On Tuesday my solo show, Zombies!, curated by Lee Arnold opens in New Jersey and includes 3 videos, 2 drawings, and 2 lenticular photographs featuring, you guessed it, zombies!

A reception will be held Friday, Nov 12 at Drew University’s Korn Gallery, following a zombie makeup workshop and campus zombie sneak attack!

Read the exhibition essay by Kimberly Rhodes (pdf, 1.7 MB).

Zombies, Victims, Make-up artists needed. No experience necessary (will train).

“Dead of the Night is a re-imagining of George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968) in the gallery space, where audience members are inserted into the narrative as the horror unfolds. Surrounded by menacing zombies and set within the context of a rural farmhouse, visitors attempt to evade the ghouls unyielding thirst for human flesh.”

Photos below by Scott Wachal, U of M Fine Arts students and zombie extraordinaire (he’s the one who fully plunged into Lake Winnipeg…in…October).

Fred, dancing before the farmer attack scene.

This is not a wedding shoot.

Last week I was in Winnipeg, my hometown, thanks to Cliff Eyland and Sigrid Dahle of Gallery One One One and The University of Manitoba. In half a week, I shot a new video titled A Prairie Horror, featuring the talents of various Winnipeg folks. These production photos are by Derek Brueckner, my fabulous Sunday assistant:

I finished my Body Count Drawings, featuring slasher films, and the images are up! This detail is from Happy Birthday to Me (1981) - I saw the film in the mid-80s and this image freaked me out.

May, according to the Zombie Research Society, is zombie awareness month. It’s already the 10th, so if you’re behind I recommend sleeping with one eye open - starting now. Wear your grey ribbon (perhaps you have one you can recycle from other awarenesses such as Diabetes, Brain Cancer, and others).

Secondly, there is a band from Paris called Zombie Zombie - it’s trance music - get it?

And visit the blog for an upcoming DIY (as yet untitled) apocalyptic zombie film combining narrative fiction and contextual zombie-expert interviews… by Michael Frank of Rochester, NY. I met Michael in January in frozen Buffalo, NY and look forward to his feature.

And last but not least, this Studio 360 clip on zombies was sent to me from Sam Zimmerman in NYC:

Wildflowers are in their late spring phase. Yesterday I saw white-fringed phacelia, trout lily, flame azalia, wild iris, wild violet, pink lady slipper, and trilium. Also louse wort and squaw root which are cruel names for flowers. The squaw root is not a beauty:

Meanwhile, I’ve been drawing unpleasant things.
Below are some details of Body Count Drawing 7: “The House on Sorority Row”

Last night I watched Basketcase (1982) courtesy of a friend’s video collection, and was reminded of both Jan Švankmajer’s Little Otik (2000) - which has higher production values but is just as strange a story, and Jeffrey Sconce’s article “Trashing the Academy: Taste, Excess, and an Emerging Politics of Cinematic Style”. I highly recommend all three.

The “monster” in the basket is not very scary, although he’s terribly violent, and his stop motion rampage is pretty wonderful. Check out the terrible lighting - including telephone wire shadows cast across faces, the bad hair pieces, and the non-stellar acting.

Now that spring has sprung, my mind has turned to new tricks and slasher films: there are new signs of life (such as pollen) bursting out everywhere and most slashers strike in warm weather. For these reasons I don’t plan to set foot outdoors until late fall, so I’ve plenty of time to teach myself new skillz including drawing! Though not exactly new, drawing is a skill I’ve forgotten to exercise for approximately 15 years. It’s probably like riding a bicycle, but the last time I tried that I fell flat on my face, scared the crap out of myself, and left the bike equipment where it lay.

Here is a sneak peek of details from the first of my drawings, in progress, titled Body Count, Friday the 13th.

For those who are curious there are 11 deaths (athough 3 took place in the past and it is revealed that 1 of the “dead” may in fact be “undead”).