Roderick Mack @ Cade Gallery and Old School Arcade

On April 1st. 2011, Cade Gallery and Old School Arcade Featured Me as their artist for the month. I was actually surprised when they first contacted me asking if i wanted to display at their gallery... i never thought My art was good enough to be in a gallery let alone be the solo artist featured! But i guess there are people that enjoy my art that much!
Well a little background on this is... I used to display my canvas's at various stores that featured anime.. i displayed in Samurai Comics on 7th st. and Camelback. Then i also had some canvas displayed at the store All4Anime in metro center mall in Phoenix. From All4Anime I received requests for commissions, it was a good way for me to earn some extra money..

Motoko Kusanagi - painted by "roderick mack"

One commission i received turned out to be a very good thing for me, Weston Henry contacted me to do a painting of a character named 'motoko kusanagi' .. i agreed to do the painting. That is what i painted for him (picture at Left), I met up with Weston, and he Loved the painting.. he told me that i was one of his favorite local artists.. i thought to myself, wow how can that be i rarely get my art out there..... but he liked my paintings by what he seen displayed at the All4Anime  store... he also told me that he wanted to get a gallery and wanted me to display some art there if i could, because he liked my style alot! but at the time i didn't think anything of it... just another compliment and an empty promise that i've gotten from a lot of people before.. ( i was once invited to paint at an anime convention in phoenix along side a phoenix based salon that produced anime hair for cosplay ) so i just left it at that...


A Year Or So Later, i got this email from Weston Henry. I thought it was for another commission so i was happy, but it turned out that he was contacting me to tell me he acquired a gallery in phoenix's downtown Art district (in the heart of first friday's walk) And asked if i was still interested in displaying at the gallery.... I was surprised that he was a man of his word.. because no one ever followed through with what they told me they were gonna do and how i was going to be involved.

We had a meeting with his Co-Founder Nathan Nelson Ross, and we all decided that i would be displaying in April (flyer at Right)
I had a hard time deciding a name for my show, but i finally thought of something based on a painting i have recently painted.. it was simple , with a little kid vectored over the background... so i thought of the name "A Simpler Time" since childhood was a very simple time... and thats what we all remember when we watch cartoons... and anime is cartoons also...


After a month of non stop painting and deciding what to paint, the day finally came... My First Solo Show at a gallery! i was excited too see what comes of this all ! because i've never thought of myself to be into something like this...

Open Reception - Cade Gallery - April 1st. 2011

The Opening night went really well everyone that came in seemed to be enjoying my art and stayed around to play some video games.. my kids loved it too! they played in there and my oldest played some video games too :)
Hopefully This will be the start of something more for me!