Rodney Sellars is a beloved local artist whose Sci-Fi Art Nouveau illustrations have graced the walls of many alternative gallery spaces. Additionally, he’s a singer, songwriter, and guitarist whose current project, Icons of Andria, uses a series of songs to tell a story set in the fantasy world he’s created through his art.
Sellars’ work will be on exhibition tonight from 6PM to 9PM in an empty store front located at 4242 Atlantic as part of December’s Bixby Knolls First Friday. Sharing the space will be Toaster Music, an experimental electronica duo I’m in with musical cohort Sumako, who is curating the art exhibition as well. Next week, Sellars’ work will move next door to Esquire Grooming, where it will continue to be exhibited for the month.
As a kid, Sellars first found inspiration in the original 1977 Star Wars, old heavy metal magazines, and Frank Herbert’s Dune, but he caught the drawing bug at 6, when someone showed him how to draw a dragster.
“The simplicity and smoothness of that machine made drawing seem so simple. I spent a whole summer in Alaska drawing Storm Trooper helmets, must have been ten years old. A teenage artist kid said ‘That’s not bad for a beginner.’ I thought they were better than that, but I think a nod from a ‘big Kid’ really inspired me.”
Sellars eagerly took art classes all through Junior High and High School.
“My art teachers let me get away with murder! I even had a Spanish teacher that liked my work so much he said ‘Show up everyday and I’ll give you a ‘C’. don’t bother with the Spanish.’ Yeah, I got kinda spoiled by the art teachers!”
It wasn’t all roses for Sellars, though.
“I was drawing in art class after school, kinda sad cause it seemed like all I ever did was draw. My teacher was cleaning up and he said ‘Well Rodney, don’t feel so bad. You could have been born a black person! Look how funny looking they are!.’ This was 1986! ‘WTF’ wasn’t a thing yet but my teenage brain said ‘Oh, give me a break! The one adult I respect is some kind of Nazi Aesthetic weirdo!’ Just then, the bloodshot-eyed African American janitor walked in. My teacher smiled at me and said ‘Looks like we better finish the conversation later!’ Talk about shattered dreams!”
Sellars didn’t think twice about pursuing art in college, and so attended the San Francisco Art Institute.
“Kids were getting naked and lighting things on fire! I didn’t do any good art in college but it was and amazing experience! I had A really cool performance art teacher who said ‘If you look at all the famous artists in the world, about 50% went to art school, so it makes absolutely no difference that you’re here. It’s all about the people you meet and the connections you make!'”
Sadly, Sellars didn’t meet or make connections with many people.
“I’m not really a ‘people’ guy. My work is madness! It doesn’t help me in ‘real life’ at all! It’s more like an obsessive dream than something my friends or family would admire.”
One of the things I like about Sellars’ work is that, aside from the style, it feels like he’s drawing a real world that exists somewhere else. It feels very cohesive and well thought-out.
“I can see this world so vividly in my head! I’ve been calling it Rodinia. I got the name from a super-continent that supposedly existed before Pangea. Plus, the name means ‘Homeland’ in Russian, and is also kinda sounds like my name. People have called it ‘Rodney Land’ so I figured Rodinia had to be!”
Sellars has also pursued a parallel development which, to me, seems well connected with his visual art: Music.
“The Year Zero [with Lili de la Mora] had a lot of the dream world in it but, with Icons of Andria, we’re actually trying to make a musical version of the actual world. I write the music and lyrics, and my friends Ken [Negrete] and Fabi [Fabiola Sanchez] from Familiar Trees create the world. Fabi is the voice of a mythic android girl, and Ken creates the planet she is on.
“It’s kind of a dark solution story, but it’s also a spiritual analogy. Basically this future world is poisoned, and a human boy is dying because of it. He finds an android woman who wants to save him. The only way she can do so is by transforming him into an machine like herself. I think it’s my futuristic paranoia that machines will either be the death of us all, or our saviors!”
To check out Rodney Sellars’ artwork, visit his Deviant Art Page.
You can also hear songs by Icons of Andria on SoundCloud.
You can ‘friend’ Esquire Grooming on Facebook.
To check out photos, videos, and music by Toaster Music, visit their facebook page.
To learn about the various First Friday festivities, including the massive Uptown Village Market in the Expo Arts Center, visit firstfridayslongbeach.com.
The exhibition and performance are organized by LVXEdge.com.
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