I Love Ngui's work, the poetry, the strangeness, the happiness, and the pretty ladies riding steel owls (
- anonymous (guest) 12-30-2006 2:30 am

me too! I think the broccoli barf monster is my favourite.
- sally mckay 12-30-2006 7:51 am

wow, this is amazing stuff. the acid colours, word as picture and iconic composition reminds me a little of the late, great rick griffin (influential underground carioonist and psychedelic poster artist) but with a really contemporary feel. marc obviously has his hands on newer and better drugs.
- rev. earl chunx (guest) 12-30-2006 6:45 pm

Hmm, i'd say way more Robert Williams than Ric Griffin, except the owl rider. And yeah, the broccoli monster rocks.
- rob (guest) 12-31-2006 7:31 pm

i just looked some of Williams art. (the cover art for Guns n Roses 'Appetite or Destruction') is awesome and i think i see your point. Williams also combines different art styles in a single work. i guess i was thinking of the central composition, 'words as graphic element' and the colours. Williams pallete is generally muddier
- rev. earl chunx (guest) 1-01-2007 1:13 am

Robert Williams


Rick Griffin


- sally mckay 1-01-2007 7:05 pm

I think that pretty well settles it! Williams with a lighter touch and more cyber-age sensibility (Pac man references etc).
- tom moody 1-01-2007 9:04 pm

Oh, and a Jim Woodring tentacle or two in the top one.
- rob (guest) 1-02-2007 3:16 am

Call me dyslexic, but I just now noticed the second "t" in the title of the first piece. Thank god I take my coffe black.
- rob (guest) 1-02-2007 5:42 am

Oh, uh, coffee. I can't type either.
- rob (guest) 1-02-2007 5:42 am

hee hee, actually it looks like marc ngui's work. but it's been fun to discuss the nuances of "lowbrow" art.
- rev. earl chunx (guest) 1-02-2007 6:37 am

oh, lowbrow is it?
- bill 1-02-2007 5:25 pm

Inventive as Robt Williams' ideas often are (and he is as lowbrow as he wants to be)--the spattery texture he uses to fill "background" space suggest that he learned nothing from Cezanne, et al. That doesn't make him lowbrow, I only mention it because he's so all fired snotty about his technique making him God.
- tom moody 1-02-2007 5:40 pm

williams used the pollock splatters to expedite the completion of his work. economics. and the depictions of psychedelic nightmares suggest that he has spoken directly to God about it. just thinking "lowbrow" is too pat a description of griffin et williams work.
- bill 1-02-2007 6:16 pm

Agreed. And agreed the splatters are used to expedite--but then someone has to look at them.
- tom moody 1-02-2007 6:24 pm

from wikipedia:

"In an article in the February 2006 issue of his magazine Juxtapoz, Robert Williams took credit for originating the term "lowbrow art". He stated that, in 1979, Gilbert Shelton of the publisher Rip-Off Press decided to produce a book featuring Willams' paintings. Williams said that he decided to give the book the self-deprecating title, "The Lowbrow Art of Robt. Williams", since no authorized art institution would recognize his type of art. "Lowbrow" was thus used by Williams in opposition to highbrow. He said the name then stuck, even though he feels that it is inappropriate".

sorry, should have used footnotes ; )
- rev. earl chunx (guest) 1-03-2007 12:54 am

"High brow, low brow, all agree
that they're the best in harmony"
- Five Guys Named Mo
- L.M. 1-03-2007 1:38 am

"...even though he feels that it is inappropriate"."
- bill 1-03-2007 1:55 am

Five Guys Named Mo is "Midbrow". New thread please
- rev. earl chunx (guest) 1-03-2007 2:20 am

i prefer the unibrow myself
- mnobody (guest) 1-03-2007 4:28 am

I was going to make a joke about "postbrow" but a quick google shows that it is already in use. Yeesh.
- rob (guest) 1-03-2007 5:23 pm

More of from this series, and some details, have been posted online here.
- sally mckay 1-03-2007 6:04 pm

...and I found out the broccoli monster is really oscar the grouch! I knew he looked familiar.
- sally mckay 1-03-2007 6:05 pm