The most amazing things in the mail from Lithuania

I have never regretted the way I accidentally stumbled into the world of mail art about seven years ago.  I love walking up to the post office and anticipating what surprises wait for me.  And, of course, I enjoy sharing my own art and sending it out to the world.  Every now and then there is something in that box that is truly extraordinary.  The sort of things that, when I show them off to friends, they too want to start sending andreceiving mail art.  Last week an envelope from Mindaugas Žuromskas arrived from Lithuania.  It contained this incredible set of stenciled images applied to what appears to be old, bureaucratic ephemera.  I am absolutely delighted to add these to my own, personal art collection.

Bodyscapes

Bodyscapes Series, mixed media on canvas, 6”x6” each

Grids are a common occurrence in my collages and I often create individual square pieces for different series with the intention of showing them in grids.  A few years before the 2011 Project, back in 2003, I was working on a series of what I called Bodyscapes.  They were all square format, males nudes just showing a portion of the body.  Partly the idea came about as a response to my own question of how to depict the male nude.  And, anyone familiar with my landscape work will recognize that no matter what I paint, I have a tendency to make everything look like desert rocks, hence the name Bodyscapes.  I also wanted to add an erotic element to the work.  The erotic content itself is not subtle, but only visible when one views the sides of the canvases and realizes they are wrapped in material such as old newspapers, comics and especially pages from queer, erotic paperbacks from the 1960’s and 1970s (see below).  Some selections from the series are shown above.

The Geo Graphic Mail Project

A few months ago a friend gave me a pile of postcards and postcards books picked up at various art museums over the years.  Many of the paintings on the postcards were nudes, from Mel Ramos, to Picasso to Hopper as well as some vintage erotic images.  It all lead to a silly idea.  I thought I would “censor” the images with bits of maps.  The idea was to create a series of geo graphic mail or was it geographic mail?  This week I mailed out the 50 postcards to various friends and artists.  Be warned, they might shock your postal carrier.  A few more can be seen in the Mail Art section at tofuart.com.