The real show-stopper in Joe Annabi’s painting exhibit is a cartoon horror cat with an ecstatic grin under a sign that reads, “You are going to die!”
People get caught up in the magic of the holidays, and as a result they forget about death, so Annabi’s direct and sobering message couldn’t have come at a better time. His work will be on display this Friday and stays up through the end of the month at Winning Coffee Co. (111 Harvard Drive S.E.)
Kurt Cobain’s death in 1994 resulted in Annabi’s “midlife crisis” in the sixth grade that prompted him to stop listening to music for a year.
“I had never thought about how I was going to die before,” he said. “What hit me hard about Kurt Cobain’s death was that I was going to die, and it took me a long time to kind of even remotely accept that and to be able to listen to music again.”
He dealt with death again in high school when a girl he had been dating passed away. That was when he started drawing cartoon monsters under a sign reading, “You are going to die!” in his sketchbook. Everything he does, he said, is a product of the inspiring effects of Dr. Seuss, Warner Brothers animation and Jim Henson’s Muppets. He sold a similar painting of the same image six years ago for $100 at his first Winning art show.
He said the most common reaction to the painting is, “Why is the cat going to kill me?”
He said it’s notable that they view this message as a threat rather than as the simple truth of life.
“I don’t see how we can all live our lives as if we don’t die,” he said. “The way the West thinks about death is really counter-productive, and it affects me negatively. A lot of the troubles I’ve had in my own head I think stem from Western societal norms that were ingrained in me from birth, because this is the society I grew up in, and we have a lot of unhealthy perspectives on a lot of really natural things.”
It’s not unlike the old Dutch masters who put skulls and rotting fruit in their still lifes to remind viewers that life is impermanent.
“People don’t own that themselves; they don’t think about that,” Annabi said. “It’s worth thinking about, and if I can help them think about that and kind of accept that, that would be a good thing. Understanding that you’re going to die makes stupid things matter less, and it makes me want to do better things with the time that I do have.”
After a series of plans for collaborative-performance and music-recording projects fell apart, he took to working alone on visual art. He will put on a human-scale puppet show at the art opening on Friday. Annabi said it is important to note that at the opening between 7:30 and 8:00 p.m. is when people can view the paintings.
“At eight we’re going to turn off the lights, because it’s going to be stage lighting for the puppet show,” he said. “Whenever it’s done, like at 8:15-ish, The Fertile Crescent’s going to play, so there won’t be a break between the puppet show and the band.”
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If you’re afraid of intimate crowds, you can always voyeur what will surely look like a very strange puppet show from outside the big Winning window.
“Monster Me”
8 p.m. puppet show
Gallery through December
Winning Coffee Co.
111 Harvard Drive S.E.
