Articles by J. Bowers

138 stories found. Showing page 1 of 7.

Tracking Heroes: John Flynn Offers An Up To The Second Compendium Of Comic Book Superheroes Moving From Page To Screen

Books | 8/15/2007 | By J. Bowers

It's summertime, geek high season. During these three blessed months, comic book stores feature epic crossover events, the Inner Harbor teems with cosplaying otaku, and area multiplexes runneth ...[MORE]

Below the Beltway: Group Show Examines The Suburbs' Place In The City's Visual Art World

Art | 6/27/2007 | By J. Bowers

Harsh but true--downtown Towson doesn't immediately spring to mind as a local hot spot for fine art. With the exception of galleries at nearby Towson University and Goucher College, central Towson h...[MORE]

Textural Orientation: Madeleine Keesing's Paintings Thrive On Her Obsessive, Steady Hand

Art | 6/6/2007 | By J. Bowers

First things first--photographs do not do Madeleine Keesing's paintings justice. Nonrepresentational and deeply textural, Keesing's monumental blocks of variegated color have more in common with fib...[MORE]

Waking Life Painting: Baltimore County Artist Group Mounts Its Debut Show

The Arts | 5/16/2007 | By J. Bowers

A good nude is hard to find. Sure, it's reasonably easy to persuade someone to disrobe, but even if an artist's friends and loved ones are willing to go the full monty in the name of art, they'll so...[MORE]

Machine Biology: New Show Collapses The Differences Separating Humans From Their Creations

Art | 3/7/2007 | By J. Bowers

A promising series of changes has occurred at Locust Point's Gallery Imperato over the past few months. Cheri Landry is the new curator. The carpet has been stripped off the floors. The gallery stop...[MORE]

Ruth Pettus and Michela Caudill: Terra Incognito/Terra Cognito

Art | 2/28/2007 | By J. Bowers

Black-and-white landscape fans will only be half-satisfied by the College of Notre Dame's current show, Terra Incognito/Terra Cognito, which juxtaposes new photography by Michela Caudill with ink-on...[MORE]

Jason Snyder

Art | 2/28/2007 | By J. Bowers

Painter Jason Robert Snyder's playfully goth works look right at home at Fells Point's Saints and Sinners, a space that does triple duty as a tattoo parlor, funky clothing store, and--apparently--ar...[MORE]

Ways of Looking: Two Towson Shows Try To Venture Beneath The Surface Of Plain, Old Seeing

Art | 2/14/2007 | By J. Bowers

Apart from the big museums downtown, there aren't too many places in and around Baltimore where you can check out one art show, then climb up a flight of stairs and catch another. The Towson Universit...[MORE]

Robby Rackleff

Games | 1/24/2007 | By J. Bowers

"Hi, my name is Blue Leader and I've owned every major game console for the past 15 years." These words, running across the top of an index-card sized flier, caught City Paper's eye during a gallery v...[MORE]

Common Dense: Getting Found And Lost In Frank Smith's Wondrous, Swirling Canvases

Art | 1/3/2007 | By J. Bowers

Painter Frank Smith sometimes calls his work "visual jazz." It's an extremely apt metaphor for his raucously colorful, improvisational canvases, which find Smith seamlessly blending strips of fabric, ...[MORE]

Just Visiting: Two Artists Roam Through A Homeland Mansion And Let It Invade Their Brains

Art | 12/20/2006 | By J. Bowers

For six years now, Evergreen House has opened its stately 19th-century doors to some House Guests, artists-in-residence who find inspiration for new works by mining the historic mansion's elegantly fu...[MORE]

Tales and Teapots: MFA Thesis Exhibit

Art | 12/6/2006 | By J. Bowers

Thematically, sculptor Amy Weaver and illustrator Stephanie Smith are a natural pairing--Weaver creates fanciful, pastel-hued teapot sculptures that would look right at home on the Mad Hatter's sidebo...[MORE]

American Values American Pride: A Pre-Election Primer: At Art Under Ground Studio through Dec. 2

Art | 11/29/2006 | By J. Bowers

American Values American Pride: A Pre-Election Primer is an ambitious and promising title for any art show, especially one at Hampden's fledgling Art Under Ground Studio, located underneath the Avenue...[MORE]

Margaret Evangeline: Too Pure Water: At C. Grimaldis Gallery through Dec. 2

Art | 11/29/2006 | By J. Bowers

Margaret Evangeline is a one-trick pony--but, luckily, it's a damn good trick. The New Orleans-born self-described "painter" arms herself with revolvers, rifles, and other ballistic weapons, then take...[MORE]

Le Huu Nghiem: Buffaloes and My Childhood and Flowers in My Homeland

Art | 11/22/2006 | By J. Bowers

Many Americans' only exposure to Vietnamese culture comes in the form of war photographs or takeout spring rolls. "Buffaloes and My Childhood" and "Flowers in My Homeland," two series of oil paintings...[MORE]

Point of View: At Goya Contemporary through Nov. 2

Art | 10/25/2006 | By J. Bowers

Goya Contemporary's Point of View is an oddly schizophrenic show, largely due to the inclusion of works by abstract nonobjective painter Timothy App alongside elegant, realistic photographs by German-...[MORE]

Travels with Marco Polo

Art | 10/4/2006 | By J. Bowers

Nora Sturges has perfected the art of visual narrative. In Travels With Marco Polo, a selection of 19 paintings--few more than a scant square foot in size--she presents complete, beautifully detailed ...[MORE]

Game On: Exploring the Art Behind A Local Gaming Company's Latest Role-Playing Adventure

Art | 10/4/2006 | By J. Bowers

Are video games art? In the bygone era of Atari, ColecoVision, and 8-bit Nintendo, this polarizing question rarely, if ever, came up. Back then, Mario, Pac-Man, and other early video-game heroes were ...[MORE]

Seven Irish Artists

Art | 9/13/2006 | By J. Bowers

Load of Fun Studios might just be the most unlikely venue in Baltimore for a showcase of new contemporary work by young Irish artists, but that's exactly what you'll find there this month, thanks to t...[MORE]

Breaking the Surface: Two Large Shows Attempt To Venture Past the Assumptions Of First Impressions

Art | 8/30/2006 | By J. Bowers

Two of Baltimore's major museums are tackling the big issues this year, with major exhibits that deal with the eternally polarizing concepts of race and class. The Baltimore Museum of Art's Henry Ossa...[MORE]

138 stories found. Showing page 1 of 7.

29 reviews found. Showing page 1 of 2.

Howl's Moving Castle

Movie review: by J. Bowers | 10/28/2009

Films by Hayao Miyazaki, Japan's most revered anime auteur, tend to use the same basic elements--kickass animation, a strong young female protagonist, skepticism or hostility toward machinery, Captain...[MORE]

Rad Warehouses Bad Neighborhoods

Record review: by J. Bowers | 6/20/2007

The Death Set, Baltimore’s favorite Australian spazz-punk transplant twosome, has undergone some changes since To, its 2006 irresistible, sample-happy EP. One half of the dynamic duo, Beau Velasco, ha...[MORE]

Ragged Rubble

Record review: by J. Bowers | 6/13/2007

Double Dagger has always provided dark, frenetic, politically charged punk rock for people who enjoy using their brains. DD's sophomore effort, Ragged Rubble, is crunchy sonic asphalt that builds ad...[MORE]

Hail Mega Boys

Record review: by J. Bowers | 4/4/2007

J-Roddy Walston and the Business Hail Mega Boys (self-released) J-Roddy Walston and the Business-the Baltimore-via-Tennessee love children of Paul McCartney, ragtime, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Jon Spence...[MORE]

Thrushes

Musician review: by J. Bowers | 3/7/2007

Thrushes know they're about 15 years late to the shoegaze party. After all, My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Slowdive, and other seminal loud-quiet-loud drone-pop groups were pioneering the sound while al...[MORE]

Kamehameha

Record review: by J. Bowers | 12/13/2006

Known for their floor-shaking, sugar-fueled live sets, local quartet Ponytail is shockingly melodic on its debut album, Kamehameha, recently released on local art-rock baron Peter Quinn's fledgling Cr...[MORE]

AVECduet

Record review: by J. Bowers | 10/4/2006

After the gut-punch of Avec’s superb debut, If I Breathe I Fall Asleep, it’s a little weird that Shawna Potter and Brooks Harlan--the band’s Medusa-haired, ax-wielding frontwoman and scientifically mi...[MORE]

Safety

Record review: by J. Bowers | 10/4/2006

Much has changed for Two if by Sea in the three years since releasing Translations, the band’s debut album. Keyboardist Yuri Zietz has been dropped, and the band has gained a nervier, angrier sound, d...[MORE]

Os Os

Record review: by J. Bowers | 5/10/2006

Don’t be fooled by the name—the Sexy 2’s debut EP is the work of one man named Beau Finley and his slew of computers, effects processors, and acoustic guitars. Allegedly a concept album about a reject...[MORE]

Perishable: A Memoir

Book review: by J. Bowers | 5/3/2006

While other boys his age were playing in sandboxes, Dirk Jamison was climbing into Dumpsters, chasing inbred male puppies away from Buffy, the perpetually pregnant family dog, and watching his eccentr...[MORE]

Small Sur

Record review: by J. Bowers | 3/22/2006

Done well, there’s something to be said for the simplicity of a pleasant male voice and an acoustic guitar. On its self-titled debut, the local folk-rock collective Small Sur crafts mellow, weekend-in...[MORE]

The Death Set

Musician review: by J. Bowers | 3/15/2006

The Death Set’s origin story is just your average punk-rock fairy tale. It began a little over a year ago, at a random show held in the sleepy resort town of Gold Coast, Australia. As part of the expe...[MORE]

Adriane on the Edge

Book review: by J. Bowers | 3/8/2006

It was only a matter of time before male writers decided to cash in on the ongoing “chick lit” trend, and Adriane on the Edge is Baltimore expat Paul Mandelbaum’s first foray into the genre. Built aro...[MORE]

Nanny McPhee

Movie review: by J. Bowers | 2/1/2006

As the author and star of Nanny McPhee, Oscar-winning screenwriter Emma Thompson has created something that 21st-century children aren’t often exposed to—a wholesome, old-fashioned family fable that i...[MORE]

Demon Days

Record review: by J. Bowers | 6/29/2005

The last time Blur’s Damon Albarn trotted out Gorillaz, the rotating music collective cleverly disguised as a cool-looking Jamie “Tank Girl” Hewlett illustrated cartoon band, the group had a minor nov...[MORE]

The World and Everything in It

Record review: by J. Bowers | 6/29/2005

“He lived down the ocean/ never went to the beach at all,” coos Roman Kuebler on “Open Air,” the third track on the Oranges Band’s second proper Lookout! release. And that’s bad, ’cause in the Oranges...[MORE]

Howl's Moving Castle

Movie review: by J. Bowers | 6/15/2005

Films by Hayao Miyazaki, Japan’s most revered anime auteur, tend to use the same basic elements—kickass animation, a strong young female protagonist, skepticism or hostility toward machinery, Captain ...[MORE]

Stereograph

Musician review: by J. Bowers | 4/27/2005

These days it sounds like there’s a formula for hipster radio success. Take four to five skinny guys, slap on some skinny ties, pour them in jeans and button-down shirts (preferably black), and forbid...[MORE]

The Bravery

Record review: by J. Bowers | 4/6/2005

It’s unfortunate, but if you’ve heard the Bravery’s ubiquitous throwback club throbbers “An Honest Mistake” and “Unconditional,” you’ve already heard the best that New York’s latest entry in the Facto...[MORE]

Meltdown

Record review: by J. Bowers | 3/16/2005

Ash frontman Tim Wheeler has Bono Syndrome. Meaning, every song on the Irish surf-pop-punk quartet’s fifth full-length album, Meltdown, ends in an obvious rhyming couplet. Case in point: “I think my b...[MORE]