When Martina Secondo Russo and her husband, Frank Russo, produced a Halloween art show at their Lower East Side gallery four years ago, they knew it would become an annual event. The exhibit showcased ghoulish images ranging from a cluster of child-like skeletons to a butcher knife-wielding jack-o’-lantern to an acrylic wool ski mask fashioned as a skull.
“The Halloween aesthetic, the wild freedom it gives people, the visual quality of fall colors, we love all that stuff,” Martina explains.
MF Gallery’s Fifth Annual Halloween Art Show features an even wider array of macabre fare, with 15 artists fusing horror and kitsch to create a show that’s as fun as it is creepy.
Take Brooklyn artist Michael Mararian, who’s known for his haunting black and white ink drawings—aka “Inky Dreadfuls”—that allegorize “childhood naiveté” and “lost innocence.” His contribution to this year’s show depicts a young girl from the Victorian era rocking on a swing in a barren graveyard.
“I think people are drawn to humor and horror equally,” says Mararian, whose influences include Edward Gorey, Lewis Carroll and Norman Rockwell. “Humor creates a physical reaction through laughter, but horror and the macabre entertain our unspoken side.”
New Jersey artist Ed Repka takes a similar approach with his painstakingly detailed drawings of comic book-like monsters, the appeal of which, he says, extends beyond cult-horror enthusiasts.
“As our lives become increasingly more restricted, these images become touchstones to a kind of child-like freedom to be, or do anything we want,” Repka explains. “Monsters have no pretense of being anything other than what they are, [which is] an
appealing concept, one we all aspire to.”
Other pieces on display this year include Italian artist Giorgio Santucci’s portrait of horror movie icon Michael Myers; a sultry cartoon witch with broomstick and pumpkin in hand by an artist known as Candy; and Martina’s own wood cutouts of severed limbs covered in spooky tattoos.
While their styles vary, these artists are bound by their connection to the lowbrow aesthetic, also termed pop surrealism, a genre with origins in the comic book, punk, hot rod and tattoo subcultures. Lowbrow art has enjoyed most of its success in Los Angeles and Europe, but has been gaining momentum in New York, albeit slowly, thanks to underground spaces like MF Gallery, and better-known venues like Chelsea’s Jonathan LeVine.
Martina and Frank say they aren’t limited to lowbrow, although they try to incorporate the fun of the genre into everything they do, like shows focused on toys, zombies, or offbeat themes like “Good Head/Bad Hair.”
They threw a party in late September to kick off the Halloween exhibit, and it surprised Martina that so many people dressed up with Halloween being more than a month away. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that they were offering free beer to anyone wearing a costume, or maybe it was something more.
“People do wanna let their wild side out,” she says. “Sometimes they just need an excuse.”
Exhibit through Nov. 4, MF Gallery, 157 Rivington St. (betw. Suffolk & Clinton Sts.), 917-446-8681. Horror Film Festival Oct. 13 House on the Edge of the Park & House by the Cemetery; 7:30 & 9, $5.
“The Halloween aesthetic, the wild freedom it gives people, the visual quality of fall colors, we love all that stuff,” Martina explains.
MF Gallery’s Fifth Annual Halloween Art Show features an even wider array of macabre fare, with 15 artists fusing horror and kitsch to create a show that’s as fun as it is creepy.
Take Brooklyn artist Michael Mararian, who’s known for his haunting black and white ink drawings—aka “Inky Dreadfuls”—that allegorize “childhood naiveté” and “lost innocence.” His contribution to this year’s show depicts a young girl from the Victorian era rocking on a swing in a barren graveyard.
“I think people are drawn to humor and horror equally,” says Mararian, whose influences include Edward Gorey, Lewis Carroll and Norman Rockwell. “Humor creates a physical reaction through laughter, but horror and the macabre entertain our unspoken side.”
New Jersey artist Ed Repka takes a similar approach with his painstakingly detailed drawings of comic book-like monsters, the appeal of which, he says, extends beyond cult-horror enthusiasts.
“As our lives become increasingly more restricted, these images become touchstones to a kind of child-like freedom to be, or do anything we want,” Repka explains. “Monsters have no pretense of being anything other than what they are, [which is] an
appealing concept, one we all aspire to.”
Other pieces on display this year include Italian artist Giorgio Santucci’s portrait of horror movie icon Michael Myers; a sultry cartoon witch with broomstick and pumpkin in hand by an artist known as Candy; and Martina’s own wood cutouts of severed limbs covered in spooky tattoos.
While their styles vary, these artists are bound by their connection to the lowbrow aesthetic, also termed pop surrealism, a genre with origins in the comic book, punk, hot rod and tattoo subcultures. Lowbrow art has enjoyed most of its success in Los Angeles and Europe, but has been gaining momentum in New York, albeit slowly, thanks to underground spaces like MF Gallery, and better-known venues like Chelsea’s Jonathan LeVine.
Martina and Frank say they aren’t limited to lowbrow, although they try to incorporate the fun of the genre into everything they do, like shows focused on toys, zombies, or offbeat themes like “Good Head/Bad Hair.”
They threw a party in late September to kick off the Halloween exhibit, and it surprised Martina that so many people dressed up with Halloween being more than a month away. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that they were offering free beer to anyone wearing a costume, or maybe it was something more.
“People do wanna let their wild side out,” she says. “Sometimes they just need an excuse.”
Exhibit through Nov. 4, MF Gallery, 157 Rivington St. (betw. Suffolk & Clinton Sts.), 917-446-8681. Horror Film Festival Oct. 13 House on the Edge of the Park & House by the Cemetery; 7:30 & 9, $5.
