Uninked : paintings, sculpture and graphic works by 5 contemporary cartoonists

Five of the finest cartoonists currently working are also, not surprisingly, five of cartooning's finest artists. While the original ink-on-paper drawings which compose literary graphic novels and comic strips are generally only one step in the arduous process of creating a visual book, they are not necessarily intended to be seen as finished works in and of themselves. This exhibit chooses instead to focus on those artists whose work intentionally already extends beyond the page: rarely-seen drawings, paintings, lithographs, and sculptures which develop the extensive narrative worlds and ideas which every cartoonist has spent years, and in some cases, lifetimes, developing. The prolific artists presented -- Kim Deitch, Jerry Moriarty, Gary Panter, Ron Regé, Jr. and Seth -- have all devoted themselves to their imaginative work with an multifarious intensity at a time when a great deal of contemporary art mines its so-called visual "source material" from narrative popular culture but then chooses to blur or disregard its story content before enlarging it onto a gallery wall. By contrast, the work by these five artists -- for whom storytelling is second nature -- is unusually original, direct and full of life.The exhibit runs from April 21st through August 19th, 2007 at the Phoenix Art Musuem, 1625 North Central Avenue, Phoenix, Arizona (602-257-1222). A 112 page full-color hardcover catalog edited and designed by the show's curator, Chris Ware, picturing works from the exhibit as well as selected samples of each artists' published work, will be available in mid-July from the museum's store.(c) http://www.drawnandquarterly.com/