Now, listen up… The Stick Up poster show is billed as a screen-printed gig-poster exhibition, a display of handcrafted concert memorabilia – live event artwork printed by hand – but! slipping through the net this year we have a one off exception in the form of Kii Arens and his collection of lithographic works
…and what an exceptional exception this guy is!
Not much was known of him at all by your humble curators though some of his slick and schlocky images had certainly been made familiar during our research of the scene over the past few years. Quite the dandy, the lithos (with their total lack of the colour restraints a screenprinter usually works to) are a vivid testament to the wild career Kii appears to be enjoying – hell! he’s got Beyonce and Fleetwood Mac in his client list!
So let us put aside any woolly jumpered snobbery of “the craft” and let these bold and saucy pieces dazzle us a while.
Look out for a wild unrestricted range of imagery – on the one hand, brash, technicolor lampoons of 20th Century advertising, playful, kitsch and sleazy movie posters etc, while on the other hand, sharp clean illustrations with a pop art vibe.
Click here for Kii’s site
Click here to find more of this year’s Stick Up gig-poster artists