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Photo galleries
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Modern Thought is the first west coast exhibition by pop-culture satirists Kenn Sakurai (ESM-Artificial) and Dave O'Regan (Poplab). With an emphasis on text, this show of mass-produced and one-of-a-kind silk-screened work will touch upon some of the best and the worst aspects of American culture that often include models, cars, rock stars, song lyrics, the 80s, and television personalities. Always humorous, poignant, and thoughtful, their work also delves into other universal themes such as heartbreak and high school. Sakurai and O'Regan fuse text with image and popular culture to catch the viewer's attention. Their work contains notions of questioning commodity, advertising, and the bombardment of images the public receives daily for movies, music, fashion, and television. Through the hundreds of serigraph images they create in their studio (on postcard sets, prints, stickers, etc.) they're fueling the globalization of American culture. And, just as Warhol addressed issues of fame and identity through repeated imagery, while at the same time reducing the subject, they also use images of celebrity (the Rock, Martha Stewart, Milla Jovovich, etc.) to grab us and make us see something deeper that we usually do. In fact, they are so good at poking fun of consumerism and the media that even the most jaded person must laugh at the ridiculousness. Hailing from Vancouver, British Columbia, this Canadian duo graduated from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in 1999. They have been included in exhibitions in New York (8 1/2 x 11 at the 55DSL Flagship store), Washington, California (Tee Time and Otaku!), Illinois, Vancouver, United Kingdom (Stick 'Em Up), France (Surface to Air and Hello Kissy Prints at Colette) and Sweden (Postcards from Home). Articles about Sakurai and O'Regan have been featured in Adbusters, Western Living, Spruce, Studio Voice, Vancouver Sun, and Lola Magazine. esm-artificial.com | thepoplab.com
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