Brooklyn’s Cotton Candy Machine will be hosting a gallery show for the next few weeks featuring the works of Brooklyn-based Arik Roper and Oakland, CA’s Skinner. Dubbed “New Maps of the Abyss,” the show plays Roper‘s sometimes murky, darker-toned visualizations off of Skinner‘s vivid, otherworldly sharpness, both working in an epic style but obviously playing off different influences. If you happen to be in that part of the world tonight, they’re doing an opening whathaveyou this evening, and if you’re going to be sometime in the next few weeks, the show will be going on until Dec. 7. Anytime you get to see Roper‘s work in person and appreciate the detail, it’s worth doing so, and I’m not sure, but I guess there’s always a chance Skinner might be showing some of his patches and/or figurines along with the prints, and whatever winds up being there, you don’t really lose.

Info comes courtesy of Cotton Candy Machine:

ARIK ROPER AND SKINNER

November 14th – December 7th

New Maps Of The Abyss is a two man show presenting new bodies of work by Arik Roper and Skinner, two of the most distinct voices in proto fantasy art today. Two distinct styles covering the more distant spaces on the spectrum of bizarre visionary art. Illustrative, fantastic and one of a kind, these two mind freaks have naturally gravitated towards each other to form this amazing show.

The installation they have created at the Cotton Candy Machine will transport you to a place where you could experience these visions in their natural habitat! Welcome to new maps of the abyss!

Presale for the show is live now and selling fast. Visit our event page here to preview the available works!

Please email info@thecottoncandymachine.com with a list of paintings you would like to purchase. Do include alternates choices in case the pieces you are after have been sold.

Join us for the opening event!

Skinner challenged himself to create new visions of classic Dungeons and Dragons characters in a new illustrative reconnection to himself in an homage to the things that have ignited his mind as a youth! An indulgent look at his heart held influences.

An outstanding 38 original paintings now fill the walls with Skinners insane vision and rebirth of these classic monsters.

Cotton Candy Machine will be releasing a new limited edition print from Skinner tomorrow at the opening first come first served. So come early!

For New Maps Of The Abyss, Arik Roper has created scenes and entities that one would encounter when traveling into the subconscious abyss! All in his incredibly beautiful otherworldly style.

At the opening event we will be releasing a print of the album art fromSleep’s Dope Smoker. This print has never been released and the quantities are very limited at opening. We will be releasing these large 36″ x 17″ prints first come first served along with a new print from the show at the opening so come early!

Join us for the opening event!

Opening Event Friday November 14th
7pm – 11pm

235 South 1st Street (between Roebling and Havemeyer)
Brooklyn, NYC 11211
718.387.3844

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Arik Roper and Skinner Art Show Trailer

Set the controls for the heart of Iommi. Acclaimed artists David V. D’Andrea (interview here) and Arik Roper (interview here) recently collaborated on a special edition poster for Sleep‘s gig June 5 at the Fox Theater in the band’s native Oakland, California. The Fox, heralded as a centerpiece of Oakland’s purported renaissance (or so I’m told), seems the perfect spot for Sleep to mark a homecoming, and though it would be just days after that guitarist Matt Pike entered rehab (and of course all best wishes to him for his recovery), having seen Sleep in April, I can honestly say it was a revelation.

It also works on the level of D’Andrea being intimately involved over the last several years with the visual side of bassist/vocalist Al Cisneros‘ Om, and Roper having provided High on Fire‘s most epic album covers. As Cisneros and Pike (as well as Neurosis drummer Jason Roeder) have stepped back into their roles in one of the most pivotal stoner metal bands since Black Sabbath, it’s only fitting that D’Andrea and Roper should join forces to mark the occasion as well.

The poster went on sale this afternoon. Below, you’ll find the specs, availability info and where you can buy it, as well as images of its weedian splendor, any of which you can click to enlarge.

Arik Roper, David D?Andrea and Monolith Press have teamed up to commemorate earth re-entry and final destination of Sleep flight mission II (surface harvest of domiciliary biodomes), June 5, 2012.

Fox Theater, Oakland California (37.8044° N, 122.2697° W), vector resolution and common holy ground, welcomed Cisneros, Pike, and Roeder upon surface re-entry.

Setlist: Dopesmoker/Holy Mountain/Dragonaut/Sonic Titan/…and Sagan/Antarctican?s Thawed/Aquarian/The Druid/From Beyond/Cultivator/Morris II

The visual depiction of Marijuanaut lore is a collaboration between scribes Roper and D?Andrea. As told in Sleep scripture, the Marijuanaut race escaped earth to cultivate long ago. Now that the Iommic era is upon us, intergalactic biodome harvest has begun.

Artist edition release date will be Saturday July 7, 1PM Pacific time (4PM Eastern)

First come – first serve. The edition will remain online until sold out. Orders will ship from the River, Portland Oregon via USPS Priority mail. Limit one per customer please. Over sales will be refunded.

Please visit http://www.dvdandrea.com for more details.

Specs:
24 x 35.5”
Cougar White stock
4 color
Signed (both artists) and numbered edition of 100
$50.00
+ 8.50 shipping US and Canada
15.00 International

In case you haven’t seen it yet, here’s the Arik Roper artwork for the new High on Fire record, Snakes for the Divine. As if you needed me to tell you it rules:

Fucking killer. I want to get a poster of it, travel back in time and put it up on my 14-year-old self’s bedroom wall and say, “Listen up you little bastard! You don’t know what the hell this is yet, but you spend the next decade and a half staring at it and then maybe you’ll be worthy enough to find out.”

Snakes for the Divine is out Feb. 23 on E1 Music. I wanna be friends with it.

Acclaimed NYC visual artist and illustrator Arik Roper‘s work has become an essential part of the aesthetic to underground heavy (that’s not to say “stoner”) rock and doom. Posters, album covers, shirt designs for the likes of Sleep (both Jerusalem and Dopesmoker), Southern Lord Recordings, Rise Above Records, StonerRock.com, Buzzov*en, Eyehategod, High on Fire, Boris, Ancestors, Mammatus and countless others have made Roper‘s trademark epic and highly detailed style a visual staple every bit as important as Orange amps blasting out Sabbath riffs. There are many albums that just wouldn’t be the same without it.

With one book — Mushroom Magick: A Visionary Field Guide — already under his belt and ever-more praise and exposure being heaped upon his work, Roper‘s growing reputation has him high in the running for one of this generation’s most recognizable artists in or out of the metal underground. His pieces maintain signature elements, like common wavelengths running through them, while subject matter and inspiration vary widely. Adaptable and distinctive, he shows not only the technical development attained from his time at New York‘s School of the Visual Arts, but a natural talent which can come only with time, practice and innate ability.

Roper was kind enough recently to take some time out and discuss via email his artistic process and evolution, how he got started drawing and which piece of classic cover art he most wishes had been his own. Interview is after the jump. Enjoy.

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Taken from the DVD Such Hawks, Such Hounds and posted by the good hardworking folks at the Malleus Rock Art Lab comes this clip focusing on the visuals of modern psychedelia and stoner rock. In it we get to see Malleus, Arik Roper, Stephen O’Malley and more. Pretty killer. Enjoy, and when you’re done, head over to suchhawkssuchhounds.com and buy a copy of the movie. It’s all about education, man.