Chuck Sperry "Kissing the Girl from Jupiter" 2013 Art Card

Chuck Sperry
Kissing the Girl From Jupiter, 2013
Art Card
Approx. 8.5 x 5.5 in

FROM CHUCK SPERRY
I have become a huge fan of Moonrise Kingdom, having watched this movie many times.

Last year (2012), I was in constant flight making shows and appearances non-stop; I watched Moonrise Kingdom end to end over a dozen times. These were long flights, whiled away happily involved in Mr. Anderson’s world of Moonrise Kingdom. I have a policy: I would rather watch one excellent movie over and over than to watch one bad movie once.

I flew in my own Moonrise Kingdom from the US to Europe, Europe to the US. Then I watched it some more, 17 hours San Francisco to Argentina for my appearance at the Trimarchi Design Conference and back again 17 hours. Then I watched it yet more from San Francisco to New York City just in time for my ill-fated Moonalice Art Show at the Brooklyn Bowl during Hurricane Sandy with the stars of the San Francisco Rock Poster Tradition (Stanley Mouse and Wes Wilson no less). By the time Halloween ruffled Manhattan the day after the historic hurricane passed, and I strolled to the Neue Museum on East 88th to catch some Vienna Secession artwork, passing adorable children in their Halloween costumes, trick-or-treating on the Upper East Side, I was experiencing the pathos of a festival celebrated on the wake of disaster with a mind which had deeply ingested massive doses of Wes Anderson’s tragic serio-comic sensibilities. Strange it was just a year ago. Stranger still, the feeling of having absorbed this movie into one of the busiest and most rewarding and odd periods of my life hasn’t passed.

My art print “Kissing The Girl From Jupiter” for “Bad Dads” is a celebration of the amazing screen chemistry, the romantic pairing of actors Kara Hayward and Jared Gilman who play Suzy Bishop and Sam Shakusky in Moonrise Kingdom. Characters Sam and Suzy are mismatched lovers caught in a doomed fantasy. Their star-crossed love story takes bloom with a first kiss in their Moonrise Kingdom. I aim to contrast the realism of my portrayal of their figures to a fantastic, near psychedelic background depicting a romantic, emotional truth of first love. It’s a very innocent piece. The title “Kissing the Girl From Jupiter” refers to the title of a science-fiction fantasy book that Suzy has brought with her in her flight to Moonrise Kingdom, one which was featured in the animated short film Wes Anderson made to promote the release of Moonrise Kingdom.- CS