Voltage Coffee & Art  presents:

SUPER FRIENDS

An exhibition of artwork by MRBA

This work by MRBA dives deeper into some faces we all recognize. They are super heroes, cartoon stars and animals made famous by fashion’s elite designers. MRBA imbues these characters with an attitude, through fashion savvy costuming and epic cameo portrayals. These faces are shown just slightly different than we remember and we want to know why.

For years we followed cartoons, 5 days a week, (sometimes even on Saturday mornings with a bowl of Chex!), on the Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, and PBS and honestly those guys didn’t have a lot of variety in their closet arsenals, or in their story lines. I believe we could all draw a Mickey, Minni or Pooh Bear and their wardrobes and know pretty much how each episode would end because of our constant exposure and their static performances. We came to know and trust our imprint of these faces and their traits so convincingly that seeing them in a slightly different light through MRBA’s painterly filter leaves us a bit uncomfortable and curious to figure out what is going on.

It is very apparent that MRBA has also spent a long time with these famous friends, and perhaps even longer with the canvases, glitter and paint to create this body of work. There are layers, palate scrapes – topographical genius built up over sessions and session of smearing and fixing, stepping back and changing. However, one of the best parts about this body of work is the uniqueness of each personality. The images in this body of work are really their own people with their own attitudes, and even the painter doesn’t really know why they are taking a particular pictorial tone. This creates a fun and magical atmosphere, like the brooms coming to life in Fantasia, where you don’t really know what these characters are thinking, or what they may do next.

Anna Schindelar
Curator, Voltage Coffee & Art
January 20, 2012