EXHIBITING ARTISTS [1] [2]

Andrea Mai Lekberg  Brooklyn, NY

Andrea Lekberg received a BFA in painting and textile design from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has been making hand-made clothes as art for many years.  She ran across the patterns from a French fashion doll from the 1880’s and became fascinated by the intricacies of the designs.  The artist began making miniature clothing as a result.  She has created a range of clothing in this miniature scale, including a trousseau for conjoined twins, pajamas for a tattooed woman, and dresses for an elongated woman. In addition to her clothing work, Lekberg is a highly skilled pastry chef, currently specializing in wedding cakes.

Jeffrey Pratt Gordan   Baltimore, MD

Jeffrey Gordon is a photographer, collector, and on-line museum director. He has a B.F.A in both Photography and Art History from the University of Maryland, Baltimore Campus. For the past ten years, Gordon has been amassing everything he can find on the life of Johnny Eck—the famous Half-Man.  He has just completed writing the screenplay for a feature film about Johnny’s Eck’s amazing life.  Eck (1911-1991) was a sideshow performer, artist, photographer, magician, Punch and Judy operator, expert model maker, race car driver, swimmer, gymnast, actor, train conductor, traveler and all around Renaissance man.  Gordon divides his time between writing screenplays and collecting/curating his online museum devoted to Eck: [www.johnnyeckmuseum.com]

James Mundie

James G. Mundie a graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where he majored in printmaking, and the University of Pennsylvania, from which he received his B.F.A.  Mundie's drawings, paintings and prints have been exhibited widely, including the Townhouse Gallery (Belfast, Northern Ireland), Biet-Gavriel (Israel), Hunterdon Museum of Art, Kyoto Municipal Museum Annex (Japan), The Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Nommo Gallery (Kampala, Uganda), Boston University, David Young Gallery at Marie Curie House (Edinburgh, Scotland), and many others.

For his Prodigies Series Mundie combines the ritual traditions of freak shows with the formal conventions of art history.  By placing historical sideshow figures within the context of famous paintings, Mundy has found the perfect hybrid pairing of “high” and “low” culture. [www.missioncreep.com/mundie/images/]

Max rada dada   Hilo, HI

After receiving a BA from Ohio University, Max rada dada spent ten years abroad and worked with the Ting-Theatre of Mistakes in London.  Upon his return to the States he obtained his MFA in Sculpture and Performance from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. In addition to his sculpture and performance-based works, he has worked extensively with the Polaroid 20 x 24 camera and has had exhibitions throughout the United States. He is currently creating a book about people and their pearls.

For the last year, Max rada dada traveled around the country in a circus van performing a sideshow called “Unexceptional Tricks.” His one-man act included wordplay, visual puns, and irreverent stunts. His playful performances, reminiscent of the great American circus sideshows of the 1940s and 50s, featured folk art props, curiosities, handmade puppets and marionettes, and odd objects. The tricks he performed referenced magic and the unbelievable with an emphasis on re-examining our cultural tendencies toward bigger, better, more. We are featuring the painted the banners that were used to advertise the show.

Madame Talbot   Pacific Northwest

Ashleigh Talbot (aka Madame Talbot) is a pen-and-ink illustrator in the old-style Victorian tradition. Her crisp lines are intertwined with dark and sometimes disturbing subject matter, all rendered in intricate detail. Her work has been part of the rebirth of the modern sideshow through her design of logos and T-shirts for the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow, Zamora the Torture King, and Jake the Alligator Man. Her posters and curio exhibits can be seen at [www.madametalbot.com].

Joe Petro   Lexington, KY

Joe Petro is a print-maker, graphic artist, and collector with a lifelong fascination for the sideshow.  As a collector, he has concentrated on obtaining anything and everything having to do with the life and times of sideshow performer Charles Tripp.  Born with no arms, Tripp led a fascinating life, traveling the world with Barnum and Bailey circus in the early 20th century. Petro’s work in this exhibition consists of hand-pulled silkscreen prints derived from original pitch books and promotional posters for sideshow performers.  [www.sideshow-art.com].