Tom Huck: The Transformation of Brandy Baghead and Other Evil Delights
April 4th - May 9th, 2009

Living and working in St. Louis, Tom Huck is sharply tuned into the history and current affairs of the American heartland. Huck scrutinizes American culture through a brutal lens, weaving together outrageous scenes and narratives. Although his large scale woodblock prints are easy to appreciate for their meticulous detail and thoughtful compositions, the gruesome accounts of Huck's worldview are not for the faint of heart. This exhibition is a bountiful orgy of food, sex, alcohol, and violence all supporting Huck's larger narratives of Americana: racism, warfare, greed, gluttony and injustice.

Anchoring Huck's first exhibition in the Bay Area is a massive woodblock triptych titled, The Transformation of Brandy Baghead.  In this piece Huck gives painful consideration to how far people will go to transform themselves into something desired by the mainstream public.  In the center of this print is a woman undergoing cosmetic surgery surrounded by a team of Frankenstein-like mad scientists.  The surgeons transform this ugly duckling into a beautiful swan by stitching their patient with cat entrails. In this way, Huck dramatizes the misguided American mainstream with a fearless critique and great sense of humor.

Huck's work has been collected by numerous museums including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, New York Public Library and the Art Institute of Chicago.