I regret not sharing pictures from this show sooner, because seriously, they are of some real top notch work. What I have for you is a quick look inside the Roq la Rue gallery's latest show, "Alternate Realities." The show is only a month long, and features the works of two New York painters who each have had careers in commercial illustration, but who also paint what they want personally, and who then show it throughout different galleries across the country.

First up is Robert Craig, who held a carreer for over 30 years doing ads for big time companies such as Playboy, Rolling Stone, Disney, Viacom, General Motors, and a handfull of different cigarette brands. Yes, Robert had a hand in some of those illustrations that made Joe Camel look so damn cool. According to his website, he used to spend 24-36, sometimes 72 straight hours working on his illustrations. Since then he has given up the lengthy marathon like sessions, and now just paints what he wants, when he wants. This one is called "Lost Quatrain of Lettown."

I'm assuming that the title is a play on words, referring to the original (1947) mass-produced suburban community, Levittown, and then also combining it with the term "let down." Maybe the pencil's bite marks are even a symbol of when schools became institutionalized and boring... or maybe it's just a phallic thing... or most likely it's not either of those, but here's some details anyway.

"Self Plagiarism" is a 19"x24" acrylic on board.

I noticed that the Wienermobile doesn't exactly say "Oscar Mayer" on it. Is there anything to be said about that? Again, most likely not, but let's not rule that phallic train of thought out!

On Roq la Rue's webpage is says that Craig is influenced by old sci-fi movies, cartoons, his own childhood, Hindu art, LSD, the catholic church, the death of his daughter, etc. It's not hard to spot all of those things in his paintings, but still Craig himself says that “My paintings have no inherent, intentional meaning because I don't believe that life has any inherent meaning...it just is. I have no great wisdom, moral messages or cosmic profundity to impart in my work. I feel that would only detract from it. Like watching a great movie and a commercial buts in. 'Shut up and paint!' Sez I.” Basically, I think your supposed to just take his paintings with a grain of salt. I think they're great! "Jinxs Quandary"

Mmm, soft serve poopoo.

At the gallery, this one was titled "Puddles 2," and on Craig's site it's called "Uh Oh!" I think it was the smallest thing at the show, measuring 9"x10".

It also says on Craig's site that this one's titled "I Yam" and that it's a 16x20 acrylic on Human Skin!

This last one is titled "The Shroud of Karloff." I didn't know who Karloff was until I looked it up, but it turns out that he was the actor who played Frakenstein. Boris Karloff played a number of roles in different Hollywood films and was also was the guy who narrated the made-for-television animated feature, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." He is not to be confused though, with the guy who sang "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch." That was Thurl Ravenscroft, the voice of Tony the Tiger! Ahh, the things you learn from the internets...

I totally encourage you to go check out Robert's website. It has a great onsite gallery with a lot of his paintings on there, as well as a really bizarre news section where he talks about sleepwalking, being sent to a psych ward, and a bunch of other weird bi-polar stuff. It sounds kinda fictional and might just be a way of getting you to think that by purchasing his paintings you will be helping him pay for a $50,000 hospital bill, but still, it's pretty entertaining.

Randomly, the gallery had a few other things in the show that weren't really a part of the "Alternate Realities" theme, but I decided to show you them anyway. This stuff was up near the entrance and was made by Kendra Herring.

I thought it was only mediocre compared to the stuff Robert and Travis had up, but I thought it might still be worth showing. Another thing I thought was interesting was the card in the one down below. I have one just like it that I found on the ground at a grocery store I used to work at.

There were also a couple things at the gallery that were made by Brian Despain. You can't see it here really, but all those little black sperms had red numbers painted on their backs.

Back to the show, along another wall of the gallery were about a dozen different paintings by Travis Louie. Using transparent layers of acrylic paint over a tight graphite drawing on a smooth flat surface, he was able to create these amazingly awesome portraits. "Rusty, Of Unusual Circumstances"

The one below is titled "Ronald "Gadfly" Hastings."

Another great thing about Travis' stuff is that he makes up little backrounds for all the characters he paints. Here's one he made for "Gadfly."

Billed as "The Flying Beard", Ronald Hastings would perform his juggling act while swinging on a wire suspended a 100 feet above the center ring, as the headliner of "Conrad Smithy's Traveling Circus and Sideshow" His costume consisted of long, flowing garments and a yard-long false beard attached to his muttonchops. The false beardand long sleeves flowed with his movements and exaggerated his graceful flight above the spectators. Born in Kensington, England in 1823, his remarkable talents were first discovered by local fishermen who witnessed him juggling 20 live rats while balancing on a moving wooden barrel.

Unfortunetly my photos are majorly flawed because I had to photograph all of these through a layer of glass, but if you go and see them in person I sware you'll be convinced that they're actually old photographs. Apparently the point of the series was to sort of make up somthing for himself that he didn't have while growing up. “I grew up in an immigrant neighborhood where most of my friends could trace their ancestry back many generations and often had these wonderful turn of the century photographs that documented their family history. Unfortunately, I'm unable to go back any further than my great grandfather, who came here at the beginning of the 20th century. But there are no photos, just stories, full of inaccuracies…” "Mr. Schnauzer"

This one was the biggest at 30"x40", and titled "Run Pug Run." If I remember correctly it was the only painting that wasn't specifically part of the oddities/portraiture series.

I pulled this straight from Roq la Rue's website - "His own interest in Noir imagery, German Expressionism, personal dream imagery, as well as his recent discovery of old photographs of “human oddities” that were not from sideshow photographs, but rather pictures that documented that person’s “normal life” (i.e. the famous photo of John Merrick (The Elephant Man) dressed in formal evening wear for a night at the theater)"

While I was there I didn't notice it, but I've been told that all the artwork was also accompanied by a musical score made by Jack West. Using the artwork as inspiration, West created an entirely original soundtrack that the gallery says "evokes everything from the music of Disney's Haunted Mansion ride, demented circus calliope music, and some of the more euphoric music by Danny Elfman."

What I showed here on the blog is only a small fraction of what's hanging at the gallery, and it's all so worth checking out. The Roq la Rue gallery is located at 2312 2nd Ave, in Belltown, Seattle, right next to the new BLVD gallery. Might as well go hit to birds with one stone, right?