At our good friend Alex Pardee and the Zerofriends space in Oakland, California, Ricky Watts just opened a new solo show, Destination Unknown. You might remember Mr Watts' work, as it was presented prominently on the stages of the Outside Lands Music and Art Festival in the summer of 2012 in San Francisco.

From our good friend Alex Pardee and the Zerofriends crew: Time Flys. While it's hard to believe that it's already time to announce a new show at our Oakland Gallery, it's one we're certainly excited about. This Saturday, December 8, longtime friend and painter Robert Bowen will be featuring a series of new paintings that differ slightly from his past work.

I didn't take very many art classes in community college. In fact, I think I only took one, unless I blocked them out of my memory. And one of our first assignments in that class, before even doing the usual "value scales" or blind contour drawings, was to fully recreate a traditional Renaissance painting with the additional task of "adding a self portrait" into it...

We can't do a special Alex Pardee curated Halloween issue without having a costume party, too. On Saturday, October 6 at Mars Bar in San Francisco, Juxtapoz and the Zerofriends team will be hosting a party at Mars Bar, a costume party, a costume party for which Alex will be judging you and giving the best costume a prize. 

I interviewed surrealist painter Robert Bowen for Juxtapoz Issue #139. Since that was only a couple of months ago, I was going to ask him the same exact questions that I did before just because it would be silly, but instead, I'm going to let his incredible paintings speak for themselves, because they speak pretty loudly and each one has its own beautiful voice.

Darren Scott of Zerofriends talks with Sean Leonard of The Cotton Candy Machine, the gallery and store in Brooklyn co-owned by Juxtapoz friend, Tara McPherson. From the early Tiny Trifecta show to the recent Alex Pardee exhibition, Cotton Candy Machine has become a hub in the middle of Williamsburg.

"The opportunity help create content for Juxtapoz was the "counter" that I had always dreamed of having in front of me to give me that reason to reach out to some artists that I've loved, introduce myself, and finally say 'thank you'. So using the words Juxtapoz Magazine as my counter AND my crutch, I reached out to a handful of amazing artists, illustrators, photographers and sculptors, some already my friends, and some complete strangers that I had always been scared to say hello to, and asked them to be a part of my month-long hang out session on this site."

In celebration of the Halloween issue of JUXTAPOZ magazine that Alex Pardee curated, Zerofriends and Pardee are releasing the cover as a special edition limited timed-release print that will ONLY be for sale for ONE MONTH, during the shelf-life of the issue, and then never again! And it starts NOW!

Jonathan Way$hak, who we have known about for a few years but just recently got to meet when Alex Pardee featured him in the Halloween Issue we just released has an opening tomorrow night, September 6 in Oakland at Zerofriends Gallery. We got a sneak peek, and we think you should check it out. 

Alex Pardee is curating our October 2012 Halloween issue. Dave Correia is an artist you are going to see interviewed in said issue. Dave has a show opening tonight, August 2, at FIFTY24PDX in Portland. Alex tells us, "Contrary to what might hunt you down in your nightmares after seeing some of his work, Zerofriends' own Dave Correia isn't a scary dude. Fortunately for our eyeballs, however, his new collection of paintings is still frighteningly beautiful." Preview after the jump . . .