Houston artist/illustrator Stephen Bower offers a new collection of images that tell of an impending “Technocratic Dystopia.” His new show of Copro Gallery in Santa Monica, titled “Visions of a Terminal Reality,” taps into the political and social commentary laced throughout his intricate ink illustrations. In particular, the show seems to act as a sci-fi-tinged examination of where our currently reality could actually be headed. It kicks off today and runs through June 10.
An official synopsis reads as a warning: “Global cyclopean crime syndicates, as the self ordained sacred engineers of our world, erect towers of oppression in sadistic lust for control and mastery, supporting the reality matrix of their insane design. Their existence isolated from the complacent servants who relinquish their guts to the Overlord. Their eugenic desires brought to the altar of technology and championed by their sycophants. They collect the resources and consolidate the wealth through the ritual of perpetual war and compulsory usury. In order to survive the Technocratic Dystopia, you must accept this twisted agenda and merge flesh with steel, or be left behind clinging to your humanity in barbarous austerity.”
Bower’s commercial work is also part of the show, whether it’s pieces for his various musical projects or for other underground metal acts.
On Saturday at 
Taipei, Tawain based artist 
We can only imagine what early explorers venturing off into the new world must have felt. Medieval maps and encyclopedic bestiaries give us some idea of the strange lands they expected to encounter, inhabited by mysterious figures and loathsome, fictitious beasts. Montreal, Canada based painter