Fine Art Friday--A Little Lowbrow from Mary Lundberg

I do not often feature other artists on my blog because A) I do not often exhibit the same behavior twice in any aspect of my life, and 2) no one reads this blog anyway. However, in honor of Fine Art Friday, I decided to share an artist who has inspired me with her talent, humor, and honesty. Plus, no artist has ever inspired me to like Mobile Homes, so she gets kudos for that.

Her profile mentions that she has studied art all the way up to a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Memphis, has exhibited in both solo and group shows, and has been honored with awards for her work. AND YET I LIKE HER ANYWAY.

Her artwork all expresses a dark humor, reminiscent of Yves Tanguy or some of the more modern, hip, lowbrow surrealists that I'm not modern or hip enough to be able to cite. I'm seeing a bigtime Tanguy influence in this piece here:

In the Beginning, 18" x 24"

Aside from the immense talent, what drew me into her shop and made me check out every single category of art was, well, the categories she gave to her art. While other shops have categories like "Original Artwork", "ACEOs", and "Works Under $20", Mary has named her categories in a way that explains just what you're looking at, while the category titles make you laugh all by themselves. Her categories include "i use offshore banking"(works over $500), "lost my 401k but still love art" ($40-$65), and "art for the really poor" (<$12). The piece below ($50, since we're on the subject) is from a series of Trailer art, featuring bizarre and a little disturbing single-wide trailers. This mixed media piece I find awesome not just because it's a trailer and that the trailer appears to be walking, but that it appears to me to be wearing bellbottoms.

Single Wide Trailer #5, 4" x 4"

The artist is even honest enough to offer a category called "not my best work". It's nice to know that while I use my work from that category to give to people I don't like or to entertain my dog by letting her carry it around, Ms. Lundberg is at least trying to make a buck off of it. The work below, while not her best work, still cracked me up. Besides, the rest of that category I, um, didn't like. No offense, Mary, but it's not your best work. You said so yourself.

Poodle on Bob Ross's Hair, 5" x 7"

Last night, after checking out this shop, I thought about what categories I might use for my own shop. Using the same honest criterion, I was thinking, "papa needs a new roof", "mama needs a new dishwasher", "teenage daughter mascara fund" and "please buy this shit before I give it to my dogs to play with". It can't possibly be any less successful than what I've already got.