Sometimes you need to work backwards to discover your tastes, and the discovery of Ken Garduno is a perfect example of that.
Back in 2009, one of my favorite bands As Tall As Lions released what would be their last LP, called “You Can’t Take It With You.” It’s a terrific record, with artwork that always haunted me. Textless, stunning, and in my opinion perfectly captures the themes of the album. I hung the LP in a record frame in my first apartment in Austin back when my record collection was too small to boast on a shelf. Flash forward five years later and I am told that artist Ken Garduno will be attending our first convention, MondoCon. "That’s great," I think, as the pieces he has exhibited in our gallery have always been some of my favorite (his Dracula from our Universal Monsters show is a stand out for me.) A quick google search tells me something I should already know. Ken designed the artwork for that Lions record, and now I can’t stop digging. His ability to create varying textures on a single image is absolutely inspired. Its modern magical realism. I have a new favorite artist. Sometimes you need to work backwards to discover your tastes, and the discovery of Ken Garduno is a perfect example of that. He’s been knocking it out of the park for years, and i’m late to the game but that doesn’t mean you have to be.
