“Garbage Pail Kids cards blew my mind,” said accomplished painter, printmaker, and draftsman Glen Baldridge. “My mom would drive me to every gas station in Great Falls, Montana to look for them. I remember the excitement of finding and ripping open those little packages. The play with language combined with the gross out drawings was just the best. That was the first art I collected, and [it] definitely made me want to draw and make art as well as live with it.”

Glen’s recent works have embedded sardonic phrases from youth sub-culture into ultra-complex painted patterns. Often working with traditional craft processes like paper marbling, he obscures the words’ readability. Fissures in the otherwise smooth paint on the surface merge darkness with youth and beauty. Recurring phrases like “No Way” and “Wait, What” invoke a detached attitude juxtaposed by a colorful palette, speaking to attempts to navigate the unpredictable conditions of the current time in history. Read More