Big Rock Candy Mountain - July 8 - Aug 6, 2005 at Roq la Rue, Seattle

Roq la Rue is pleased to present "Big Rock Candy Mountain" - a show featuring nationally known contemporary artists influenced by differing facets of folk or vernacular art. Ranging from the mountains of Appalachia to the Southwest, each artist has been influenced by the folk art of his area and used it as a jumping point for their own vision.
Gary Monroe was raised in Knoxville, Tennessee and trained as an artist at Western Kentucky University. He then lived in Dallas for several years working while he pursued his art career, but recently moved back to Knoxville and has incorporated his interest in the cultural folk life of Appalachia, particularly the Pentecostal "snake handlers" of southern Appalachia into his artwork. In addition to exploring the power of faith in his work, Monroe often inserts sly references to Michelangelo, Jackson Pollock, and Peter Paul Rubens in his drawings, and embellishes them to a degree that borders on the baroque.	Gary Monroe
Despite being born a Welshman, Jon Langford (also known as a seminal musician as a member of The Mekons, The Waco Brothers, Pine Valley Cosmonauts, ect) captures perfectly a sense of a forgotten American West in his paintings, strewn with bones, rusty tin, and faded bandanas. His rough portraits are scratched and sanded to further enhance a feeling of "old timey-ness". His paintings of faded icons of Americana (such as country western musical heroes Bob Wills, Johnny Cash, and Patsy Cline) are tributes to both the subject of the paintings, as well as autobiographical explorations. His subject and style combines "Outsider" sensibilities with a deft hand and sophisticated sense of musical history.	Jon Langford
Growing up in Kentucky, the outside world's stereotypes of Appalachian culture (not the culture, itself) became a major inspiration in Ryan Greis' artistic approach. Greis' work bases his work on colorful characters he encountered growing up, people who exemplified the stereotype of the "hillbilly", and explores the fragility and awkwardness of people in extreme rural environments, where simplicity and honesty beat out complication and corruption. Greis executes his paintings with a masterful technique and a satiric, off the wall sense of humor.	Ryan Greis
Self taught painter Daniel Martin Diaz combines his Mexican heritage and Catholic faith to create powerful, unabashedly religious art that is steeped in mysticism and mystery. His earth and blood colored palette and use of distressed wood and handmade frames speak to his Southwestern influence and makes a powerful foil for the rich depth of his work, and lend a "flawed" human touch to the ephemeral ideas represented.	Daniel Martin Diaz
Fred Stonehouse is well known nationally for his chimerical paintings that combine surrealism with Mexican folk art. Populated by strange enigmatic creatures, blends of animal and human that blurt cartoony word balloons or gaze at unfurling banners, they evoke not only early American painting as well as Renaissance art, but a give slight nod to outsider art such as circus sideshow banners and rural religious art.	Fred Stonehouse
Thomas Huck creates masterful woodcuts that boggle the eye in their sophistication and intricacy while depicting the gross underbelly of society. A punk rock Hogarth, Huck's work deals with his personal observations about his experiences living in a small town in Southeast Missouri and is what he calls "rural satire". Doused in unrelenting dark humor and meticulously crafted, his work has garnered him national attention.	Thomas Huck

For info or images, please contact Kirsten Anderson (206) 374-8977
or at kirsten@roqlarue.com