Uhhhlusions, The Terrific Banality of Magic Life, examines the delightful ideas of wit and its relation to the unconscious and the magical horror of cognitive dissonance through images of magicians, clowns and children in paper hats.
What Doesn't Kill You, Perverts Your Desires
I'd Cut Off All My Fingers Just To Touch You
Intensive Care
Irrotic Noises (Irr: unusual + Erotic) is a series that explores the ideas of self-identity, romance. sex and celebrity E.D.
Union Knott Gallery, 2726 Ne MLK Blvd, Portland, OR, Oct. 2016
Irrotic Noises...The Book! Filled with color prints of all work shown in Irrotic Noises at Union Knott Gallery, Portland, OR, with bonus prints and full color appendix.
Sculptural works
Homage To Glitter And The Optimistic Idealism of Romance (2 lbs of glitter, resin, acrylic and hemlock)
Old Glory (American flag and neon-lit glory hole)
A short process video illustrating the un-forming of a tin-catalyst silicone rubber mold for a series of 'quaint folk' wall key-holders.
Animals...who are they and why?
Acrylic on canvas, 36"h x 24"w
Available
Acrylic on paper, 29"h x 22"w
Acrylic on paper, 29"h x 22"w
In Private Collection
Ink on paper, 29"h x 22"w
Available
Acrylic on canvas, 18"h x 14"w
In private collection
Acrylic on canvas
In private collection
"Use (art) as a weapon" - John Heartfield, aka Helmut Herzfeld. This gallery showcases Slim Pickins' dedication to fighting against the ignorance and hatred of human movements within society that actively seek to work against an inclusive society of equality and free humanity and civilization at large. Art as a weapon is a concept used by satirical graphic designer and dadaist John Heartfeld who used scathingly graphic and honest images to fight fascism and authoritarianism during WWII in Germany and until his death in the late 1960s.
Acrylic on canvas, 14"h x 18"w
In Private Collection
Acrylic on canvas, 54"h x 34"w
In private collection
Acrylic on canvas, 60"h x 48"w
In Private Collection
Acrylic on canvas, 14"h x 11"w
In private collection
Acrylic on canvas, 16"h x 20"w
In private collection
Acrylic on canvas, 14"h x 18"w
In Private Collection
Acrylic on canvas, 44"h x 32"w
In Private Collection
Acrylic and 14k Gold Leaf on canvas, 16"h x 20"w
In Private Collection
Better together
Acrylic on canvas, 48"h x 32"w
In private collection
Acrylic on canvas, 36"h x 24"w
Available
Acrylic on canvas, 30"h x 42"w
Available
Mythology series examines the unthinking beliefs we hold set against a reality where change is the only reliable constant.
Acrylic on canvas, 20"h x 16"w
Available Soon
Digital works as stand-alone pieces or preparation for traditional media projects
A riff on the iconic 'ICEE' logo, a soft drink largely associated with Americana and nostalgia of American adolescence in summertime, 'turned on its head' to address the depressing prospects of yet another year of school, the chill of fall and ultimately ones mortality pushing out the warm memories of careless summer days.
Digital prop preparation for traditional media project 'What Doesn't Kill You, Perverts Your Desires'. A re-imagining of a 1970s Playboy magazine cover into Hotplateboy magazine, an erotic expose of 'ungrounded and unashamed' hotplates. The front cover features a double-element 'cover plate' and the back page, an iconic alcohol print ad turned into a sadomasochistic message encouraging the reader to indulge in the self-destructive desires one occasionally is plagued with in a world of desire and guilt.
Digital preparation for work in the forthcoming series 'DEATH, an ad campaign'. In America sex and sexual function is linked, as are all things, to consumerism and ad campaigns aimed to increase our experience of life and sex and in so doing, decrease our consciousness of our own death. Diagra is the product 'negative' of Viagra, a 'male-enhancement' pharmaceutical marketed to men with erectile dysfunction, often a symptom of impending mortality. Diagra by DEATH encourages the consumer to 'Stay Stiff' with Diagra. The ad campaign for this particular product has been dubbed 'Permanent Boner'.
Count Dractually is a digital preparation for a screen printing project. The project is a satirical riff on the phenomenon of 'man-splaining' combining Dracula and 'Actually...', the start of all man-splaining rants. Roosh V, the man-splaining king and rape advocate is the star of this bit of 'biting' satire.
Make Nazis Dead Again is a digital preparation for print and traditional media resistant projects in answer to a growing increase of authoritarianism and fascism in the United States, in the 21st century. The words are an answer to 'Make America Great Again', an ad campaign slogan from a white supremacist real estate nepotist and reality television star cum white corporate special interest politician. The words hearken the sacrifice of many service men and women in the fight against fascism during WWII, reborn for a new generation of those opposed to racism, sexism, fascism and all out genocide.
Lech 'R' Us is a digital preparation for a project addressing the sadistic ideals of religion in regard to 'original sin'. The logo is a skew of the toy retailer chain 'Toy R Us' logo. The creation of original sin in religion is an ideological damnation of children, which suggests that even children are evil and can only be saved from an eternity of constant pain and torture by strictly adhering to a specific set of religious tenets. The Lech 'R' Us logo will be used for an upcoming screen printing series 'Lil Sinners' newborn and infant clothing line.
MAFIA or Make Arts Funding Important Again, a 'fauxtography' answer to the American government's attack on the arts through severing funding for arts in schools as well as the destruction of funding for public and professional arts programs.
GBH or Goodbye Horses, re-imagines a well-known Banking logo after the corporate entity received public tax funds to cover their bad business practices.
You have to do with what you have, or so they say. Work Smart....Not Hard.
Homosexual Secret Agenda Chewing Gums
Who needs affordable housing when you can enjoy the lush, verdant outdoors...forever.
Finally! It's Friday! Time to go where the drink are always cold...
A look into the latest trends in high fashion couture. Despite all the pomp and ceremony, the garments coming out of Italy are impressive in their immaculate thread and lace detail. This evening gown/embroidered crop top combo, inspired by traditional fishermen costumes is genuflected with over 10 million hand-pulled and polished gold teeth, weighing just over 400 lbs, it requires three men and twenty-seven small-handed choir boys to lift and guide it up and down the cath-walk.
Revamp of an American athletic ‘mascot’ into a more accurate representation. Call in the pinch hitter!
"I do wanna fuck you, but you won’t fuck me so fuck you anyway. "
-Louis C.K.
Freedom before anything else
The Elvis question
DEATH is an in-the-works series of print and traditional media ads from death incarnate. In a human world obsessed with magical thinking, religion, the idea of an eternal soul, and consumerism, death is often treated merely as a 'spiritual parlor trick' or entirely un-addressed. What would an actual marketing/ad campaign for DEATH, executed by Slim Pickins look like? Would it simply be an orgy of morbid imagery and cheap one-liners about death or in examining death through satirical imagery and social commentary would we come closer to respecting life as a rare gift and become a bit more skeptical of the consumerism of the soul which tells us that life is not the time for realizing our dreams and desires, but merely an arduous preamble to an unseen orgy of desires realized 'beyond the veil'?
DEATH brand 'moan' logo utilizes nuances of well-known consumer brands
The first video in the DEATH ad campaign series. Riffing on the ubiquitous erectile-dysfunction pharmaceutical, Diagra by DEATH, encourages users to 'Stay Stiff' with this 'sealed fate' single pill, utilizing 'slidendacoffin' comfort to achieve a 'permanent boner'.
Life is but a slow descent...
Life moves too fast. Relax. Enjoy the view, till the cows come home.
We all die alone, but it's good to have friends...
Stop flirting.
48hx36wx2" deep, acrylic on canvas. The first in the DEATH series paintings, The Smile You Can't Hide title is taken from an old piece of soft drink advertising copy and re-imagines the intent in terms of physical mortality, after the flesh has fallen the smile lingers on. A human skull overlaid with a freestyle version of the DEATH 'Moan' logo.
Examples of graphic/typographical work
A collaboration between friend, as thousands of families were being terrorized and children ripped from the arms of their mothers and imprisoned like veal calves by the United States Government, Gabrielle Evans and Slim Pickins devised a graphic clothing design to help raise funds for R.A.I.C.E.S. (The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services) to legally aid victimized families and help locate taken children.
Due to the overwhelmingly humane response to these terror attacks, R.A.I.C.E.S. was unable to process all the donations and unfortunately a significant portion of otherwise useful resources were handed over to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Slim Pickins was beyond honored to have an opportunity to work with Not OK PDX when they reached out for design work for a new graphic clothing design to help fund their amazing work in the Portland Oregon area.
Per Not OK PDX’s website, “We are a women-run non-profit organization in Portland, Oregon striving to empower service industry staff to recognize and interrupt sexual violence through our SAFERBARS workshop.”
The aesthetic perimeters for this design were to provide Not OK PDX with a typographical re-imagining of an athletic team logo of the words ‘Beat It Creeps’ with the organizations website.
These are the initial three variants proffered.
https://www.notokpdx.org/
https://notokpdx.bigcartel.com/
Slim Pickins was beyond honored to have an opportunity to work with Not OK PDX when they reached out for design work for a new graphic clothing design to help fund their amazing work in the Portland Oregon area.
Per Not OK PDX’s website, “We are a women-run non-profit organization in Portland, Oregon striving to empower service industry staff to recognize and interrupt sexual violence through our SAFERBARS workshop.”
The aesthetic perimeters for this design were to provide Not OK PDX with a typographical re-imagining of an athletic team logo of the words ‘Beat It Creeps’ with the organizations website.
This is the final approved design
https://www.notokpdx.org/
https://notokpdx.bigcartel.com/
The nascent company Hindmarsh~Abelman reached out with a request for a logo. The two founders wanted an image that would combine their relationship to one another and their individual stories into a brand-identifier that would be both striking in print and work stamp as well as a wood-brand for furniture.
The hand is an American Sign Language ‘A’ for Abelman, rising up from three marsh flowers, for Hindmarsh (one for each member of their immediate family, set under a crescent moon aside the constellation Sagittarius, both significant symbols for the founders. The latin phrase ‘PLASTAE APERTIS OBSCURA ADSEQUAMUR’ meaning ‘ Makers of the Obscure’ imparts the founders dedication to industrial design with a dark side.
Our friends, Soul Food, contacted Slim to create an image for their annual reunion performance poster.
The inspiration for these images was the classic wax wrapper card and stick-of-gum packages circa late 1970s. Utilizing the original images and creating new typography, the two final poster images work as humorous, bright nostalgia to draw the eye.
Image 2
Our friends, Soul Food, contacted Slim to create an image for their annual reunion performance poster.
The inspiration for these images was the classic wax wrapper card and stick-of-gum packages circa late 1970s. Utilizing the original images and creating new typography, the two final poster images work as humorous, bright nostalgia to draw the eye.
Image 1
The legendary Portland Antiquities dealer behind Atomic has created a new epic undertaking, Thee LB, and requested a brand-identifier from Slim Pickins that incorporates circus-inspired typography that communicates their mainstay ‘Antiquities and Desirables’.
The skull and horseshoe were added as icons for Antiquities and Desirables, adding emphasis to their logo, all enclosed within the time-honored eye-catching circle.
Original works now residing in private collections, internationally