Conjured through peculiar collages sourced from cut-up, computer generated images and kids’ disposable party plates, and surreal imagery drawn with unerring draftsmanship, the imagined characters created by Clarke Curtis (Austin, TX) and Tyler Zeleny differ only in their form and narrative.

Personified through bold, black and white prints, and playful, multicolored combinations, both artists’ sets of characters convey human attributes and gestures that encourage the viewer to suppose hypothetical conversations or confrontations, the feelings in many of which are ironically heightened by each artists’ tendency toward combining human and animal parts. Offering a pre-meditated narrative (versus Curtis’s that is casually full of whim and questions), Zeleny’s strong, mythological-like imagery presents figures with archetypal traits. They specify roles into the identifiable category of either protagonist or antagonist, and convey the artist’s personal ideologies about social and political structures.

In quirky contrast, Curtis’s characters are colorful and awkward, conveying the kinks, snags and confusion surrounding youth culture through his characters’ portrayal of self-conscious silence, curious humor, and sense of arrested development.

SURVIVAL KIT is an art gallery and alternative event space featuring emerging local and national artists, performers, and craftspeople.