UNENCOUNTERED 01: A ROGUES GALLERY

Welcome to the Rogues Gallery, one of Andrew Lakey’s Unencountered worlds.

Like steerage on a tantric voyage – you are a trespasser in one of Andrew Lakey’s many phantasmagoric worlds. A card-playing Cyclops in an Aegean sea of blind ambition, Lakey debuts Unencountered 1 - A Rogues Gallery of Card Sharks, Seductresses & One Eyed Jacks. These poker-playing crustaceans are the alter-egos of the poker-faced predators that shoot for the moon and howl.

This Unencountered world is rife with dangerous cargo; collectively these motley crudités are soul-crushing curmudgeons – yet their personae scream ulterior murder. The Unencountered refresh the mental palette with provocative nature – confreres of feral folk art and Faustian bargains. But in these Unencountered worlds, where beautiful dreamers meander in the mind’s marginalia – they offer no resting place. The Unencountered are portals to the missing persons of somewhere else.

There is an innocence to these characters - as if naiveté was prerequisite to approach them in the first place. The Unencountered are not so much painted, as they are captured before they wriggled away. Their ephemeral natures are barely sufficient – like hasty mug shots with disregard for pleasant expression or posture.

They succeed in being both literal and iconic at the same time. Honest in their often primordial representation – there is no beautifying or exaggeration of persona – in spite of their absurd state. Recognizing them is like the reality check that reflection gives you in front of the bathroom mirror in the morning after a rough night.

This debut collection of Unencountered – The Poker Rogues are the contingent remains of professional card players, stripped down to the core, then inoculated with predatory pathogens to ward off their even darker places of origin…

Take special care when viewing these curmudgeons. You may want to pet these monsters but beware – these are wild creatures with teeth – and they bite.