Patient Zero: the initial patient in the population sample of an epidemiological investigation.

Topher is Patient ZERO!

A master of line and shading who readily acknowledges his debt to such past luminaries as Basil Wolverton and Robert Crumb, Crowder’s infection is coming from Detroit to Dallas spreading his strain of artistic mayhem. It’s a feast of irony, but don’t be surprised if some of the laughter dies in your throat.

We saw Crowder’s work and immediately knew we had to book a show with him. His ability, discipline and insanely detailed vision come at you like electro-shock to the skull. And the more you look the more you see, I can imagine owning his work for ten years and still finding new facets. It is a google earth version of the man’s psyche that starts with a grand vision and narrows smaller and smaller with precise detail until you see the bare synapses that make up his being.

Artist’s Statement
I have always loved the concept of storytelling through images and have found inspiration in the animated Saturday morning cartoons from my childhood, vintage postcards, comic books of the 1960s and 1970s, and roadside billboards. I have chosen to capturing a collection of daily emotions and cryptic memories from my childhood, around the early 1970s, of giant illuminated beer-bottle billboards served up electric brews, smelling the pungent odor of grease paint and alcohol while being entertained by clowns in the front row at a Shriner’s Circus, Saturday mornings spent with H.R. Pufnstuf, and the televised pictures of the Vietnam War. My method, inspired by a Saturday-morning cartoon edited for commercials, a postcard received from a foreign location, a comic book with more than a few pages torn out, or a partial, high-speed glimpse at a roadside billboard, reveals my childhood memories and everyday emotions.

93-7198 - 81.5″ x 31.5″

Executive - 50.5″ x 28.5″

Taste and See - 80.5″ x 16.5″

Polycarped - 81.5″ x 31.5″

Video presenation on our back patio. Beer, Wine & Hors dé Oeuvres will be served.

This show will be on display until July 28.