All Over Albany

David Geurin

Monsters, and aliens and superheroes, oh my!

For artist David P. Geurin, they're the stuff art is made of. The Albany-based artist combines comic book styling with movie monsters, aliens, a touch of pop art and a little sarcasm to create colorful works that show off an irreverent sense humor and genuine love of cartooning.

Some of his work is fashioned after vintage advertisements, and given modern updates with slogans like "crack is whack." Sometimes classic commercial icons even find their way into his art, such as one piece that featured McDonald's Grimace character. In another image, the Bride of Frankenstein gets made over as a classic pinup girl. With its bright colors and funky imagery, Geurin's art is just plain fun to look at.

Geurin's got a genuine love for both classic and contemporary comics, and he's particularly fascinated by the whole history of comic illustration, including the original newspaper comic strips and the work of Walt Disney. After growing up in Cohoes worshiping at the altars of classics like the Green Lantern and Flash Gordon, Geurin did a brief stint as an illustration major at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City.

A collection of his work, including a life-sized robot zombie sculpture, is on display through the end of next month at Troy's Paper Sparrow. Geurin has previously shown at the Upstate Artists Guild and the late Kismet Gallery as well as at the Ultraviolet Cafe where he works as a manager when he's not creating art. His first solo show earlier this year at Kismet actually resulted in selling enough paintings for him to buy his then-girlfriend an engagement ring.

Geurin, who lives with his wife and their two basset hounds, also counts pop artists like Andy Warhol among his inspirations and you can definitely see some of that in his work. His paintings are really more like collages, with Geurin often paining on pieces of old wood. Others are cut and pasted, or drawn on old photographs, and plenty of texture is incorporated.

The show at the Paper Sparrow will be up through the end of January, and while he no other shows planned for the immediate future, Geurin's hoping to work with other local graphic artists to create some sort of collaborative comic book.

To see more of his art, check out his Flickr page.

photos: David Geurin