Tonight is all about Brooklyn. And the incredible artists being featured in two Williamsburg gallery openings.

New York City street artists Celso & infinity present A Maze, an exhibition and installation of work based on networks and passages. A gallery-sized, 7-foot-tall maze, constructed entirely out of original art, will immerse participants in a multidimensional environment designed to overwhelm the senses.he work invites viewers to choose their path to a destination that, ultimately, is unknown. Random decisions have to be made at each artistic obstruction: Continue right or left? Go back and chose another route? The end result could offer great reward. Likewise, it could be a dead end. You choose.

The New York Times described their most recent collaboration, Post No Bills, a street art gallery in Long Island City as “Audacious.” The new show also features work by mysterious street art shaman Stikman, graffiti artist LA II (Little Angel Ortiz, a protégé and collaborator with street art legend Keith Haring) and also introduces the graceful and intricate art of Cbeauty.

A Maze is a site specific installation made for Factory Fresh that is curated and conceived by Celso and infinity in an attempt to better understand the challenges presented by working in an ever changing artistic landscape.
Factory Fresh is located at 1053 Flushing Avenue between Morgan and Knickerbocker, off the L train Morgan Stop. Visit www.factoryfresh.net for more info.

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Opening Reception: Friday, November 14, 6-10pm | On view: November 14 – December 2, 2008

And in conjunction with the exhibition opening, I’ve aired our full interview with Infinity on Culture Shock Radio. Discover where mathematical derivatives and heavy metal intertwine for the artist, Endless Love Crew origins, more. DJ HiLL’s infinity Aesop Rock remix ROCKS! And you won’t want to miss the best question of the show! Click on the list to listen to A Bigger Infinity interview.

CULTURE SHOCK Radio (CSR) - The Art and Music Connection – strives to provide an aural glimpse into the musical soundscape that has helped shaped the artistic develop, creative vision, and lives of our interview subjects. The songs played on CSR are selected from a playlist provided by the artist being interviewed or are played in reference to a song, musicians or album mentioned in the interview itself.

THEN… Head over to McGaig Welles Gallery featuring
ERIC JOYNER, My Other Robot is a Donut
Opening: Friday, November 14, 7 p.m. – 10 p.m.
On View: November 14 – December 8, 2008

Eric Joyner. 'A Turn for the Worse', 2008. Oil on panel, '48" x 48".

Fresh from a successful show in September in Los Angeles and the August release of Robots and Donuts, a monograph of the artist’s work, Eric Joyner comes to McCaig Welles Gallery in Brooklyn with an invitation to indulge in his vibrantly colored world of confectionaries and robotics.

Until now, donuts and robots, have complacently resided in separate realms. For My Other Robot is a Donut, Joyner is excited to join these two worlds together and explore the surprising commentary they have to offer. Joyner has had an avid fascination with robots and donuts for some time now. As a long time collector of robots at street fairs and antique shops Joyner appointed these subjects as the focal point of his work in 1999. Like Pop artist Wayne Thiebaud before him, Joyner is fascinated with the artistic depiction of popular confection incorporating heavy pigments and saturated colors into his work. It’s no wonder that after viewing the superbly imaginative and artistic film, Pleasantville, an interest in painting donuts (as rich in taste as they are in texture and design) sparked inside the creative mind of Joyner. Through his juxtaposition of robots and donuts, Joyner reminds us of the post World War II era, a time when society was satisfied with simple pleasures, but lurking beneath the bright and shiny surfaces were deep psychological distresses.

Joyner’s style, though depicting a whimsical world, is decidedly realist and what the artist describes as “Rockwell on mushrooms.” In his new works, Joyner layers his wood panels with acrylics, oils and varnish to produce a seamless marriage between the contrasting textures of gooey donuts and shiny metallic robots. The paintings can be simultaneously humorous and poignant. The fantastical setting and juxtaposition of robots and donuts is playful, but often in his work the robot becomes dwarfed by the landscape making one feel a sense of loneliness and isolation. In Drowsy Bot, Joyner shows a robot wondering through hazy pink fog rising off a mountain range while sipping bleary eyed from a bottle of brown liquor. Another large work depicts a robot with a dinosaur head wandering through a deserted snow-covered Rome, reminiscent of Joseph Mallord William Turner’s The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire. The massive scale of the painting and the intriguing combination of the meticulously rendered city with the toy robot show Joyner’s ability to be both amusing and touching, saccharine and tart. By incorporating influences of pop culture, science fiction, and art history with his own imagination, Joyner creates an enchanting world that one cannot help but devour.

Eric Joyner will be signing limited edition prints of “A Turn for The Worse” to the first 50 guests to arrive to the opening.

An artist book signing event will take place during the opening reception with books available for sale. Robots and Donuts : The Art of Eric Joyner

Eric Joyner is an American painter based in San Francisco. He has worked as a freelance illustrator for over 23 years for major companies such as Mattel Toys, Levis, Showtime and Hasbro. Eric has won two gold medals from the San Francisco Society of Illustrators. He has had solo exhibitions at the Corey Helford Gallery, The Shooting Gallery and Mmodern Gallery. He is deeply influenced by Japanese toys and the Brandywine artists and illustrators of the early 1900s. This is his first solo show with McCaig Welles Gallery.

Gallery Location
Brooklyn: 129 Roebling Street, Brooklyn, NY 11211 Hours: Monday through Friday- 11 am to 7 pm, Sat and Sunday 12pm to 7pm; 718.384.8729