Less than a year after the very first Art of Furry Fandom display opened at the Avant Garden Art Gallery in Santa Ana, California, the furries are back with a new exhibit — open now through the month of April. Once again curated by your own humble ed-otter and Mark Merlino, this year’s display features artwork by Steven Martin, Rivercoon, and Sherwood, as well as photography by Changa Lion. The art went up in time for the monthly Santa Ana Art Walk (every first Saturday), one of the biggest in Orange County, and the place was packed. The Avant Garden is located downstairs in the historic Santora Building (Ground Zero for the Santa Ana Artist Colony area) at 207 North Broadway Santa Ana, CA 92701. Call them at (714) 558-8843 or visit their web site for the gallery hours.

Flayrah has published announcements of several art exhibitions at the WWA gallery in Culver City, California. The exhibition “The Happiest Show on Earth” will be on display there from September 7th through October 5th, with an opening reception on Saturday, September 7th from 7–10 p.m.

“The Happiest Show on Earth” consists of 89 paintings by 54 artists, showing their interpretations of famous Walt Disney characters including many anthropomorphic ones – Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, the Cheshire Cat, Robin Hood and Little John, Goofy, Bambi, and more. You can guess the general artistic approach by some of the artists’ pseudonyms: Beast Brothers, GORElla, Kill the Giant, and Super Ugly. Would you pay three and four figures for these? Here they all are; you can buy them online at the link above.

Mark Merlino and his friend Rod O'Riley might be called "first wave" furries from original geek culture, when that meant underground comics, fanzines and pen-pals. They held the first parties that turned into conventions, and WikiFur calls them "founding members of organized furry fandom." Mark owns The Prancing Skiltaire.

Rod's most recent accomplishment is The Art of Furry Fandom, at Avantgarden art gallery in Santa Ana, CA. It opens concurrently with this year's Califur, this weekend. In his journal, Mark calls it a dream he's had for over 30 years.

According to the gallery:

AVANTGARDEN is proud to present "Women Desperately Seeking Escape...a Series" photographically captured on film and digitally by ELLEN SEEFELDT. We also welcome JAY RIGGIO'S hand cut pasted collage work, SHARLYNORA WILKINSON's paintings, and The Art of Furry Fandom, curated by RODNEY STANSFIELD. This exhibit runs June 1–29, opening reception June 1, 7–10pm.

Mark reminded me of a similar show in 2012 in San Jose during Further Confusion, with "more artists, more art, same kind of independent gallery". Actually, there were two: a Slave Labor Graphics show, and "People-Shaped Animals" at Kaleid Gallery.

Between May 30th and June 2nd, UK fans of comics and graphic novels can attend the BD (bande dessinée) & Comics Passion 2013, a series of events at the Institut Français in Queensberry Place, south-west London. [Facebook page]

The programme includes film screenings, artist talks and drawing workshops for children, teenagers and adults. There's not much on the menu that's explicitly furry, but the festival logo should appeal if nothing else! [Trailer]

Back in March 2012, Flayrah had a post about the “Gag Me With a Toon 4” art exhibition at the WWA art gallery in Culver City, California.

Now the WWA gallery has “Gag Me With a Toon 5” coming up, on May 4–June 1, 2013. Over fifty artists will be represented with their tributes to the cartoon stars of their youths.

Past paintings have included Scooby-Doo with a gun to his head, Smurf orgies, Mickey Mouse defying the universe, Garfield and Odie on an Indiana Jonesish rollercoaster, Chip ‘n Dale as two realistic chipmunks in a Rescue Rangers situation, and more.

As always, the anthropomorphic animals will be outnumbered by the human cartoon pop-cultural stars like Superman, the Flintstones, G.I. Joe, Wonder Woman, Jem, etc., but there will be enough cartoon animals to satisfy Flayrah’s readers.

This is extremely short notice, but this Saturday (6-10PM) the Van Eaton Galleries in the Sherman Oaks suburb of Los Angeles are holding the opening reception for The HB Show, “a group art show tribute to Hanna-Barbera” of paintings by numerous artists including some of HB’s former staff. The paintings are mostly of HB’s human characters such as the Flintstones and Penelope Pitstop, but there are some of Yakky Doodle, Scooby-Doo, Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, and H-B's other anthropomorphic animal characters.

More importantly, the whole art show/auction is online. You can still see it all and bid on unsold paintings.

The HB Show will be up at the Van Eaton Galleries, 13613 Ventura Boulevard, Sherman Oaks, Calif. 91423, (800) 599-3693, until April 20 (Adolf Hitler’s birthday! Is this significant?), so if you can get there, you can still see it all even after the art auction. And, of course, the Van Eaton Galleries have other animation goodies on display.

Wired has an announcement of LOLCat: Teh Exhibishun, avant-garde and funky cat images by 45 artists at the Framers Gallery, 36 Windmill Street, London W1T 2JT, from 23 January to 15 February 2013.

Fortunately for those who cannot get to London, the Wired article contains 27 of the pieces, and the link to the Framers Gallery’s website shows 39 of them. Click on the Exhibitors’ names to see their websites which contain many more works, some anthropomorphic.

The WWA Gallery, which featured the “Gag Me With a Toon 4” art exhibition last March & April, has a new exhibition: “Creepy Cute”, from January 12th through February 9th, 2013, featuring seven artists and sixty-six paintings.

All the paintings are shown on and may be purchased from the gallery's website. The majority are not anthropomorphic, but check out Dee Chavez’s “Buttercup Farm” showing a giant buttercup strangling a whale ($625), her “Mister Carrot” showing a hat-wearing raccoon holding a large carrot ($575), her “Nightwatchmen” showing anthropomorphized somethings ($500), or her “The Haul” showing insects driving a loaded wagon ($475); or Desiree Fessler’s dapper ferrets; or Larkin’s “Johann the Story Tailor” showing an Edwardian-dressed fox ($450), and others. Some of the non-anthro paintings may also be to your taste, such as Jonathan Bergeron’s “Skull Anamoly 6” showing a three-eyed, horned, red human skull ($550).

The Cartoon Brew website announces that the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts Gallery is presenting an exhibit, “DreamWorlds: Behind the Scenes, Production Art from DreamWorks Animation” from July 30 through September 7.

DreamWorks’ works include more than just anthropomorphic animals, of course (Prince of Egypt, anyone?), but there has been SO MUCH anthropomorphization in its 24 features!

The exhibition includes more than one hundred digital prints and approximately thirty traditional paintings and drawings on paper; two miniature sets; three character maquettes; two set pieces – an 8? high Kung Fu Panda “Po” statue and the new Rise of the Guardians standee; and three media stations displaying animation tests, stereo footage, and the Rise of the Guardians trailer. There will also be a contemporary animation work station on display, with demonstrations given by current Hench-DADA students.

Wired has a gallery of twenty works in a Seattle art exhibition open June 16–July 22, “Rayguns and Robots!” (with an exhibition poster partially inspired by Planet of the Apes), at James Monosmith’s Ltd. Art Gallery.

The exhibit, curated by Chris Jackson, consists of over seventy pieces by forty-one artists, “dedicated to art influenced by the sci-fi stylings of the 1940s and 1950s.”

Most of the paintings, sculptures, and vinyl toys are not anthropomorphic, but check out Mikeatron!’s painting of a Godzilla-like monster skipping rope in the radioactive ruins of Tokyo, Chet Phillips’ “MST3k Attacks”, “They Came From Beyond Space” by Ken Keirns, “Back to the River, Back to the Forest” by Patrick Maxcy, and “Captain Qwendolth Blazar and the Thing From Beyond” by Tyler Parker.

Don’t look now, but My Little Pony has invaded the world of cool urban art. Actually, they did a long time ago, but with the phenomenal success of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, people’s awareness of ponies as fine art has grown by leaps and bounds. So folks are expecting quite a turn-out for this month’s My Little Pony Project  in Los Angeles, California. Headquartered at the Toy Art Gallery (7571 Melrose Avenue), My Little Pony Project 2012 features 2D and 3D high art from a variety of artists, all dedicated to their interpretations of My Little Pony — the current show and previous incarnations. This year, the gallery is hooking up with several local retail stores in the Melrose high fashion district (including Munky King, Japan L.A., and Joyrich) to display pony art and pony materials. Two of the sponsors of the month-long event (which started today and ends May 26th) include t-shirt maker We Love Fine and DVD maker Shout Factory. Juxtapoz Magazine has a good write-up on their site explaining it all.

Less than a month after the Corey Helford Gallery in Culver City, California held its “Animal Kingdom” exhibition of Josh Agle’s Furry-inspired paintings, the WWA Gallery, also in Culver City’s Art District, is holding its “Gag Me With a Toon 4” exhibition, from March 17 to April 21, of paintings by different artists irreverently inspired by “last century’s” animated cartoon and comic book characters.

The majority of the paintings in this exhibition feature non-anthropomorphic characters like Superman, George & Jane Jetson, Boris Badenov & Natasha Fatale, and Fred Flintstone. But there are enough paintings of cartoon animals like the Angry Beavers, the Animaniacs, Beany and Cecil, Chip ‘n’ Dale, Garfield, Gossamer, Heathcliff, Mickey Mouse, Mighty Mouse, Roger Rabbit, Scooby Doo, and the ThunderCats to make “Gag Me With a Toon 4” of interest to Furry fans.

The Corey Helford Gallery, in Culver City, California, is to play host to an exhibition by painter Josh Agle, also known as "Shag".

Entitled Animal Kingdom, the exhibition will display a number of Agle's paintings, created in his distinctive retro style. Each features one or more characters dressed as animals, including feline women, equine men, a boy dressed as a lamb, and men sporting antlers.

Agle found inspiration in the furry subculture and anime fandom:

I love looking into subcultures. [...] I love that people throw themselves into it wholeheartedly

Agle was particularly inspired by fursuiters, the subset of the furry fandom which dresses up in costumes, and intrigued by the notion that "people are 'hooking up' in costume at furry conventions":

In my paintings, I always try to reference our connection to our prehistoric selves as human beings. Since we're descended from earlier mammals, maybe these people are more in touch with their primal being.

Animal Kingdom's initial reception is scheduled for February 11; the show ends on the 29^th.

Two galleries in downtown San Jose will be hosting open-to-the-public furry art shows concurrent with Further Confusion 2012, from January 12 (Thursday) to 21 (Saturday).

The stated objective of these shows is to get high-quality furry art out in the public, and to introduce San Jose's downtown gallery scene to the wealth of furry artwork. Local news media representatives will be invited to visit.

There is an open call for artwork, including con-badges, which will be printed by the show; the submission deadline is December 31. The shows are being organized independently of Further Confusion by its Art Track events lead, B. Root, creator of webcomic The Dawn Chapel.

The KALEID gallery and comic book publishers Slave Labor Graphics are hosting the shows.