evo hosts - Art Deck-o: Rivard Merges Skateboarding and Art

commentary by Bekah Grim

Abandon what you thought skateboard graphics could be—farewell kitschy skulls and a few predictable stars. Artist Mark Rivard has rescued skate design and has reinvented it with his original artwork. He’s amping up skate decks with everything from a two-years-in-the-making Breckenridge landscape to an organic blending of a women’s body with a tree—fine art and skateboarding have collided.

In celebration of Fremont’s First Friday Art Walk, evo’s Times Infinity art gallery debuted the opening of Mark Rivard’s feature gallery. The opening rocked steady with jams from DJ Grapenuts, and even Rivard himself was there to hang out, drink some free beer with the evo crowd and talk about his artwork. Incredibly, we learned Rivard has no formal artistic training. He began sketching on skate decks after a ski accident in ’03 left him wallowing on his mom’s couch. “I pretty much needed something to do and so I reached for a skate deck and starting drawing.” Rivard explained.

This artist has gone from injured to ingenious, sketching up his super-detailed skate deck magic with Sharpie markers. That’s right, Sharpies.

Several of Rivard’s pieces in the evo gallery include the artist’s free flow writings about life, liberty, and pursuit of skateboarding. When asked if the writings were poetry, Rivard just laughed: “I don’t consider it poetry. It’s just what I have to say. The piece Slow Beat came from a night of drinking.”

Rivard keeps it real when talking about his art, skipping out on the fancy “isms” and fine art snobberies. We’ll skip those too. Rivard’s deck art is what would happen if graffiti artist Banksy was a Siamese twin with the graphic designers at Imperial Motion. These skate decks are urban mindwarps, with skylines melting into faces and faces melting into crows. Rivard’s art is inventive; Fishing for Ugly goes underwater with a fish, while above the surface an emu peeks out. There just aren’t enough emus at art galleries these days.

For those of you who missed out on opening night’s free beer, chill vibes, and DJ Grapenut’s grooves, fret not; you can still take in the emu. Rivard’s decks will be displayed in evo’s gallery for the rest of the month.

Evo’s art gallery openings are a regular event held every first Friday of the month to debut the work of a feature artist. To find out about upcoming artists, check out evo.com.

evo hosts - Obey Giant Shepard Fairey Signed & Numbered Original Prints

Red, White & WHAT?! Maybe it was the image of a german leader biting the head off of a white peace dove or the simple portrait of Barak Obama’s face with the word “Hope” but this Fourth of July proved to be a fun one with our gallery opening of original Obey/Shepard Fairey prints.

The collection comes from August Tarantino a private collector who has over 100 original signed & numbered prints- and we have just about half of them right now. These prints were lent to us in support of the charity SOS Outreach (Gus is on the board of directors) in which we are hosting a fundraiser for on July 19^th. Not only that but August also wanted to share these prints with the public to do exactly what Fairey achieves – spark conversation…..

….Many of the gallery goers on the 4^th happened to be walking by evo on their way to watch fireworks and saw our open doors. Unable to resist a free beer and cool art, people funneled through the gallery stopping to discuss Fairey’s messages of political propaganda and current social issues. Many pointed with an awkward giggle at the image of our nation’s president with bloody fangs and glowing red eyes that reads “One hell of a leader!” Some enjoyed images of famous social leaders like Malcolm X or the image of skateboarder Tony Alva flipping off the camera.
The exhibit will be up throughout the entire month of July so come check it out!!