BRIAN MACKIN

Few weeks ago my friend Brian Mackin was running around the office like a chicken with no head. The reason? He had a show few days later in Chicago and he was in the middle of a style book, a shooting for an ad campaign and whatever our lovely brand director Nardelli gave him to do. Brian Mackin is our art director at Zoo York for all the print material we need. On the top of doing his job mad tight, he is an incredible artist, calligrapher and human being. I was lucky to witness in few days and late nights his art coming together. The show was curated by the Fire Belly Design Studio  at the Within (REASON) gallery in Chicago. Here is his motivation to do these pieces for the group show: ” The theme of the show was “change”. I wanted to stay away from the obvious, since in this election cycle the word is thrown around to the point that I’m almost numb to it. Topic of my work centered around labor struggles over time. It’s always been an interesting topic to me. While reading a portion of A Peoples History about many the numerous and massive labor uprisings around the 1870’s, it intrigued me how people were more willing to take action back then if they were getting shit on. Figuratively speaking of course. They stood up and took action to give us what we take for granted today. Everything from working conditions to the 40 hr. work week. My work was inspired by the battles between the have’s and the have not’s, the laborers and the masters, distribution of wealth and power, and simply taking advantage of the opportunity to live and make a difference before you check out.”

All photos are copyright of Brian Mackin:

Work in progress 1

Work in progress part 2

Installation

Rise & Shine

Magic Number

People Over Profit

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