Leslie Levings

Leslie Levings,Shing Yin Khor, and Patt Kelley return to Stranger Factory this September!

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THE SAVAGE – Leslie Levings
A MEMORY OF BEASTS – Shing Yin Khor
SOULMATES – Patt Kelley will run from
September 6th – September 29th, 2019

Opening Reception with the artists: Friday, September 6th from 6-8 PM

Book signing and An Afternoon of Creative Conversations Saturday, September 7th 1-4 pm


Stranger Factory is proud to present The Savage, a new feature show by Leslie Levings!

The Savage is new collection of myths, in which our avatars confront the inadequacies of the world, the relentlessness of destruction, and the hopeful beauty of what comes after. These are Just So Stories for the end of the world, or maybe for the end of a world that never existed to begin with.

Stranger Factory is happy to present Shing Yin Khor in her new feature show at our gallery, A Memory of Beasts!

A Memory of Beasts is a show about the objects we hoard in order to remember our lives. It’s about the keys we keep adding to our key rings, the small rock with a hole in it that we fidget with in our pockets, the shells, the worms, sticks and bones we pick up on our hikes. It’s about grounding, collecting, and keeping.

This body of work also features new critters that are signature to Shing Yin Khor’s work and stories, as well a meet and greet with the artist the following day!

Stranger Factory is happy to present Patt Kelley in his latest feature show at our gallery, Soulmates!

Some people believe that everyone has a soulmate. Another person so suited to you that they must have been delivered by fate or divine intervention. In this show, each piece has a soulmate. A perfect counterpoint. The subject of each work is the destined partner of another subject within the exhibit. Some pieces may go to a home with their soulmate piece, but Kelley likes to think that even if separated, perhaps the pieces will be rejoined at some point in the future.

All shows run fromSeptember 6th – September 29th, 2019
Opening Reception with the artists: Friday, September 6th from 6-8 PM

Join us for the release and signing of Shing Yin Khor’s new book, The American Dream? A Journey on Route 66 as well as
An Afternoon Of Creative Conversations
Saturday, September 7th 1-4PM
Conversations and snacks curated by Shing Yin Khor

1-2pm
Queer Comics and Southwest History
A conversation with Melanie Gilman
(with book signings to follow)

2-3pm
Building Creative Careers
A round table conversation with Ryan Singer, Melanie Gilman, and friends, moderated by Shing Yin Khor.

3-4pm
Divinations for a Creative Path
with Leslie Levings and The Oracle Bird

“If you ever plan to motor west
Travel my way, take the highway that is best
Get your kicks on Route 66.”—Bobby Troup

Route 66 covers a total of almost 2,500 miles, famously winding from Chicago to LA. Established in 1926, it’s been called the Main Street of America, was dedicated to Will Rogers and is an essential part of Americana. Even those who’ve never traveled its roads know it from pop music, the 1960’s TV show Route 66, the Cars franchise, and John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath.

As a child growing up in Malaysia, Shing Yin Khor had two very different ideas of what “America” meant. The first looked a lot like Hollywood, full of beautiful people, sunlight, and freeways. The second looked much more like The Grapes of Wrath—a nightmare landscape filled with impoverished people, broken-down cars, barren landscapes, and broken dreams. Those contrasting ideas have stuck with Khor ever since and help explain their fascination with Route 66. In the spring of 2016, 10 years after moving to LA and 4 years after becoming an American citizen, Khor embarked on a road trip along Highway 66 in a 2010 Honda Fit, accompanied only by their trusty road-trip adventure dog Bug.

On sale from Zest Books on August 6, 2019, Khor’s graphic memoir The American Dream?: A Journey on Route 66 Discovering Dinosaur Statues, Muffler Men, and the Perfect Breakfast Burrito allows readers to ride shotgun for a deeply personal and playful pilgrimage of roadside attractions, abandoned towns, diners, and motels. Like the very best road trips, the book relishes in unusual sites and roadside kitsch, with detours providing arcane trivia and profound observations alike. We visit Oatman, AZ, a former gold-mining town where several Hollywood films were shot. We stop at Two Guns, AZ, the abandoned site of the former tourist trap known as The Apache Death Cave. We take in plenty of iconic landmarks, from Holbrook, AZ’s dinosaur statues to Oklahoma’s Blue Whale of Catoosa.

The American Dream?: A Journey on Route 66 Discovering Dinosaur Statues, Muffler Men, and the Perfect Breakfast Burrito is already receiving accolades:

Khor takes that ‘feeling of desperately searching for something better, for a new start,’ and adapts it to their own ‘pilgrimage’ as immigrant and artist traveling historic Route 66…in whimsical full-color detail.—Booklist (Starred Review)

Breathtaking.—School Library Journal

Offers important perspectives on being an immigrant and American identity.—Kirkus Reviews

Shing Yin Khor’s trip preceded the 2016 Presidential Election by a few months. And as Khor writes, “This comic feels like a record of a time when a brown girl could drive America fearlessly.” It is both the document of one cartoonist’s trip on the open road and a portrait of a constantly evolving America. Khor’s journey echoes the Joad family’s desperate pursuit of a better life out West, and the book takes stock of both the myth and the reality of the American Dream. We invite you to join us on the ride.

Shing Yin Khor is a cartoonist and installation artist. Their work has been published in The Toast, The Nib, Upworthy, Huffington Post, and Bitch Magazine. They make the road trip adventure comic Tiny Adventure Journal, and the tender queer science fiction comic Center for Otherworld Science. They are also the author of The American Dream? A Journey on Route 66 Discovering Dinosaur Statues, Muffler Men, and the Perfect Breakfast Burrito published by Zest Books. They live in Los Angeles.

 

Three shows this April at Stranger Factory!

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This April at Stranger Factory

APOTHECARY
an introduction to ritual and tradition in the outer colonies of space

GUIDE TO MINOR GODS AND HOUSEHOLD SPIRITS

SPECKLE
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Shing Yin Khor

Apothecary: an introduction to ritual and tradition in the outer colonies of space

“Apothecary” is an art installation and narrative about the legacy of an outer colony space apothecary obsessed with Old-Earth, and also about the persistence of ritual, the space immigrant diaspora, and the obsessive nature of archiving and collecting. Visitors are invited to explore the cabinet installation, discovering and unraveling the story of Theodore Lee, a recently deceased space apothecary.

“As a sculptor, cartoonist, and installation artist, I build stories that explore diasporas, the compulsion to create and collect ritual in a disordered universe, and awkward, yearning, human emotions. Rooted in my personal history as a woman and immigrant from a postcolonial country, my themes are often inspired by old museums, cabinets of curiosities, pre-Linnaean taxonomy, and the quiet horror of colonial era collecting.”

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Leslie Levings

Guide to Minor Gods and Household Spirits

Ever since the first humans painted on cave walls, creatures have featured heavily in our history of art, storytelling, and beliefs. The urge to envision something larger (or smaller) than ourselves as a vessel for our subconscious has often manifested in ways both profound and childlike, reminding us that the distance between the two might not be so great.
Leslie uses creatures to poke at the deep, old places of the psyche. Inspired by the human urge to personify emotions and explain the irrational, her sculptures explore the relationship between beliefs and the believer through beasts that invade familiar settings with the persistence of an uncomfortable thought.

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David Santiago

Speckle
Local artist David Santiago’s first solo exhibition at Stranger Factory “Speckle” emphasizes one of the predominant features of his work: freckles.
“I’ve always been curious with how many people hated having them. They possess so much personality; the random, yet organized chaos they emit is hypnotizing to me, like that of stars in the night sky. In fact, if you look close enough at the faces in my work, you will begin to notice that each cluster of freckles is actually a constellation in disguise.”

His artwork explores a fascination with body language.
He focuses on creating people with very subtle expressions, as though they are hiding a secret. Looking into a straight face creates an uncertainty inside of you, a feeling you want to resolve.

APOTHECARY: An introduction to ritual and tradition in the outer colonies of space / GUIDE TO MINOR GODS AND HOUSEHOLD SPIRITS / SPECKLE
Runs from April 7th – April 30th – 2017

Opening Reception for these three solo exhibitions: Friday, April 7th from 6-9pm
(The opening is free and open to the public.)

All three artists will be in attendance for reception.
The Gallery and its gift store are open 5 days a week (closed Mondays or Tuesdays). Please check strangerfactory.com for updated hours
during Albuquerque Rapid Transit Construction.

Stranger Factory
3411 Central Avenue NE
Albuquerque, NM 87106
505-508-3049

 

“Dubious Monsters Around You” contest

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monstersaroundyou

Presenting the “Dubious Monsters Around You” contest, in conjunction with the Dubious Beasts art show, opening in March at Stranger Factory.

Our intrepid artists and researchers, Shing Yin and Leslie Levings, study monsters that hide out in our world, often in plain sight. Now, we’re looking for some brave citizen scientists to join us in our quest.

Take a picture of a monster face hiding in the wild. Perhaps it is part of a parking meter, on the side of a building, or the front grill of a car. Attaching googly eyes to fruit, or making a monster face of your own is also totally acceptable.

Post the image on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr or our Sideshow at (http://www.circusposterus.com/forum/) with the hashtag#DubiousMonstersAroundYou to enter!

Contest ends March 1 when Shing and Leslie pick a winner!

Prizes!

1st Prize:

A Sluggish Dorbal
Center for Otherworld Science #1-3
A Center for Otherworld Science tote bag.
And a bunch of prints and pins and zines!

2nd and 3rd prize winners will also receive some variation of the above!

The Prizes
prizes

“Dubious Beasts: Life Cycles” By Shing Yin Khor and Leslie Levings this March at Stranger Factory

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IG

Stranger Factory – March Exhibit

Dubious Beasts: Life Cycles

Stranger Factory is excited to welcome the the third installation of the “Dubious Beasts” collaborative series of shows by Leslie Levings and Shing Yin Khor. In this show, the artists explore a universe of off kilter whimsy and inquire into the development processes of their curious creatures.

Leslie Levings is a sculptor renowned for her charming and personable Beastlies series. Her dubious creatures are elegant and lost in thought, cuddled into a nook of a tree, or perched over a quiet lake.

Shing Yin Khor is a sculptor and painter. Her dubious creatures are anxious and not particularly intelligent, a slightly alarmed look on their face as they appear in a range of sculptures and watercolour paintings detailing their observed behavior.

Paired with an obsession with natural history museums, trophy heads, and cabinets of curiosities, Levings and Khor bring to Stranger Factory a delightful menagerie of colourful, beady eyed critters – bending over clutches of eggs, and encased in cocoons, awaiting their final metamorphosis.

The exhibit runs March 6th through April 4th, with an opening reception on Friday, March 6th from 6 – 9 PM. Both artists will be in attendance.

PLEASE NOTE: This is the first show at Stranger Factory’s new location!

Stranger Factory
3411 Central Avenue NE
Albuquerque, NM 87106