The Merlin Years—Team Macho

Comprised of Nicholas Aoki, Stephen Appleby-Barr, Christopher Buchan, Lauchie Reid and Jacob Whibley, the Canadian collective Team Macho spans the worlds of both fine art and illustration, producing work for both audiences. Team Macho's surreal, colorful and cartoonish drawings, paintings and installations playfully juxtapose styles and motifs with a strongly DIY flavor. The group's idiosyncratic approach to collaboration cultivates both competitiveness and cooperation, as they celebrate, thwart and subvert each other's contributions. Needless to say, this approach results in often humorous, jarring conjunctions: two aliens dancing over an otherwise Hopperesque scene of houses in twilight; nuns mutilating monsters; a painting of some unspecified, hairy psychedelic lump with the caption "and thus life became awesome." "The Art of Team Macho: The Merlin Years" compiles the group's output of the past five years, and includes texts and interviews.