An Event! A Beer! A Showcase of Legendary Art and Artists!
Live Music! Food!
Last year was the first time we brought “State of the Art” to life: a celebration of Concert Poster Art featuring some of the best to ever do it. We had such a great time doing it: WE’RE DOING IT AGAIN!
This year we’ve got All New Artists, All New Art, and an All New BEER: a collaboration with XUL BEER COMPANY! XUL Beer Company (pronounced with a ‘Z’, Dana…) has been producing award winning beers in the Knoxville, TN area for quite awhile now, turning heads with a commitment to quality, craft and innovation. Constantly learning and evolving, XUL is able to deliver a wide variety of styles and flavors while consistently nailing quality in an ever-changing beverage landscape. This delicious collaboration beer will be packaged with (4) original labels: one from each artist!
We’ll have showcases of each individual Artist with the opportunity to Meet each creator and purchase their art directly from the artist themselves! How unbelievably RAD this is will become clearer once you understand WHO these amazing artists are:
-Angryblue
(AKA Justin Kamerer): a self-described ‘classically-trained part-time bank robber’ Justin has not only been ‘the face’ of XUL Beer Company’s Can Art and branding: he’s done branding design for ton’s of companies large and small, done Rock Posters and Artwork for a Who’s Who of Bands (Primus, the Melvins, Blink-182, Puscifer, friggin’ Metallica to name a few), Album Art, Apparel Design, all in addition to his own DEEP portfolio of super rad and varied Art Prints/Artwork. Angryblue does it all, and we’re super stoked to have him involved!
-Greg Shirilla -
Inspired by the cross section of museum art and street art, Greg works hard to express the middle ground between ‘lowbrow’ and ‘highbrow.’ Art School Street Art. Realism blended with the absurd. A Molotov cocktail in the ball pit. Comic art line drawings given depth and emotion with deftly applied watercolors. Greg’s subject matter oozes style and drama, be it portraiture, the animal kingdom, hot rods, or architecture. Excited to see what he comes up with for this project!
-Brad Luczak -
Brad’s philosophy is “form follows function” and he takes it to a level of excellence that most people have not seen before. His use of woods, metal, glass and a multitude of finishes, make his pieces not only functional works of art but timeless classics. Schooled at the International Academy of Design in Chicago, Brad quickly realized his true talent for custom furniture and design. His use strong materials and harsh angles to create the illusion of “uncomfortable” is genius. Some desire to touch his work and admire the painstaking detail he uses with raw materials and finishes. While others ease into one of his furniture pieces and realize it was created to fit the human figure and the concept of “uncomfortable” is only an illusion which gives way to amazing style and integrity. Inspired by life, family and his travels Brad takes great pride in the process of concept and design and we look forward to seeing what he’ll put to paper for this Beer Label!!
-Joey Lala -
Last but definitely not least, Joey Lala is the last man standing from last year’s SOTA event and curator of this year’s roster of artists. His art style blends a graffiti aesthetic with impressionist figures, blurring the line between impressionism and expressionism with layers of lettering, shape and color. Joey claims “music, skateboarding and graffiti” as major influences which are near immediately apparent in his work. If ADHD went to Punk Rock Art School and majored in Abstract Typography it would still fall short of the layers of paint, sweat and tears that Joey puts into his artwork.
LIVE MUSIC
We’ll have also have Live Music throughout the day from local legends 10 Ply Alibi and Sleeping Dogs, as well as DJ OZE spinning some tasty vinyl!
FOOD: Reggie’s Rockin’ Food Truck
Sure, we may be biased: but Reggie’s Rock Club is one of the coolest places in ANY city to see Live Music. The combination of ‘small venue with character’ and ‘top notch nationally touring acts’ is and has always been part of the Reggie’s formula…plus they’ve got a pretty awesome Hoppy Red Ale (wink wink)! We’re STOKED to be able to bring some of their Vibe to Our Event by having the Reggie’s Rockin’ Food Truck on-site! They’ll have their awesome truck here from 12-4PM to feed your hungry body while all this awesome artwork feeds your hungry soul!
Save the Date: SATURDAY JUNE 7TH from 12-5PM and Don’t miss this one of a kind event! Music, Beer and Art all together in once place: Mikerphone Brewing! Come find that special piece of Artwork from these amazing Artists!