OOPS...It's Art! : New Work by Kii Arens

Kii Arens is a Pop-Art Designer with a bent towards Rock-N-Roll. Never formally trained, this St. Paul, Minnesota native grew up with a fascination for album covers, band logos, and font styles. He credits Saturday mornings in the '70's spent watching Sid and Marty Krofft as his main inspirations for color. As a graphic designer/photographer, Kii has designed over 50 CD packages for various local and national artists. He was also the guitar player and back-up singer in the rock band Flipp, which he handled all design and artwork for.

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Kii's fine art career began at the Minnesota State Fair just a few years ago. His search for a corn dog turned into one of life's happy accidents as it led him to discover the Spin-O-Paint booth. He was inspired to create an oil painting of a SPIN-ART painting in a paint by numbers fashion. His first SPIN-ART piece entitled 'La-La Land' became the album cover for Cheap Tricks' release entitled 'Special One'.

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At the time of his 2002 debut show at the Flatland Gallery in Minneapolis, The StarTribune published an article in which "La-La Land" was inadvertently printed sideways. This accident led to the creation of the character, "La-La" which has since been recreated in many forms including a limited edition vinyl toy. In 2004 Arens moved to Los Angeles to open a gallery appropriately called La-La Land.

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On Friday, June 22nd, Kii returns to the Twin Cities to showcase his new series; Oops...It's Art! at the Toomer Gallery. From SPIN-ART to SPILL-ART, this new collection of painted lightboxes were created from cell phone photos of spilled drinks and various stains found on the streets of Los Angeles. Who knew a dropped Slurpee could become art?