Anna Talks To Anouk Rawkson About….Art and Music and Pennywise the Clown

A piece from Anouk Rawkson’s show at Greenwood Space Travel Supply part of Greenwood Art Walk on Friday, April 14, 2017.

Anouk RAWKSON. Who is Anouk RAWKSON? Well, Sweeties, he is a Seattle based artist who aims to express his “dark sense of humor and irony with an initially perceived innocent image.” He mixes your favorite Halloween costumes from childhood with bloody pirate band aids, puts them through a demonically possessed laundry machine and then folds them while his nails are still wet. This week he’s opening shows on consecutive days because why the Hello Kitty not?

Anna: Hello, Sweetie! I am excited for you because you have twice the art show openings this week! Do you mind if I compare your work to sharing a sundae with Pennywise the Clown?

RAWKSON: Hello and thank you; feel free to compare me to Pennywise; he is one of my heroes and everybody loves sundaes.

Anna: Your first show is My Life in Pink, opening this Thursday at Salon Bar-Kon. I can already feel the pink eye starting in my loins! Tell us about the show.

RAWKSON: The show My Life In Pink is all things pink that represent me as a queer chicano; its dedicated to all the sissies, pansies, pink boys, queers of color who fought for our rights and to be themselves. We have lost so many in this battle and continue to. So these pieces were made with them in mind.

Anna: I think the shiny pink wrestling mask really supports your theme of queens who fought for rights. Did the collection start with that one?

RAWKSON: Yes, its the mask of battle, the mask of life: VIDA!

Work from Anouk Rawkson’s My Life in Pink show at Salon Bar-Kon on Capitol Hill.

Anna: Will you be playing Pink over the speakers and serving strawberry ice cream at the opening or is that…yeah, that’s too on the nose isn’t it?

RAWKSON: Anna, I’m into pink champagne so that will be served, maybe some Basia playing in the background. I really dig Basia.

Anna: Your second show, opening Friday, is described as “If Kandinsky and Walt Disney dueled to the death with sacks of My Little Ponies in a film by John Waters” and I love that, even though I had to Google Kandinsky! Details, please!

RAWKSON: For the second show I was invited by the talented Sarah Galvin to come show for the Greenwood Art Walk at the Space Travel Supply Store; it’s all based on one of my older pieces that is anti-corporation so I just created a new series to go along with it.

Anna: We have to talk about the location of this second show: it’s a space travel supply store whose website states “we are a real business”! The Facebook invite says to come and “drink wine in a teleporter”! Yes, please! Oh, and have you picked out what you’re wearing for the show?

RAWKSON: Yes, Anna, it is a real business, go check it out and bonus: its near Gorditos, the home of the gigantic burrito, so a bib is what I’ll be wearing to the show.

Anna: As art lovers prepare to come to each of your openings, which music would you suggest they get ready to?

RAWKSON: Music selection has not been determined until the day of the shows, sometimes there is no music just the loud sounds in my head, but Grace Jones is always a winner with me.

Anna: Thank you for chatting with me and I hope you can use all this blood for a painting or something!

RAWKSON: Thank you, Anna, it’s been fun, hope to see you at the shows or future shows xo

Check out both shows:

Anouk Rawkson/My Life in Pink
Thursday, April 13, 2017
6pm to 9pm
Salon Bar-Kon
1416 Boylston Ave Unit 101, Seattle, Washington 98122

Anouk Rawkson/Greenwood Art Walk
Friday, April 14, 2017
6pm to 10pm
Greenwood Space Travel Supply Co.
8414 Greenwood Ave N, Seattle, Washington 98103

Anna T. Rexia channeling Pandora Boxxx and an Evil Clown….

Anna T. Rexia has been known to dress up as a ghost clown before and to finger paint with questionable liquids. She is considered “a walking performance art piece” by her absorbing twin, Craig Trolli, who dressed as Pennywise for most Halloweens growing up.