Kara and I had fun seeing the new show of Seth art at the RICA Gallery here in Guelph last night. We also hung out with some other Seth fans and art buyers after the preview/launch and I was really amazed at the diverse group of people who are into his work. Many have come to him through his "non-comics" paintings and sculptures and his gallery agent Renann Isaacs should take a lot of the credit for turning these folks on to the work and hustling to develop a strong local market (although there were collectors from New York and Toronto on hand and I suspect some long-distance/overseas sales as well). I talked to people who are not comics nerds and who couldn't tell an issue of The Comics Journal from Wizard Magazine from Bubbles (in one discussion about contemporary Canadian figurative painters working in a realist style like Kent Monkman and Atilla Lukacs, the idea of studio assistants came up which led to a discussion of comic book assembly-line production techniques, ghost artists, and manga studios, and I had to bite my tongue a bit when the fellow I was talking to said something like, "Is that how Stan Lee drew his comics?"). Wisely, Renann and Seth created a show of small pictures, priced to sell. They are fun little things, very Seth-y, but as the artist admitted, not much thought went into the titles or artist statement (I'm attaching the local news article for some choice Seth quotes). Which is all to say, a good time was had by all. I think the entire show is going to sell out: most of the paintings were sold by the second night, and the show runs until December 23. I didn't take any pictures, so I'm stealing the photos from Renann's Facebook feed for those who aren't friends with her.
Seth and Renann Isaacs (photo credit: Margaret Langton)
