Sam Lopes "House of No"

Erin and I went to (or rather tried to go to) the Oakland Art Murmur this past friday. We were foiled by not being able to park Moji's van and not being dressed warmly enough or motivated enough to walk a great distance to make it to most of the gallery's on the art walk. We did make our first and most important stop at Blank Space Gallery to see our friend and former roomie, Sam Lopes's solo show entitled "House of No".

I ran into Sam the other day at a little undergrad panel discussion that we were both presenting on, so I got a sneak peek of his new work. He's screenprinting interiors of houses over abstract colored pencil, which makes for some really electric combinations. He mentioned something about feeling like the house was alive, and I think he's really capturing that in this work, the intensity of the colored pencil and the layering really make it feel like you're seeing the innards of the space. there's something simultaneously really tense and quiet about them. And of course, there's still bears. and cats. So really, you can't lose.

The show is up til April 28 and it's jam packed with work. Sam has a million ideas and is quite prolific, so you should see it now, because his next show is bound to be a totally new set of work. I forgot to take my camera with me to the show so below is some of Sam's slightly older, but still really recent work from a different series entitled "Monument". And there's a ton more amazing stuff on his website to check out. Prolific, really, I wasn't exaggerating.