Artist Christina Paulos plays a mixed deck. She's a painter and a cartoon animator. She also draws on both her Japanese and Portuguese family backgrounds to inspire her art.
With her new show, Who Cares for You? (You're nothing but a pack of cards!), at The Fallout gallery in downtown Las Vegas' Arts District, Paulos is showing a straight suit of influences. Along a long wall of the gallery, 48 small oil-on-wood paintings -- grouped in hands of four -- display a dreamlike mix of floral and animal designs along with a stylized pair of twins that are frequent motifs in Paulos' works.
At an April 20 opening reception, Paulos explained her exhibition.
"The show is based on Japanese hanafuda cards. They were brought by the Portuguese to Japan," Paulos said.
Paulos explained that the design of the original European cards was adapted to traditional Japanese aesthetics during Japan's isolationist period of 1641 to 1853.
"I wanted to reintroduce the Portuguese background (into the cards) ... all the things that got lost through history. Also it's a card game, so I thought it was appropriate in Vegas," she said.
During the June 1 closing reception, actual hanafuda cards will be available and gallery visitors will be able to learn and play Japanese card games, all within sight of Paulos’ vivid imagery.
Who Cares for You? (You're nothing but a pack of cards!)
Paintings by Christina Paulos
The Fallout gallery, 269-3111
Through June 2
LasVegasWeekly.com writer Greg Thilmont is constantly prowling Las Vegas with a notebook, digital camera and videocamera -- along with a mind for interesting happenings. Contact him at [email protected]