Best known for his brilliantly coloured cartoonish paintings, Todd James, also known as REAS, fuses his experience as a graffiti artist, with art history, pop culture, sexuality, and violence.
Despite these colourful motives and the happy street-like style Todd James’ work is not explicitly political, but he is obviously not reserved in his choice of image statements and always with a tint of comic ease.
Although never overtly political, Todd’s images “always seem to stem from a sentiment of now”. Naked girls, pirates with weapons and armed tanks are portrayed with an ironic distance, but also as subjects to be taken seriously. His paintings, although initially appearing lighthearted and fanciful are subtly honest in their depiction showing serious version of the world situation.
In Electrical Ritual, there are two series to discover. One which transpires the intimate touch of Matisse, tinged with a latent eroticism suggested by lascivious women watching the ocean or represented in works of art painted in the background. The other, more abstract, where you can guess the outlines of figurative elements like skulls or fighter jets.
As expressed in the press release, this new exhibition touches the realm of Todd James’ unconscious, offering a pop interpretation of the Freudian concept of the vital and antagonistic impulses of life, Eros, and death, Thanatos.
Todd James Electric Ritual runs through October 27th at the gallery located on 4 rue du pays de Liège, 1000 Brussels Belgium.
About the gallery
Alice Gallery is the work of Alice van den Abeele & Raphaël Cruyt whoopened Alice gallery in 2005.
Their vision is Glocal and their exhibitions echo an emerging globalised culture they describe as transversal, participatory, empathetic and hyper-connected.
In 2016, Raphael and Alice opened the MIMA, the Millennium Iconoclast Museum of Art in Molenbeek where they assure the artistic direction.
Author: Fran
Founder and editor of Urbanite. Street Art lover who after the finishing her MA thesis on the Mexican and Norwegian muralist movement in the 1920-50s, developed a fascination for street art and graffiti that eventually led to collaborations with different art blogs, including the creation of this one.
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