You could condense Tim Kapler’s recent opening at Sanford & Son into two words: talent, and love.
There was talent on view, despite Kapler’s vehement pooh-pooh’s that he had none.
Thing is, the graphic designer/cum UWT â€"AV dude has an ability to take a square head and take it totally beyond square headishness; to take a 2D idea and make them move on a canvas.
I was confused.
I knew Tim back in the day when he suspended a rubber duck via a string by its neck for the UWT Ledger, and called it "Pointless."
I knew Tim as a really quiet mellow dude who did AV for my school and who did some cool random artistic stuff, but not as an artist, per se.
I knew Tim as the guy who showed up in Kulture Lab shows, whose POINTLESS columns I occasionally saw, and it was good.
His new show, which hangs through September’s second Thursday, shows the side of Kapler that makes me tingle to see: there’e talent in his blockhead guys, from the vibrant play of background to figure, to the heavy-handed, light-hearted play of subject matter itself here’s the gun â€" index finger â€" there’s the sprayed brains â€" colorful, green yellow orange, on brown.
The opening event showed love in the crowd, present: I saw Hogbot afficionados, I saw Kulture Lab-ers. I saw Tim’s mom, dad, sister, nephew, niece; I saw Gretchen and Mindy who stuck him into the space in the first place.
I saw a segment of the crowd unfamiliar to me, though it was doubtless an Third Thursday Art Walk crowd, in and out, in and out. I saw Kapler himself, smiling, amazed.
I saw me, smiling, amazed: dude. The stuff on the wall is good.
Crazy good.
I saw me chucking, to myself â€" Dude. Kapler’s crazy good.
See it. Tell me I’m wrong. I’ll argue.