Lisa Derrick Fine Arts is pleased to present Fast & Bulbous, an exhibition of drawings and paintings by Victor Hayden (1948-2018), aka The Mascara Snake, with an opening reception May 11, 2019, from 6pm to 9pm. The gallery is located at 961 Chung King Road, in Los Angeles Chinatown.
The 1960s was a tumultuous decade in which new artistic and political assertions resulted in a youth culture inexplicable to previous generations. The most obvious manifestations of this were the differences between adult and youth popular music. Nothing proved the generation gap truer than Captain Beefheart And The Magic Band, formed in Lancaster, California by child prodigy sculptor Don Van Vliet. Led by Van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart), the band’s album Trout Mask Replica would prove to be so Avant-weird and inaccessible that it was instantaneously a legend upon its release in 1969. Hayden was an ephemeral member of The Magic Band (Van Vliet and Hayden were cousins). He contributed both art and music to Trout Mask Replica, which was rehearsed for months in Woodland Hills, California and released by Frank Zappa’s Straight label. Hayden also painted the artwork on the cover of the band’s 1974 release Bluejeans And Moonbeams.
In the ensuing years, Hayden lived between Southern California, Portland and Seattle, painting and drawing for gallery exhibitions and creating art for notorious post-hardcore performers such as GG Allin, The Melvins and others. The Melvins recorded their first album for Alchemy Records, Gluey Front Porch, the label Hayden co-founded. Hayden’s long-time friend, best-selling author Miss Pamela Des Barres explained in her book, I’m With The Band, that in the early ‘60s, “Victor blew my innocent mind with radical departures from the truth as I knew it.” With cred like that, noted contemporary writer and Pop Surrealist painter Anthony Ausgang agreed to curate Hayden’s art from Des Barres’ extensive archives of his output. Says Ausgang, “Although Hayden is most well-known for his time with Captain Beefheart, the selection of drawings, paintings, and sculptures at Lisa Derrick Fine Arts proves him an essential artist in his own right.” Along with Hayden’s black and white ink drawings, Derrick and Ausgang will be exhibiting the artist’s paintings and a signed portrait of Hayden by his cousin Don Van Vliet, who himself transitioned from musician to an acclaimed fine art painter.
