Earlier this year, Houston resident Brad Tucker took his brand of weirdo art up to New York. More specifically, it was a solo exhibition at Lombard-Fried Fine Arts. One piece in the show was called "Flip-Flop," which is, quite simply, a haphazard pile of colorful flip-flops. Also on display was something titled "Who's Asking," a painting that reads "Ass King" (clever!) in black text over a lime-green background and looks like a sign for an über-hip restaurant. Inane, perhaps, but Tucker does have a unique aesthetic that is all spare, sun-drenched plastic and neon fun.
Tucker's work has indeed reached far and wide just two years after his first solo show at Dallas' Angstrom Gallery and one year after a groundbreaking show, which involved complicated stereo installations, at the Inman Gallery in his hometown of Houston. In the past several months, he has appeared in solo shows in Fargo, Chicago and Valencia, Spain, in addition to the aforementioned New York display. As for his own geographic influences, Tucker may reside in Texas now, but he grew up in Southern California and was undoubtedly influenced by the surge of cutting-edge kid culture there. Skateboards, garage bands, beat-up signage and children's word games collide to inform the oddball, throwaway nature of his objects.
As if he needed to pad his résumé anymore, Tucker is to be featured in an upcoming exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Art showcasing--what else?--up-and-coming Texas artists. The exhibit will be titled Come Forward. In the meantime, he's coming to town to talk about his work for the Visual Art League of Lewisville. He's certainly doing his own thing, and there's a fresh quality to that thing he's doing.
