abbracadabbling: Tim Biskup Makes Light of Darth Vader

15 November 2009

Tim Biskup Makes Light of Darth Vader

Hey! A new logo! I've been getting a bit tired of the old ones, to tell you the truth. I think it sets an entirely different tone for this blog, and everyone at the Springfield Home Office has been giving it props. And as ever, I'd also love to hear your Back Issues about our baby new icon. You know why, don't you? ---------- It's simple. I Hate Everyone But You.

No, really! What better reason to unveil abbracadabbling's newest blogspot logo than to coincide with the opening of I Hate Everyone But You, painter and sculptor Tim Biskup's new show at Los Angeles' own De La Barracuda?

I thought you'd be speechless. So was I when I first came across Biskup's work a few years back. Words are still failing me now that I've had a peek at his latest paintings, too. Check out his psychedelic rendering of pop culture's most notorious Sith Lord, Darth Vader. It's popping eye-candy for your graphic imagination, that's what it is.

Lately, I've developed a fascination with the many different pop cultural readings of Star Wars that exist, but particularly Darth Vader's. He's arguably George Lucas' greatest character, not to mention one of the most significant villains of American cinema. But Vader's predominance in popular culture is owed to much more than SciFi fandom and the growing Cos Play phenomenon. As a true archetype, Darth Vader is inherently open to creative and meta-textual interpretation, and lately amateur and artist representations of him seem to be on the upswing. The variety of Vaders I've found the last week alone have run the gamut from the commercial to the surreal, and from the playfully anachronistic to the darkly absurd.

Here, Biskup's colorful angularity with Vader adds serious lightness to the classically dark icon. Since I tend to prefer darker hues over pastels, the use of color in Astro Boy [below] is just my style. But Vader is certainly the more eye-catching, and it's hard not to get lost in it. I also can't help but see The Force surrounding Vader's helmet while energetically penetrating its opaque surface. Any blackness in the painting is lost in the background.

If I had to assign Biskup's Vader to any of the original trilogy, my pick would be the first Star Wars movie. Just by looking at it, I can't get A New Hope out of my head.

Darth Vader, you'll be just fine.

I Hate Everyone But You, featuring the painting and sculpture art of Tim Biskup and print design by Matt Goldman opened November 13th at De La Barracuda in Los Angeles. The show runs until December 3rd.