Post #693495 by Tiki Shark Art on Sat, Sep 14, 2013 6:10 AM

Aloha Tiki Tribe!

I'm gonna' tell you something very important tonight.

See this Art-Book?
It's a copy of "Malicious Resplendence - the Paintings of Robt. Williams".
The book's opened to a well dog-eared page. The page is splattered with paint, because it's been open through many sessions of me making art. It's been my visual reference and inspiration while I slap paint on canvas many times.

I tell you "This is the First Low-Brow Painting I ever saw."

It was in the late 80's or early 90's I think, and I saw it first as an ART PRINT at Hi De Ho Comics in Santa Monica. When I looked at it, I felt my (then) Punker Buzz-Cut prickle as sweat ran down my scalp from my over heated & over aroused brain.

The painting was totally bitchin'!
It freaked me out! It
Blew my mind!

I did not know you could paint cartoon-like images and call them "Art". This changed everything. Finally, I understood good "Art". Art with a capital "A".

Something years at UCLA didn't teach me. As a matter of fact, I was thrown out of an advanced painting course there because I was told things like this were NOT "Art". If that's the sort of thing I was going to paint I better get out and go look for a commercial illustrator job.

However, this new cartoon "Art" proved that was wrong. This RAWKED my world. It mutated my DNA… transmogrified me from a commercial illustrator into a gallery Artist.
I had discovered Robert Williams and I had found "Low-Brow Art".

The painting is named "Patrick has a Glue Dream".

The Comic shop folks showed me the books "Zombie Mystery Paintings by Robt. Williams ", and "Visual Addiction the Art of Robt. Williams" and, best of all, "The Low-Brow Art of Robt. Williams."

This changed my career and my life as an Artist. It took years to turn the train around, but I finally did. It's hard to change after you learn to make $ a certain way, then give that momentum and reputation up, and start all over again from nothing.

But this is the painting that did it.

What's funny is, I finally met Robert Williams at the 25th Anniversary Group Art show at La Luz De Jesus Gallery. I told him one of his paintings completely changed my life. He Asked which one.

And I drew a complete blank.

After untold hours of looking at it, studying it, I could not remember it's name! Worse case of being "star-struck" I've ever had. I died right there in front of my hero. He looked at me like I was some kinda' idiot… I started to disscribe it's utterly impossible image, and failed! Then, I was distracted with some excited and very nice, fans asking me to sign their "25th Anniversary Show books". Mr. Williams got an odd look on his face and wandered off, with-out a word. E-gads!

My heart, cracked, broke, and stopped.

Luckily, later that night as the massive crowd thinned out some, I found him again. I timidly approached. At first, he gave me a look like "Oh no, not that nut again." But, after I was finally able to explain to him which painting had changed my life, he slowly cracked a wise "father of Low-Brow Art" smirk.

… And my heart jump started again.

Brad (Tiki Shark) Parker
"Brad Parker creates lurid paintings that pull in influences from tiki, comics, and rock."

• Honolulu Magazine "The Best Of" 2012 Issue
  
  http://youtu.be/7HTCkZXaA

[ Edited by: Tiki Shark Art 2013-09-14 20:38 ]