![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.artloversnewyork.com\/zine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/owen-gray-APRIL-12.-2012.jpg\" "\\"owen-gray-APRIL-12.-2012\\"")
<\/a>\nOWEN GRAY at his long time studio in HOBOKEN, NEW JERSEY. hey, tell me Jersey ain’t a happening place.<\/p>\n
yep, DUKE RILEY done been stirring up the ancient gods – right smack dab in hot button China, where some big politico party boss named BO, has a wife named GU, there’s a dead Brit named NEIL HEYWOOD, rumors of illicit affairs, money-laundering, and even the word ‘cynanide’, as in ‘poisoning’ – playing out a nice and most eternal fable – in the current world headlines. see: Chinese murder puzzle thickens – Poisoned British businessman . . . NEW YORK POST – APRIL 18, 2012<\/a><\/p>\n yep, there’s Brooklyn’s own pied piper of tattoos and ancient seafaring arts, scrimshaw anybody ? the DUKE RILEY bringing the ancient wisdom of the Far East – back home for the US of A.<\/a>
\nwhile some artists reach for the stars, others are content to continually plod a path through the natural flora and fauna – on the geo planet’s natural unification of chaos . . . evolutionary food chains and all. <\/p>\n<\/a>
\nthere are futuristic ‘systems’ artists working in truly !! cutting edge online – wide world web technology.
\nthe very Rev LUKE MURPHY comes to mind, of course. as the best of the best – in that field.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nand then there are the wonderfully naive yet prescient neo-folk artists, like DUKE RILEY – re-matching the mother goose animals of the ancient, and very much enduring – Chinese zodiac, on the very banks of the Caogang River in Zhujiajiaso, CHINA, near the legendary and nefarious Shanghai !! as if – right on cue. <\/p>\n
\nand, yes, the word rat, and rob – does does comes to mind.<\/p>\n
\nONE: there was, and still is, real truth – in those age-old bestiary adages: a rat is a rat is a rat, and watch your back. cheaters and lowlife win.
\nand TWO: don’t ask me why, but even the most simple of scrimshaw folk artists – be shamans and seers.
\nif you just let the hands do the drawing, connecting the dots is easy. it’s all about reading the ‘pictorial’ code.
\nfrom the earliest cavemen – to the most far-out ‘systems’ – guys around today.
\nhey, does LUKE rhyme with DUKE – or what. just saying.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nand then there are the guys, like Owen – who just like to stick with the basics. the code of the jungle, river and forest. <\/p>\n<\/a>
\nyou know, the usual suspects: snakes. bugs, and toads. the occasional forlorn human, and\/or water sprite.
\nit’s called: allegory. as in: all the gory . . . of nature.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nbringing it back home, to planet, Mother ? – Earth: “EVERGLADES – THE STORY BEHIND THE SCENERY” !!<\/p>\n