Opening Sat 6/15 @ 5pm
By Hollie Gibbs
There’s more than one way to sketch a cat. Laura Dumm proves this at a one-night event inspired by her own beloved feline titled Bubbapalooza.
Far from a crazy cat lady, Laura has been a fixture in the local art community for decades, and Bubbapalooza features a catalog that is a far cry from the kitsch folk crafts the term “cat art” often evokes. Rather, it is an experiment in artistic vision. Although all inspired by a single photographic image of her 17 lb. orange and white cat, Bubba, each piece explores a completely different artistic style as a testament to the animal’s complexities and the artist’s own skills.
“This show was a challenge I gave myself to see how many ways I could paint the same thing,” Laura explained. “I chose Bubba because he is always doing something interesting and frequently changes his mood and expression, in other words he has ‘it.’
“Ever since I was a young artist I’d been told to find a style and perfect it,” she continued. “I never understood that thinking. This past year has been so much fun painting how I felt at that particular moment, freely investigating my process of making art. It ended up being a year of discovery. With each new painting I had new puzzles to solve. Even the simplest styles created interesting questions. There were some that I assumed would be easy that I found to be anything but.”
Guests are invited to journey with Bubba through primitive, modern, psychedelic, abstract, minimalist, and pop periods of art. Celebrate the Day of the Dead with the eclectic kitty. See Bubba as cubist, Dadaist, and surrealist images with pieces that salute such artists as James Ruby, Joseph Cornell, and Basil Wolverton and typically range in size from 10 by 10 inches to 36 by 36 inches.
Created over the course of a year in different mediums, the collection includes more than a dozen portraits, multiple digital images, paper mache sculpture and mask, pencil drawings, ink drawings, a few pieces of jewelry and other 3-dimentional art. Laura even honors the comic genre with a 24-page, full color comic book (a collaboration with her husband, illustrator Gary Dumm).
The eight-minute, eternally looping movie Bubba Purring was inspired by Andy Warhol’s notorious experimental films, and proceeds from the Marcel Duchamp inspired ready-made “Bubba Gives A Sh*t” benefit local cat rescue organizations.
“We all look at things differently and that’s the reason I took one pose and expressed it 30 different ways,” Laura said. “From the very beginning you know each painting’s subject: a big orange cat face. Now all you need to do is enjoy the style, color, shape and how it affects you personally. I just made it simple for everyone.”
Experience BubbaPalooza for yourself Sat 6/15 from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. at Breakneck Gallery, 17020 Madison Ave. in Lakewood or by appointment from Fri 6/14 through Tue 6/18.
http://BreakneckGallery.com
https://Facebook.com/BubbaDumm
http://DummArt.com
Hollie Gibbs has a BS in journalism from Kent State University and studied photography at School of the Visual Arts in Manhattan. Her articles and photographs have appeared in numerous local and national publications. She can also be found playing guitar with various bands and building life-size monster props.Lakewood, OH 44107