Alex Pardee’s Letters From Digested Children

When I look back on my writing from the past year, it’s clear I wrote a lot about Bay Area rising art star Alex Pardee. Whether the prolific artist was doing shirts, books, film, prints or group and solo shows, I was there. On that last note, everything lead up to Letters From Digested Children. And Alex is a nice, generous, intelligent, talented and quirky guy: truly the best combination.

Last night, Alex Pardee opened his Letters From Digested Children solo show at San Francisco’s FIFTY24SF. The central theme of the exhibition is missing children who have been eaten by monsters. Since monsters have slow digestive systems, many of the children are still alive inside their stomachs. While the children wait for salvation, they scrawl S.O.S. letters. Alex collected these missives, along with police reports and portraits of some of the “more popular” monsters, transforming the gallery into a walk-in milk carton. This is concept art and is best experienced to be appreciated. For our readers around the globe, I’ll try to explain.

Take Veronica Pickles, for example. She was last seen by a neighbor with an overactive bladder heading toward a Castle Greyskull-like structure known as The Mouth. When the ground “shook like Michael J. Fox,” the neighbor called the Cardboard City police. Here, Alex Pardee uses his entire arsenal: signature monster art with great storytelling and a generous peppering of pop culture.

Read more here. Or see images on my Flickr set here.

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