The pre-revolution artwork of Xiaoqing Ding

Fawad Khan

Though his colourful murals, installations, and drawings look playful and whimsical, at the heart of Fawad Khan’s work is a dark and complex political struggle with violence and identity that takes place through, on, and in, public vehicles. The New York-based artist was raised in Pakistan and speaks of being ridiculed when he was a child as he boarded a bus in Karachi for being born in Libya. The vehicles Khan renders and replicates are not only symbols of place and authority (the New York City cab and the US mail truck) and gathering places (public buses), but also have become weapons, as the constant news of car bombs reminds us every day. Read more

Claire Kurzmann

Australian artist Claire Kurzmann creates bright, luminous work that reminds me of misspent childhood days down by the local candy store. Of her artwork, she says: ‘I’d try and draw realistic beings but they’d never work, they always looked odd. They turned out the same way each time. Then I realised that they looked actually looked half-decent in their own way.’

Joe Coleman

Joe Coleman’s paintings are a feverish cross between Ivan Albright-inspired grotesqueness and R. Crumb-like pop-social critique. Read more

Bill Fick’s linocuts, silkscreens, and tempera painting

Chapel Hill-based printmaker Bill Fick makes awesomely grotesque faces and creatures with linocuts, silkscreens, and tempera paint. They have a vintage feel to them, as if the rotted remains ’50s advertising images have risen from the dead. Read more

Sarah Applebaum

Sarah Appleboum makes a neon felt and yarn explosion in your face and everywhere, the epicenter of which is in San Francisco. While you’re unconscious from the impact, you will dream of rainbow yetis, shamans, and soft revolvers.

Sick Weapons

Anointed Best New Band of 2009 by Baltimore’s City Paper, Sick Weapons embody basically what’s so great about this town — trash, and good times. They spit out sloppy, warbling, ear-piercing punk that’s more giddy than it is snarling, with frontwoman Ellie Beziat channeling Poly Styrene without being overly conscious of it. With songs like If You Love Me Take Me to the Hospital, The Prettiest Racist in Town, and Orgy on the China Train, it’s apparent these guys have their heads in a lot of unseemly places, but not up their own butts.

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