When Gallery 1988 opened in LA in 2004 they popularized pop culture based art shows like nobody had before. The notion was eye opening to me and I managed to get involved with them in 2008, and it's remained a treasured creative outlet for me ever since.
Their format has been hugely successful, thus it's been imitated endlessly, and today pop culture art is ubiquitous. So for the gallery's 10th anniversary show they've opted for a different take on the trend with the theme "The Subtle Art of Pop Culture." The idea is to make the references less obvious even to the extent that the art could appeal to people who are entirely unfamiliar with the source of inspiration.
My contribution is this assembly of authentic vintage (and one not-so-vintage) postcards. The first eleven designs all appear in the opening credits of National Lampoon's Vacation...
The series is punctuated with an original colored pencil creation of mine...
I owe my postcard getting ability to ebay. I was thrilled to track down so many of them, and actually only about twenty of the postcards that appear in the credits really exist, the rest are fabricated specifically for the movie, made from photographs by author and photographer, John Margolies
.That combination of vintage graphics coupled with Lindsey Buckingham's song "Holiday Road" couldn't do a better job of capturing the spirit of the American road trip and priming me for the cinematic joyride that follows. This is my love letter— I mean postcard— to the film.
My piece is for sale here.
See all the artwork here!
3 comments:
Bless you, sir. This is wonderful.
Thank you Scott!!
Love the artwork and thought you might like a) my interview with Dana Barron at www.retroladyland.co.uk (you may have to scroll through others to find the right entry, but it wasn't too long ago and hell, you might enjoy the others... And my artwork...) And 2) I'm nominating you for the Leibster award... Again see my blog for details.
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