in zone, exploring his vision. Myself coming back from a bit of downtime after "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" and then Japan, am really looking forward to finishing off the year on a strong, a bit smaller, and more refined tip. This is great way for me to put a solid and concise close on 2012, which has been a monumental year, and give a little bit of forecast for things to come! The show opens Friday, November 9th from 7-11pm at the Book & Job Gallery which is located at 831 Geary St. in San Francisco. See you there. - John Felix Arnold III
Stand Tall III @ Old Crow was Awesome. 09/22/2012
So Saturday September 22nd, 2012 Terry Addison over at Old Crow opened the third installment of the "Stand Tall" series. This group show has quickly become a very important happening each year for the Bay Area, specifically the East Bay Art Scene. Last year it spanned two spaces and featured a live PA by Japanther. This year it was much cleaner, simpler, with great attention to how the artists interacted, the overall layout and movement through the space, and wreaked of amazing, truly realized, well executed, beautiful visions from all 38 participants. Barret Moore was there to document much of it, the Daily Californian ran a great little piece on it, and the turn out once again was phenomenal. Japanther, even in their absence, was able to include a video of their shadow puppet play on the front of Old Crow during the opening. David Polka, Ken Davis, Renos, Lauren Napalatino, Dana James, Christopher Burch, Kool Kid Kreyola, Spencer Keaton Cunningham, Dr. Sex, Apex, Chor Boogie, Tweens, and many many more made this an amazing happening!-John Felix Arnold III
Stand Tall III @ Old Crow : Saturday : 09/22/2012 : Oakland, CA
Another truly epic show is about to commence at the legendary Old Crow Tattoo & Gallery in Oakland, CA. The Lineup is insane. This is the third installment of the now renowned Stand Tall series from Old Crow curator Terry Addison. Myself, Poesia, Renos, D Young V, Christopher Burch, Bunnie Reis, Chor Boogie, Apex, and many many more. Stand Tall has become an important showcase of established and emerging talent in the Bay Area, and this time Japanther will also be coming back to do a Shadow Puppet Performance!!! Be There, it is going to get crazy. Here is the flyer and a detail of the piece I have in the show. -JFA III
The Adventure in Japan Part 2 : Painting Commission and More...
So the latter half of my trip was begun with a painting commission for a native New Yorker. My friend I-Am-Jesse, a killer DJ who has resided in Japan for many years now, hit me up around the same time I was contacted by Ken South Rock to make a painting for his amazing Shibuya apartment. I crashed at my good friends Frankie and Emi's house for a couple days near Shinjuku as I began to work on the piece, and then made it over to Jesse's in Shibuya to finish. Upon completion my last few days in Japan were numbered and the insanity ensued. The latter half of the trip was full of art making, book buying, amazing food, awesome city lurking, people watching, mad partying, building new relationships with some amazing artists, spending time with really good old friends, and all around general mayhem. I was even introduced to a group of artists who run an alternative space called Spes-Lab in Ebisu, Tokyo, and was coincidentally invited to come back in the Spring to rock a solo venture at the space. I was dumbfounded, honored, intimidated, and pretty much floored when I was asked to do this, as I have always wanted to have something like this come about and had never imagined it would be this soon. Big thank you to everyone and everything that made this experience possible. It was amazing.
The video store near Frankie and Emi's crib was pretty cool. I was into the character design on this one and...
I found John Rambo in Japan. Japambo! Then I found the "adult section" holy shit, craziness. Also they have some truly bizarre and intense porn out there...
This temple is right down the street from Frankie and Emi's place. One of the most amazing things about cities like Tokyo is that you are bombarded with a truly modern even futuristic high tech setting all the time. Yet every few blocks you are reminded of the city's rich, thousands of years of history shown in structures and places like this amidst the Blade Runneresque developments.
Super sick monk statue at a temple in the middle of Tokyo.
Temple Graveyard near Frankie and Emi's.
So after the graveyard it was time to get to work and start painting my commission...
Commission Painting Stage one at Frankie and Emi's House.
And then...
So I got the back ground worked up to where I really liked it at Frankie and Emi's place. Honestly once I got it to this point, I seriously considered not taking it any further for I felt I had never gotten an abstract piece to this level before and really questioned letting it just be. It felt good to just sit there and stare at and it felt balanced, so I took a break and distracted myself with other things like...
Talking deliriously to Emi's stuffed animal friends, like this pig, and...
Watching Frankie and Emi come in from the hottest fucking day of all time and totally zone out on the couch as the air conditioner cooled them down to "human" levels.
Then it was time to get on the bus to go to DJ I-Am-Jesse's crib and finish working on this piece.
I had to get some sushi before I got back to work. This was a wopping $7. True Talk.
I-Am-Jesse's crib in Shibuya, sickkkk!
Sayin cheese for my own lens.
So after a lot of pondering, a lot of reference research, and a lot of plain old compositional thinking, I started putting down line work. It literally took about three hours of looking and adjusting the direction and order of the two panels to finally make my first marks.
Work table in full effect.
And boom, just about finished product.
Detail.
Right Panel Detail
Right Panel Detail
Finished Paintings.
What a view from I-Am-Jesse's Crib. Talk about an amazing place to make art!
Shake Weight is even weirder in Japan! Japanese TV time. The pieces are still "Untitled" but they as a Diptych should just be called "Dream Adventure" because that's what this trip was. Each Panel was about 2'x3' and the paintings were a mixture of spray paint, house paint, and plastic model kit enamel. Here are a couple more shots.
Left Side Panel "Things Do What They Will" I think I should call it.
And the right panel should be called "Learning How to Fill My Lungs".
So the night I finished the commission we went out on the town, and we ended up at the amazing Spes-Lab.
Next Post to Come. Japan part 3!!! The final installment, Spes-Lab, Yoyogi Park, and getting weird all the way to Haneda airport.