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Thomas Woodruff's FREAK PARADE
September 6 – October 14, 2007
Thomas Woodruff constructs a bold statement with his latest body of work, FREAK PARADE. Five years in the making, Woodruff dedicates the 34 mixed-media pieces on paper to “all those irregulars in shape or spirit.” Disturbed by the specter of homogeneity in contemporary culture, the artist celebrates the curious, the bizarre, and the eccentric. A master of technique, Woodruff combines the genres of landscape, portraiture, allegory, still life, and illustration with iconographic elements from posters, theatrical sets, advertising, tattoos, heraldry, carnival banners, and antiquarian books to create 32 unforgettable characters. Woodruff’s FREAK PARADE participants Miss Giggles, Anatomy Boy, and Poor Mr. P (among others), join the fantastic pantheon of characters created by artists such as Bosch, Bruegel, and Ensor. At once thought-provoking, marvelous, and terrifying, FREAK PARADE is a carnevalesque tour-de-force not to be missed. Copies of Mr. Woodruff’s latest publication, Thomas Woodruff’s FREAK PARADE, (2006, Hardy Marks Publications) is available at the museum.Thomas Woodruff was born in 1957 in New Rochelle, New York, into an Irish-American Roman Catholic family of six children. He earned his B.F.A. from Cooper Union in 1979. He currently serves as the chair of the Illustration and Cartooning Department in the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree program at the School of Visual Arts in New York. He received the Willard Cummings Memorial Prize, from the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. His works have been featured in numerous publications including Esquire, Rolling Stone, American Illustration, European Illustration, New Drawing in America, Tattootime, The Village Voice, Interview, Psychology Today, The New Yorker, Juxtapoz, and Harper’s Magazine. Woodruff also has created book jackets for various authors, such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Anne Tyler. He has exhibited his artwork extensively in the United States as well as internationally, including Australia and the Netherlands.
The UAM is extremely grateful to the Instructionally Related Activities Fund, the Constance W. Glenn Fund for Exhibition and Education Programs, CSULB College of the Arts, the Bess Hodges Foundation, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services for their continued programming support. For Thomas Woodruff's FREAK PARADE the UAM is grateful to the William Gillespie Foundation for their support.
Thomas Woodruff Gallery Talk
Click on the image to left to launch Quicktime movie
Image credit:Thomas Woodruff, Poor Mr. P., 2000-2005, mixed media on rag paper, embellished with rhinestones, 40 x 60 inches, courtesy of the artist.
