When one looks at Travis Louie’s portraits, one feels as if they’re spying on the Ellis Island of another planet.  Toad boys and rabbit girls proudly pose in their Sunday best.  His subjects may have three eyes, but they also have dignity.  It’s a surrealist take on the immigrant experience

Travis’s latest show, Curious Myths, opens at Joshua Liner Gallery on Saturday.  In it, viewers can expect the typical Louie knockout cocktail- the uber fine hairs, the sensuously blended grey. His technical virtuosity is so extreme that his paintings were once held at Italian customs by officials who refused to beleive they weren’t done by a 19th century master.

However, Curious Myths is more than that.  It’s a peak, in a sense.  His portraits have expanded to 6 feet tall.  Multiple monsters crowd the canvases.  In his “Banned at the Scopes Trial”, dignified ape men wait to testify.  The wonders on display were hard won.  Louie worked twenty hour days for months- a schedule that once sent him into the emergency room.

Last night, me and Louie made a sinister pact. In return for some deliciously greasy halal chicken over rice, Louie let me see three paintings from his new show.  No one had ever seen them before.

Now I have.  Now you have too.

Curious Myths opens on Saturday, July 10th, from 6-9 pm.  The exhibition runs from  July 10 to August 7, 2010, at Joshua Liner Gallery, 548 West 28th. Street, 3rd Floor. New York, NY 10001.

Words by Molly Crabapple with art by Travis Louie