Overflow showcases the work of 17 artists working in their own unique shades of the lowbrow art style. From the ogling creatures of Distort Monsters to the dreamlike reveries of Malou Solano, these artists flourish in a genre once thought to be a rung lower in the hierarchy of the fine arts – a populist movement for the streets, and not one refined enough for higher institutions. Yet many artists today have broken such distinctions, and the boundaries between the highbrow and the lowbrow have become nonexistent. The label “lowbrow” remains as a sign not of inferiority, but of a style unto itself brimming with color, life, and unhindered expression.

Contemporary lowbrow art pulls iconography from a collective level and is expressed by each artist through their own unique lenses. Qwark’s works are teeming with images, from castles, to dice, to armored mice-like creatures, illustrating intricate narratives of both play and destruction. Ted Peñaflor’s minimalist images of clouds meet the pop art imagery of KAWS, quietly playing either the pot at the end of the rainbow or the prism that breaks it apart. Kapitan’s paintings feature pop culture characters like No-Face as part of a motley cast of seemingly intimate friends. While Seeweirdo embraces idiosyncrasy with hand-drawn narratives that, with her notable focus on eyes, peer into her viewers’ personal recollections.

There is no lack of visual exploration in lowbrow art. Canvases are alight with dynamic stories, whether motivated by pop culture or internal reflections. On display in this exhibit are works that escape the immediacy of explanation. Like the underground art from the movement’s early days, they exist of their own accord, not limited by pretense and free to be as satirical, fanciful, or enigmatic as they care to be.

– text by Mara Fabella