NYC-via-Moscow painter Dimitri “Dima” Drjuchin and Indianapolis’ Jason “Homeless Cop” Fennell will be the subjects/stars of a two-man show, “Mutually Assured Destruction,” at the newish gallery BUCKBUCK in Cleveland, OH, bringing all the colors at once to that fabled grey city. The show’s opening reception is on Saturday, July 5th.
Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of high-yield weapons of mass destruction by two or more opposing sides would cause the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender.
Summer is here, but nuclear winter has just begun! Celebrate your independence (again), and come watch the heavens open up as we blast BUCKBUCK into oblivion with an arsenal of paintings and music by Dima Drjuchin and Homeless Cop. If you haven’t been reduced to a shadow on the sidewalk, crawl your ass home with a piece of history (and I’m not talking about radiation poisoning). We’ve been waiting longer than the second coming for this show, so cram your gullet with leftover potato salad and fold up your star-spangled vinyl lawn chair, because if you’re not at this show, you’re probably messing yourself in a concrete bunker.
Fans of Reggie Watts, Marc Maron and Eugene Mirman will recognize some of those comics’ album covers as Dima Drjuchin illustrations. His best-known cover was the piece done for Father John Misty’s Fear Fun album. The Brooklyn-based painter also boasts a large portfolio of concert posters, all on view at his Tumblr.
“My work channels different points of reference from my Russian background, to pop culture, to comic books, to fine art, to spirituality, to the occult. I can’t truly say that it’s a commentary on anything, because I am not interested in judging anyone or anything. I believe it’s more of a reflection of multiple influences that get filtered through my mind and come back out all at once on my canvas redefined to my own liking. That said, I also try not to take anything too seriously and on some level I believe I still paint in a similar mind set I did as a child scribbling on a piece of paper. Most of my ideas are on the spot and I let how I’m feeling at that moment guide me to what happens next in the piece. I think ultimately I’m just trying to entertain myself.”
Homeless Cop’s work is likely best known to most of us from his bump animations on the Adult Swim cable network. His paintings strongly resemble vector illustrations, but are in fact rendered in oils.
“I’ve always painted things I like. People, places, and things. My whole life I’ve been drawing and painting, and I really feel like I was born to do this. I think my work evolves in terms of subject matter, but the execution just stays true to my style. My paintings look look like a robot made them, and I get a lot of pleasure being able to say I made them with my hands. My favorite artist is Jean-Michel Basquiat, and my favorite band is Nirvana. I also like pizza.”
