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Lowbrow art, where does it fit?

I love "lowbrow" art, pop surrealism, pop modern...whatever you want to call it.  It is relatively new, well been around since the 70's, but you'd think galleries would be more accepting of the style by now.  However, MANY galleries have become known to exclusively showcase the style, so there is no shortage of venues for pop surrealists. But it would still be nice to look at calls for art and not feel the need to weed out galleries so carefully.  What do you think?  Where does lowbrow fit?  Who are your favorite artists and galleries?

Lowbrow Wikiality

Joe Sorren

Just found one of Joe Sorren's and Jud Bergeron's new collaborative sculptures.  I am itching the get my hands on the wax in my studio and sculpt 3D versions of my head and hand series.  I wish foundries weren't so expensive.  Need a grant!  Sorren's contribution to the sculptures are akin to his 2D creatures and characters.  I love his fluffy, strange style.

Joe Sorren and Jud Bergeron Sculptures on Fecal Face

Joe Sorren, The Mushroom Hunter

"never paint it again"

Good advice is basically the driving force of a current set of drawings and paintings I'm working on.  An awesome professor once advised the class "figure out what you don't want to paint and never paint it again."  I am taking this advice very seriously, maybe this is already what most artists do.  But to me, a lot of art seems to be composed of what the artist thinks is expected.  What should the ethereal or sexy lady archetype be doing in the painting, for example?  Well of course her hair should be blowing or something of that nature and she should have bedroom eyes, right? Well, if the form of a different type of hair or eye is more interesting to paint, just in terms of process, then thats what I'll paint.   Typing this out makes this seem painfully obvious and almost irrelevant, but I think if an artist will look at their past work they can easily pull out a few decisions that seem contrived by the artists idea of what the viewer wants to see.

So this current set of work I've started, began with this:

and a painting of the same image:

This type of image is similar to what I typically render.  Abstracted figures and faces are recurring themes in my work.  But this time I looked at this image with a question.  What did I like about the process of painting this image?  The answer is face, hair and hands.  You can tell looking at the body that there was no effort there to provide detail or indicate gender.  So I thought then it was pointless to depict a body at all, so what if I combined hands and heads only?   

And the next:

Eliminating the body allowed for a more interesting composition and more enjoyable painting session.  The next paintings in this series will continue this theme with a little more emphasis on the space behind the strange non-figurative figures.  

So this all boils down to editing out what doesn't interest you, free up some mental space, process your process. 

Favorite Illustrators/artists

I'm constantly looking at other artists work for inspiration and ways to improve my technique. Here are just a few of my favorites:

James Jean: www.jamesjean.com
Audrey Kawasaki: http://www.audrey-kawasaki.com
Lisa Yuskavage: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lisa-Yuskavage/27512707964?v=wall
Joe Sorren: www.joesorren.com
Mark Ryden: www.markryden.com
Amy Huddleston: www.amyhuddleston.com

                                            Lisa Yuskavage: Lurid and luscious ... Wilderness (2009)




Leave links to some of your favorite artists please!