Gary Baseman Visit

Thanks to everyone who made it to the gallery to see Gary Baseman last Sunday. He gave a great talk and then followed it up with autographs and personal drawings.

Gary Baseman Visiting Gallery402

Don't miss this event... An afternoon with artist gary Baseman! He will be at Gallery 402 on December 2nd from 3-6pm. Don't miss the opportunity to sit down and talk with this Emmy-winning artist. See you there!
Check him out at garybaseman.com

Doze Green

Doze Green was born and raised in the upper west side of Manhattan, New York City and was one of the pioneers of the Hip-Hop culture. He first started writing graffiti in his neighborhood in 1974, and started painting subway trains in 1976.

The following year he joined the Rock Steady Crew. The Rock Steady Crew were pioneers of a new style of dance known as breakdancing or B-Boying. The crew first started dancing at art exhibitions and galleries of Soho and the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

During this time Doze was also attending the High School of Art and Design, where some of the most talented and well respected graffiti artists came from. Artists such as Lady Pink, Daze, Ernie Valdez, Seen TC5, Mr. Wiggles, Mare 139, and numerous others. In 1982 Doze showed his artwork in a well known group show at the Fun Gallery. At this same time after appearances in major movies such as Flashdance, Style Wars, and Wildstyle, the Rock Steady Crew was launched into action and the limelight.

From B-boy to graf legend Doze has gone to tagging the hallways of South Bronx projects to designing for clothing lines like Kikwear and Ecko. In the process, he's become a proponent of the avant-garde "fusionistic" art movement.

In the past year, he's been featured on dozens of exhibitions in art galleries from both coasts.

Best known for his characters, Doze has begun to concentrate on canvases that blend wildstyle techniques with metaphysical concepts. "I think I'm at the point where I'm movin' even further, to more distant frontiers like sculpture and 3-D painting".

With pieces ranging from the low thousands to upwards of $12,000, it's obvious that Doze is aiming for the serious modern art collector.

"Probably the biggest challenge and the most fun is painting live," reveals Doze. "There's a communion between the audience, the DJ and myself. The DJ is feeding off the music, and if the crowd is hype, he goes that extra mile. The same applies to me."

If you dig Doze Green's work check out some of the covers he has done for the Future Primative series including the cover work for the Presage cd. He has also done some work for the Deep Concentration series.

Opening Night October 5th

This was a great opening of our 2nd show at Gallery 402. Thanks to all that made it and a special thanks to visiting artist Dan Bouthot, from Deer Isle Maine. Dan put on a great screen printing workshop with custom prints just for the opening event. The show consisted of a great lineup of artists. More information and images on the work is to come!

New Exhibit

Saturday October 13th 4-9pm
New exhibit of work featuring GARY BASEMAN, CHRIS MARS, DOZE GREEN, POOCH, ELIZABETH MCGRATH, DAN QUINTANA, AARON HORKEY, CHRIS RYNIAK, ANNE FAITH NICHOLS, LISA PETRUCI, BEN TOUR, POOCH, AND MARK SMITH

See you there!

Exhibit Tour

Some pics from Exhibit Tour in Wausau, Saturday September 22nd. There was a fantastic turnout and everyone is pumped for our next opening OCTOBER 13th. We built a wall to show Camille Rose Garcia's 12'6" x 7'6" painting titled 'Milk of Amnesia' for this one night Exhibit Tour event, . The piece looked great and we were so excited to be able to show it. Sadly, it does not fit upstairs in the gallery. Thanks to all that came! We had a great night and look forward to seeing everyone at future events soon.

Jeff Soto

Through striking visual imagery, Jeff Soto communicates profound visions and fears, nostalgia of his youth, and themes of love, lust, and hope. Soto’s distinct color palette, subject matter, technique and bold themes resonate with a growing audience. Inspired by childhood toys, the colorful lifestyle of skateboarding and graffiti, hip-hop and popular culture, Soto’s representational work is simultaneously accessible and stimulating.

Environmental issues also take precedent for Soto, who is concerned with conflict of humans trying to harness, or take advantage of nature. His paintings exude this tension, as robotic creatures duel, organic tentacles and flower bouquets thrive, and black smog looms amidst floating, ominous skulls.

In 2002, Soto graduated with Distinction from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. He currently lives in Southern California, with his wife Jennifer and daughter Shannon.

Scott Musgrove

Scott Musgrove is the creator and Producer of the animated TV Series Fat Dog Mendoza” (based on Scott’s comic book of the same name). There were 26 half-hour episodes produced in partnership with Cartoon Network UK, Sony Wonder and Sunbow Entertainment. The show has aired in roughly 50 countries around the world. He works as the writer, character designer, and composer of the show. Musgrove also works on many other comics such as Loose Teeth, published by Fantagraphics.

www.scottmusgrove.com

More Opening Night pics

These are more pics of the fun had at the gallery opening. There are some close ups of the gallery, the loft view, and a photo of Sara, Tasha, and Lindsey.

Opening Night Reception

Opening Night at Gallery402 was a huge success! Thanks to all that made it! Pictures include a general gallery shots, a detail shot of our new copper etched info cards, Shawn Van Dalfsen with the Lamansky's in front of Keiko Yagishita's "Do you want to go for a walk?", Tasha still in discussion after the show ended with Keith and Tyson.
The gallery is located above Van Dalfsen's clothing boutique, so please check out thier website at VanDalfsen's.com

Before Pics

This was Gallery402 before the changes took place. Shelves to set the paintings on were replaced with a gallery gliding griplock system. New work was brought in and bookshelves / podiums were built so viewers can sit and read some artist books while looking at work.

Opening Show

The opening show consists of work from Robert Williams (Saga verse Saga - shown to left, Ron English, Dave Kinsey, John Langford, Keiko Yagishita, Niagara, Scott Musgrove, Shag, Von Dutch, The Pizz, Sean Christopher, Oskana Badruk, and more.

There are still many other big names to be shown in future shows such as Gary Baseman, Pooch, Shepard Fairy, Dave Cooper and more.

We will be posting individual pieces along with artist bios in the weeks to come, but we all know they are much more impressive in person, so we look forward to seeing you at Gallery 402
402 3rd St. Wausau, WI
Located in the Mezzanine of Van Dalfsen's

Grand Opening!!!!

We are proud to announce the grand opening of Gallery402. We look forward to seeing you all there next Saturday, August 4th from 6-8 at 402 3rd Street Wausau, WI.

Gallery 402

Less than 3 weeks until the AUGUST 4TH Grand Opening! We are extremely excited and looking forward to seeing you all there. The marketing is almost done, so now it is time to start the physical changes within the space itself! We will keep you updated.

Ben Tour "Ghost"

Niagra

This piece is currently hanging in Gallery 402. It is titled "Opium House" by Niagra.
Niagra materialized on the scene in the late 70's as front person for the noise band DESTROY ALL
MONSTERS. Fellow band mates read like a who's who, including Mike Kelley, Jim Shaw (big time artists), Ron Asheton (Iggy and the Stooges guitarist), Mike Davis (MC5 bass player). Niagara took Destroy all Monsters from noise to punk in the 80's. Aside from singing and self-destructive stage habits, Niagara designed the band's posters, singles and album art.

Her early cover art, done in pen & ink and gouache, appear to be self portraits. Her fierce female depictions of femme fatales plumb the depths of trash culture. "It's the men who cry in my paintings," Niagara muses. She later showed "Warholistic" use of colour on her large canvases and actually met Andy Warhol in the late 70's. Colonel Galaxy, Niagara's promoter/body guard comments, "Niagara paints off register to make it look like a bad silk screen but she does it with such precision, people still think they're done by machine. Warhol would love it."

Niagara’s lethal beauties, accessorized with guns and switchblades, make no apologies and leave no survivors. She amplifies her subjects with bitingly humorous captions like: I Lied, Over Your Dead Body, Geisha This and Here’s For Your Bad Manners. “I paint real strong women; a Niagara girls [is] revengeful, but she gets her own way,” the artist explains and adds matter-of-factly, “There’s a lot of crime in my paintings.” Criminal violence is emblematic of the artist’s Detroit home, but her voluptuous felons may jolt Washingtonian sensibilities. Even so, viewers are bound to find her glamorous she-clones more charming and less abrasive than their maladjusted pulp-film cohorts and Niagara thwarts the possibility of her malevolent heroines eliding with the objective world by emphasizing their pictorial status. Exploiting the flatness of her media, she abstracts textures and compresses figures and backgrounds into precisely cropped frames, constructing a format which gives the unmistakable impression that the Niagara Woman and her occasional antagonists are the only personae that could possibly inhabit their borders.

Niagara’s painting and graphic techniques are as strong and appealing as the characters to which they give being. With fluid lines and gracefully contoured areas of bold color she composes tightly-constructed and harmoniously balanced designs. Her crisp, fresh and immediate pictures demonstrate her aesthetic philosophy: “I don’t care about making art that only talks to other artists.” Her artistic career began in the 1970s when she studied painting at the University of Michigan. Soon thereafter she invented her signature “Niagara Woman.”

Whereas her pictorial style and subjects are indebted in part to the pop masters Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, Niagara ascribes her most powerful influences to the Pre-Raphaelites and Art Nouveau artists Alfons Mucha and Aubrey Beardsley. Her linear technique and application of oriental graphic designs reveal the aesthetic impact of her nineteenth-century predecessors. On her fascination with their predilection for morbid eroticism, she comments “I like all that dark stuff.”

The begining of a new gallery

It is all in the works....

The grand opening is set for August 4th but please stop in before then and take a peak. More photos and artist info to come!

Gallery 402
402 3rd Street.
Wausau, WI
54401