Weathering the Storm with Jeremy Fish at Laguna Art Museum
Photos and text by Isaac McKay-Randozzi

It was as a diverse a crowd that could be imagined (short of wandering homeless) that filled the Laguna Art Museum. 75-year-old multi-millionaires mingled with salt encrusted skate rats from upstate New York, plastic surgery nightmares, art fans and hip slicksters from the LA area rubbed stitched elbows with one of the largest congregations of the California section of the Silly Pink Bunnies since the Long Beach convention of ’04. All there to get the first looks at Mr. Fish’s latest body of work.

Taking nearly a year to complete, the exhibition includes large paintings housed in intricate hand carved frames from Bali, various painted wooden shapes that ranged from detailed circular to large layered pieces. Wooden sculptures of his characters were positioned at various points in the show as well as a wonderful couch that was used as a resting spot for the foot weary. DJ Don Cesar provided great sounds that spanned the generation and economic gaps in the attendees and help offset the sometimes-somber toned theme of the exhibit.

Juice Design man Matt Irving and deck maker extraordinaire Paul Schmidt.

Martin Olive of the Vapor Room has done more for art than anyone will ever know.

Actress and longtime fan of Jeremy's work, Tatiana Javorsky

A video of time-lapsed footage of Jeremy painting different murals was showing. Director and editor Dan Wolfe shot and edited the video. Note the carved frame around the monitor.

It’s been well established that Jeremy Fish is a talented artist dynamo; able to create piles of intriguing images for use on a variety of products as well as produce comprehensive shows that create multiple worlds of introspective intrigue, bunnies, skulls, beavers and menacing gnomes. His content has always been diverse and touches on subjects as wide and far as the feeling of quitting a hated job to the social ills of mass consumption and the hilarity of being human.

In his newest and perhaps largest endeavor to date, Mr. Fish took over the upper section of the museum with a tidal wave of new works. In the recent years there has been a noticeable increase in the detail and the concurrent emotion his characters convey. The progression of his skills is more than evident with the pronounced three-dimensional effect in the mural section and an increased scale of his various canvases and media. His color palette and boldness of lines help achieve this effect.

Our current economic and social tempest provided the theme of the show, showing the viewers personal and cultural aspects of how it has affected the world around Mr. Fish and us all. From the lonely holdouts of the 60s to the failing banker trying to keep it together; forces out of our control have their hands upon our daily lives, fingers ever encroaching further and deeper. Not just limiting itself to just a human problem, it extends to the flying rats in the cities and the struggling bunnies in the foothills; the world as a whole is becoming a clogged mound of put-off problems that need to be addressed before the mole hill becomes a mountain.

Couch- hand crafted in Bali, upholstered and assembled in the Bay Area

With pieces that touch on current topics like health care, drugs, hand outs, gas prices, war, the big eating the little guys, themselves and others, Mr. Fish’s commentary via animals and objects reminds us of how bizarre the reality we have created is. Remembrances of things past and those soon to fade peek their head in the Polaroid faced bear who is being held aloft by 35mm film bees and in the buffalo/Native American pieces.

DJ Don Cesar, a man who can read his crowd and make even the old ladies shake their rumps.

The man working his craft

Jeremy talking about his new van with former Deluxe and current Element art director Francis

Jeremy has always had a great reverence for the past and the ability to recognize what the results of the passage of time have on us in all its various forms. The tortoise like slow death of the printing press and extinct newspaper boys, Swiss cheese chapeaux references to the depression of the ‘30s.

What separates his work from others is in the detail, not only in the sense of history but also a respect for the people, movements and evolution of the mechanical age and all it has spawned. His recognition of the times we live in and its inclusion in his work not only captures them for future generations but also gives us a broader vantage point from which to look. Maybe from there we can see a way out of the mire the past decades we have wrought for ourselves.

Jeremy Fish www.sillypinkbunnies.com
Weathering the Storm
Laguna Art Museum www.lagunaartmuseum.org
November 8, 2009 - January 17, 2010

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