Michelle Martin
Contributing Writer
&@$#!, a comic themed gallery, made its Richmond debut last Friday during September’s First Friday event.
The exhibit coordinators, Jared Cullum and Bizhan Khodabandeh were excited to organize this event because of the opportunity it had to impact audiences of different backgrounds. The gallery preluded with a 24-hour comic drawing contest on Thursday, designed to build more networks in the Richmond art community.
“I am hoping that the 24-Hour Comic Day, combined with the exhibition, will help create a dialogue amongst comic artists in our city,” Khodabandeh said. “Hopefully those connections will become stronger and result in collaborations, or mutual support of each other’s artwork.”
However, the coordinators didn’t want to limit the exhibit strictly to professionals in the field, but warmly welcome a diverse crowd that would get to preview comic art in a new context.
“ (For) those who aren’t familiar with comic artistry, it will hopefully expand what they consider to be art and erode any preconceived notions about what is comic art,” Khodabandeh said.
Will Hooper, a VCU journalism student, stared intently at one of the pieces, stepped back and said to a friend, “I don’t get it. It seems out of context because it is more about the art and not the story.”.
What he failed to realize in his dissecting approach is that, he did get it.
Mary Anne Matel a VCU art student, who works at Gallery 5 said she agreed that the exhibit can be confusing. She even admitted that after her first time reviewing the comic art pieces she was left with a lot of questions.
“A lot of the artwork is unfinished, you can tell in the lines and I was wondering if that’s how it is normally done? Do people like pieces without clear lines?” Matel said.
Cullum, the exhibit’s co-coordinator reminded viewers like Matel that there are no limits in this genre of art.
“Every panel is an illustration worth examining,” Cullum said. “Countless hours go into creating a tiny moment and with a quick turn of the page they are gone. The purpose of this exhibit is to step back, soak in and enjoy those tiny moments and try to live in them for just a little bit longer.”
Up close, every piece is presented in its most honest form and that is whats most respectable about this exhibit. From observing the different panels of black and white contrasted amongst the neon painted details of work, every work is its own story.
Some of the pieces will make you laugh with their explicit humor, some of the sexual connotations may dismay you, but overall, the artwork presented will leave viewers impressed.