Mike Reedy's lowbrow anatomy

i-bed9a835be6a13f2e2ae4703dd04902a-Michael_Reedy_MalumE-728x1024.jpg

Michael Reedy's drawings are like 1980s Visual Man and Woman models plopped down in a half-excavated quarry of visual and literary allusions. He achieves a cut-paper, graphic feel by composing on superimposed planes, sort of like a stage set, with strategic uses of outlining and negative space. And he is a master of figure drawing (he teaches it, so he'd better be). When an artist really knows figural anatomy, he/she doesn't need to do anything flashy with it: you can just tell.

While it's not one of the overtly anatomical drawings (like malum E, above), I'm totally captivated by Blash, a post-comic, dating-is-hell riff on Judith & Holofernes. It mixes sexualized comic book imagery (look! tiny Wonder Woman's got your back!), comic typography, a Mucha-like art nouveau halo, and a dark/dead-eyed heroine in lingerie who's a dead ringer for a J.W. Waterhouse nymph. Oh, and there's a skull. And bunnies. And praying mantises. This right here is what makes so-called lowbrow art (an overused but still useful term, IMHO) so much freaking fun.

And did I mention you can buy a print of Blash in 3D? Mike Reedy FTW! (for the record, I'd buy the print in 2D, but its mere existence in 3D brightens my day.)

More:

Mike Reedy interview w/crud
Via Street Anatomy

More like this