Shag
Is Smokin’
Tired of Antismoking laws and contemporary “lofts”
that seem a b it too much like old apartments?
Perhaps you need to get Shagged.
Shaf, aka Josh Agle, takes us back to when
American was cool – way cool. Mod was
hot, monkeys were funny, and style was everything. The world not only loved us – it wanted to be
us.
Educated in the Visual arts at Long Beach
State in California, Shag combines a classical sense of space and narrative
with the native humor and visual communication skills of a commercial
illustrator.
Shag (think JoSH AGle) jumped off the
covers of classic jazz records and modern magazine designs – is it my
imagination, or do I see a little Bing Crosby and Audry Hepburn film influence
also? -- into the postmodern world.
A Shag differs from many contemporary retro
pieces in that it is not merely a classic mod pose.
Rather, the images are, as Shag puts it, “set
in the middle of a story or situation – characters are interacting and reacting
to each other and to outside events.”
Part of the Shag narrative depends on the
strong differentiation between foreground and background, render in large
spaces of flat color. The eye skims
across the background, registering the action denoted by the figure as in a carton
panel.
Shag’s classical training is readily apparent,
and perhaps that’s what makes the pieces so great. The line of each figure flows into a dialogue
with another image, other lines, and pools of color.
Even a six on the Kinsey scale will follow
the legs of a Shag vixen to see where they are going.
Shag’s other trick is the building of
context.
Take Twelve
Stations of Ptolemy. Based on the
traditional horoscope, each image contains symbols, colors, activities, and
often animals, related to each sign.
They are a smoothed-over, cooled-down, and
[Pf]attened-up update of the Medieval Bestiary or Book of Days.
The same attention to narrative symbolism
imbues all Shag’s series, whether in the Genesis cycles of Before the Eviction; the more classical Heroes and Monsters, based on Greco-Roman mythology; or Holidays on Ice, straight from the Madison
Avenue-Hollywood reader.
So, put on some Esquivel; pour yourself a
gin; and go ahead, light up – it’s your life, after all.
And go Shag-a-delic with OX-OP Arts’ return
to style.
Shag:
Press Your Luck
Through June 20
OX-OP Arts
1111 Washington Avenue. S.
Minneapolis, MN 55415
(612) 259-0085
Originally appeared as "Shag is Smokin' " Lavender Magazine, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 10-23 June, 2005, p 142.
