El Rey

I get pretty excited by degradation. Of images, that is. When you take a great 1/2" doodle on crummy paper and photocopy it with the copier set to maximum magnification, one generation after the next until it fills the page--that picture, now that's something. Maybe accompanying my mom, when I was a toddler, on visits to her chain of copy stores up and down the east coast had something to do with it. I'm still fascinated by "flawed" image reproduction--uneven inking of old wood-type posters, spray-paint overspray, and paintings where you can see each brushstroke. I used to work in art departments all over Manhattan; I learned numerous technological ways to produce a perfect, huge, photographic image. I don't see the point in using paint and brushes to attempt the same thing. The imperfections of the process, the visible hand of the craftsman, are what makes handmade images interesting to me--a painting or print, as I see it, should show the person who made it.

Recognition
2003 Nominee, SECA Award
SF MOMA

Solo Shows
2005
New and Improved
Paintings
National Product, San Francisco

2004
Vacation
4-Color Process Paintings
66balmy, San Francisco

2003
Uptown
Paintings
National Product, San Francisco

El Rey’s Barganza
Prints and paintings
66balmy, San Francisco

2002
El Rey’s Fiesta Plana
Paintings
National Product, San Francisco

El Rey’s Mind-Roastingly Supreme Art Party
Paintings and sculpture
66balmy, San Francisco

Group Shows
2006
Supreme Affordable Art Summit Show (with Steve Keene, DAVe Warnke, and Dolan Geiman)
Tag Art Gallery
Nashville, TN

2003
The Home & Garden Show
Prints and paintings
Budget Gallery, San Francisco

2002
MELT
Paintings
The Art Explosion, San Francisco

2001
Just Bazaar
Paintings
66balmy, San Francisco

Education
BA, Studio Arts/Graphic Design, Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY, 1990