FRKO, PORTLANTA

June 28 - July 26, 2024

I play the street life because there’s no place I can go, street life? Well, it’s the only life I know. The hot North American sun beating off the concrete, mixing with intoxicating subcultures is what created my universe. My work is as experimental as it is accidental and it feels good. Moving my right hand with swift mark making and arbitrary placements is the technique. The somewhat reluctant labor of choosing the materials that exist in front of me and not hunting down what sometimes can’t be caught. The independent variable is highly respected. I’m just the guy having an intimate experience with it all hoping that I can finally go inside.

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One Grand Gallery welcomes Atlanta-based artist and illustrator FRKO for his first solo exhibition with the gallery. For his Portland debut, the Atlanta legend has created a new body of work tailored to our city, calling on all the quirks, clichés, and stereotypes that this city has both embraced and unabashedly tried to reject. PORTLANTA is a raw rendition of Portland as seen through the artist’s eyes. In his cheeky, comical, and bawdy signature style, FRKO takes off the rose-colored glasses and draws it as he sees it. What we then do with it is another story.

FRKO, AKA Freako Rico, (born Richard Montgomery), is an Atlanta-based illustrator mixes comics and hip-hop to create hysterical, often belligerent art. FRKO has drawn multiple album covers for Action Bronson, including the graphic identity for the album Mr. Wonderful, and the artwork for Gucci Mane’s “All My Children.” Recent projects include a group exhibition at THE GALLERY, WISH ATL, titled TRPL-DBL; a collaboration with the creative collective LoveRenaissance to design the iconic Reebok Classics, and drawing a Red Bull can for the Music Culture Clash, Atlanta.



@freakorico
frkopestcontrol.com

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