Branching Out

Alex Pardee has a fantastically sick mind. The Bay Area artist’s subject matter includes a smurf with bloody hands (“Guilty Smurf”), a post-apocalyptic stripper named Jupiter (“as big as the planet she’s named after”), and trees trunks, stumps, and branches grafted onto human beings. In August, Pardee posted a short video to YouTube called Night of the Treeple, portraying the toxic origin of these arboreal creatures. Filmed in the style of a preview for a ‘70s style slasher flick, it turned out to be a commercial of sorts for Pardee’s new clothing line from Hurley. The t-shirts and hoodies in “Night of the Treeple” all feature Pardee’s dark and gorgeous artwork: one shows a man clutching a bonsai as he seems to be morphing into a larger version of it; in another, a blue-faced businessman holds his hand to his mouth – only, his hand has become a branch, on which a little bird sits. “I’ve always been attracted to the weird, grotesque, not-normal, unsettling images,” Pardee recently told Juxtapoz magazine. Pretty cool that a clothing company’s willing to ride along for the weirdness. Tonight’s release party features an art show with work by Pardee, Attaboy, N8 Van Dyke, Jon Wayshak, and others, plus musical guests Cage (of the Weathermen), TOPR, Grand Invincible, and Papervehicle.
Wed., Oct. 22, 7 p.m., 2008