It’s the second week of summer break in 1994. Only millionaires own cell phones and no one knows what a “billion” is. You pour yourself a bowl of skim milk and float a handful of fruit loops on the surface. The tv is already on, tuned to an episode of cat-dog you’ve seen over 50 times. Your dad yells at you for being too close to the screen. Your mom yells at him for yelling at you. You ignore them. Tonight you will break your first bone while skating a strip-mall parking lot and you will never be the same.

Al Marcano (b. 1987 Cape Canaveral FL.) is a contemporary artist living and working in Joshua Tree, CA. Influenced by street/outsider/folk art, 80s and 90s american morning television, and syndicated comic strips, the artist’s lo-fi, DIY approach to sculpture references skate culture of the same era. A play on the artists' name combined with "amigo", a walk through Almigo serves as an introduction to Marcano’s friends, some of whom may be your old friends, too. 

Built out of found scrap-wood simultaneously preserved and desicated by the desert sun, Marcano assembles a garden of visceral relics of bygone adolescence. True to the cartoons they depict, the artist’s sculptures are two dimensional, possessing a distinct front and back side, mounted on a wooden-block stand. Oil stick and acrylic in beach-ball tones paint the familiar faces of beloved characters. For many it may be tricky to decipher their origin - tv or the artist’s imagination. 

For more information please email hi@smokethemoon.com.