Recently,
Michael Sieben had his first ever solo show called Smile Forever at the
Art Palace gallery in Austin, Texas. His first solo show ever?
It's hard to believe that somebody who works so much, who's been around
for what seems like a really long time, and whose work is so awesome
has never been given that opportunity before. Hm. Well, a long time
coming, here's some fancy art talk about it, scroll down to check out
some pages from the accompanying zine (which you can still purchase
from his site):
"Fueled by
nostalgia, Michael Sieben’s work deals primarily with a loss of
innocence. Autobiography plays heavily into Sieben’s first gallery solo
exhibition of drawings, painting and sculpture. Combining the aesthetic
languages of skateboard graphic design and children’s book
illustrations, Sieben works in a style he refers to as “soft-core
gore.” Monsters tread a fine line between sweet and grotesque, and
security cameras are there to record it all. The title of the show
refers to, on one hand, smiling in the face of adversity, and on the
other, the loss of privacy in our contemporary digital age, where
cameras, secrurity, television and otherwise, are constantly recording
our images. Between these two poles, we might as well smile forever."