Brandon Bird

I don't know anything about Brandon Bird, but anyone who paints Abe Lincoln as a cage fighter, who sketches a cartoon Ed Norton into a Zen landscape, or who posits Noam Chomsky as owning a hip 70's Econoline van--well, I don't know what to say. Except that I laughed.

There's something about the nostalgia for pop culture of Gen Xers--some twisted devotion to the crummy garbage we were raised on--that Bird has tapped into. He at once mocks and celebrates this nostalgia. I recall a similar artist who did a show at the Towson Borders--she recreated Biblical scenes using Smurfs, My Pretty Pony figures, and Star Wars characters. I loved those paintings, but unfortunately have forgotten her name.