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OX-OP PRESENTS:

YUMIKO KAYUKAWA/OKSANA BADRAK
Artists Reception Saturday NOV. 6TH, 7:00 pm – 10:00pm
Show runs NOV. 6TH – NOV 30TH

MINNEAPOLIS, MN -- After having made their mark on both the local and national art scene, OX-OP Arts is now bringing international artists to the Twin Cities. On Saturday, November 6th, the OX-OP Gallery welcomes the work of Oksana Badrak and Yumiko Kayukawa.

Although they are from different worlds and have vastly different approaches, the paintings of Yumiko Kayukawa and Oksana Badrack share an enigmatic perfection.With its dreamy surrealism and incredible detail, Russian-born Oksana Badrak's work exists in a dimension of her own. It presents a fantastical visual experience made up of graphic fiction and tightly-rendered reality. Inspired by a range of experiences from an Asian supermarket to the Southern California desert, her work creates a beckoning landscape…a place where pop-culture icons and images from an organic world seemingly get along together, though the space between them is filled with friction.

Yumiko Kayukawa hails from Sapporo, Japan and has already made a name for herself with her candy-bright pop paintings of fashionable young women, animals, and traditional Japanese motifs. The girls in Yumiko's paintings are mysterious and elusive, using images of both innocence and fetishes, always engaging the viewer with direct eye contact. The fantasy of these dream girls is mixed with the realistic depictions of insects, birds and animals…bringing a sense of the real world crashing joyfully into the lives of these pristine, icy beauties. Traditional Japanese flower motifs and kanji characters used in an untraditional way round out the compositions creating a jolting, modern tone to the paintings.

BIO - Oksana Badrak
Oksana Badrak was born in 1978, in Moscow, Russia. In 1993, the Badrak family moved from Moscow to California. She was accepted to ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, CA in 1998. There, with the help of her amazing teachers, Rob Clayton, Jason Holley, Tony Zepeda and friends, Oksana began to develop her own distinctive style in illustration. While at ArtCenter, she became a recipient of several prestigious scholarships and graduated with distinction. After graduation her career quickly took off and her professional work was recognized by Society of Illustrators and American Illustration in their annual publications. Oksana Badrak has had several group and solo exhibitions, and her work has been published in major editorial publications including Entertainment Weekly, Nickelodeon, Playboy and eDesign to name a few. Presently, Oksana lives in downtown Los Angeles with her boyfriend Scott and their Russian dwarf hamster Pigdini the Great Escapist. www.badrak.com

BIO -Yumiko Kayukawa
Yumiko Kayukawa was born in the small town of Naie in Hokkaido, Japan. As a teenager she fell in love "with the energy and giddiness" of American pop-culture through her exposure to rock ‘n' roll, film, and fashion. By the age of 16, she had debuted into the art world with a comic-book (Manga) feature. After graduating from Bisen Art School in Sapporo, she continued to paint, but struggled with truly expressing herself in her art. Fortunately, this frustration took a dramatic turn during a visit to Seattle where at the request of an American friend, Yumi painted a picture in comic-book style of two girls entwined atop a mushroom, with Japanese symbols and American pop art styles melding together in lively color and bold lines…spawning her current art persona. Yumiko holds exhibitions of her paintings in the U.S. every six months, including the CPOP Gallery in Dtroit and the Shooting Gallery, San Francisco. To see Yumiko's many paintings check out her website at www.sweetyumiko.com


Rob McBroom
wes@ox-op.com

Tiff Larkin
tiff@ox-op.com

612-259-0085
612-229-9399

OX-OP
1111 Washington Ave S.
(Behind Grumpy’s Bar)
Minneapolis, MN 55415
Ph. 612-259-0085
www.ox-op.com

Article from Pulse of Twin Cities
November 10, 2004

"Dreamy Surrealism at Ox-Op Gallery"
by Liberty Finch

Attention citizens! Still stinging from Election Day? Seeing red? Feeling blue? Do yourself a favor and see this amazing show at Ox-Op, where girls swing with orangutans and meat hovers dreamily above a Russian landscape.
The Ox-Op Gallery, located behind the Washington Avenue Grumpy's Bar, is the venue for underground art exhibits. From famed one-namers like Coop, Shag and Dalek to favorites Mark Mothersbaugh and Shepard Fairey, Ox-Op gets the shows most likely to draw hipsters and geeks alike. Like Juxtapoz art magazine come to life, the gallery always delivers a punchy array of cult artists, and the current exhibit is no exception.

Yumiko Kayukawa hails from Sapporo, Japan. Her work—acrylic on illustration board—is so meticulously rendered that it’s impossible to discern a brush stroke. She paints over the board three times with each color and the results are breathtaking perfection. Her subjects are young, fashionable women, often painted with animals and flowers. The figures are both innocent and coquettish at the same time. Pale rosebud cheeks, full pink lips and long black hair adorn each girl. Some works are passive, relaxed: a girl decked out in a white fur suit reclines with a polar bear; a lass in a white T-shirt and black miniskirt sits half-coiled next to a panda. The figures stare out dreamily at the viewer, making eye contact and drawing you into their world. In other paintings, the women are active—like the girl with drum sticks raised high above her head, a tiger crouched at her side; or the young woman swinging nearly upside down, baby orangutans clinging to her side.

Her characters are a fusion of subtlety and strength. Unlike some underground and anime artists, she doesn’t hit you over the head with exaggerated aspects of the feminine physique in order to convey sexuality. No giant googley eyes and supersized breasts here. Kayukawa’s women are confident and delicately sensual—the perfect blend of tough and sweet.

From another corner of the globe, Russia, comes Oksana Badrak. Born in Moscow in 1978, Badrak moved to California with her parents in 1993. She attended the prestigious ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena and studied with a professor who specialized in the restoration of classic oil paintings. It’s a medium that Badrak has adopted for herself. Her work is inspired by a range of experiences—from an Asian supermarket to the Southern California desert. She melds pop-culture icons with organic elements, blending the surreal and the mundane. From a narrative perspective, the images are at odds, but they’re painted with such conviction that we accept the compositions as true.

Three white rabbits (rendered so precisely they almost look photographed) are nestled on a sofa, as swirling blue cartoon waves lap at their feet; three deer engage in a humping menage-a-tois. Badrak’s style is unique, her technique rich and her work captivating.

Artistically, the styles of Kayukawa and Badrak are very different. But both women mix elements of reality and fantasy in ways that stir the imagination. Suspend disbelief and treat yourself to some sweet, sweet eye candy. ||

Art Dealer

Art Attack on the Suburbs-Grumpy’s Art Unveiling Party
Aesthetic Apparatus-"2nd Annual Kindling & Litter-Box-Liner Sale"
"Rome is Burning/The New School"
Aesthetic Apparatus-"The Official Aesthetic Apparatus Kindling & Litter-Box-Liner Sale"
Gary Baseman- "MOD Manifestations Of Desire"
Mark Mothersbaugh-"Postcard Diaries"
Gary Taxali-"Chumpy's Specials"
Nathan Jurevicius-"Tunnel Vision"
Shepard Fairey "Visual Disobedience"
Jaime Hayon: "Mon Cirque"
Derek Hess: "Descent from Grace"
Shag-"Push Your Luck"
Billy Childish-Paintings, Prints, Poetry & Performance
Kii Arens-"The Yard Sale"
Burlesque of North America: First Blood, Part III
"Triangulated Fire" paintings by Naoto Hattori, Ryan Kelly & Chris Ryniak
BuffMonster-"Dulces Locos"
Dalek- "The Return of the Space Monkey"
Yumiko Kayukawa & Oksana Badrak
Glenn Barr-"New Paintings & Prints"
KRK Ryden-"The Atomic Glob Show"
Camille Rose Garcia-"Works on Paper"
"Qeedrophonic"
Frank Kozik-"All Your Base Are Belong to Us"
Bwana Spoons & Martin Ontiveros "Like Sqeezing Juice from a Stone"
"Rated XX"
Aesthetic Apparatus
George Thompson-"Bachelor of Fine Arts"
Mark Mothersbaugh-"Beautiful Mutants"
Charles S. Anderson Design-"Awful Pretty: Original Art"
Jeff Soto-"Complete Domination"
Dave Burke-"New Paintings"
Tim Biskup-"The Phantom Thread"
Shag-"Tell No One: Paintings and Prints"
Niagara-"Paintings,Prints and General Artistic Mayhem
Shepard Fairey -"Prints and the Revolution"
Gary Baseman-"Open Wounds (and other paintings about vulnerability)"
Dalek-"Two Fingers of Milk"
"Big Bang"