Harlequin, Tony Fitzpatrick; Big Cat Press

Archive Label 2003:
Each of Tony Fitzpatrick’s bugs (Jewell Bug, Dancing Bug, Lopea, Green Bug, Caterpillar, Grasshopper, Harlequin, Wonder Bug, Ladybug, and Cicada) crawls on top of a neon-bright circus atmosphere and is surrounded by its own panoply of cartoon-like characters. The bugs and their human companions live in a doodled thicket of crossword puzzle squares, dice, playing cards, decals, insignia, and tattoos. This series of extraordinary four-color etchings by this “bigger than life” draftsman and printmaker is a continuation of his work in series that are scribbled quickly and that fill each small page elaborately.

Created with the precision of a tattooer’s craft, Fitzpatrick’s colorful, and sometimes threatening, imagery is drawn from Chicago street life, childhood encounters with Roman Catholic icons, field guides, tattoo designs, folk art, children’s books and circus posters. Fitzpatrick is a self-taught artist, former prizefighter, published poet, stage and movie actor, radio talk-show host, designer of award-nominated album covers, former operator of World Tattoo Gallery in Chicago, and co-founder of Big Cat Press there. He has a remarkable gift for imagery that is a mesmerizing blend of technical proficiency and soul.

Exhibition Label:
"Cabinets of Curiosity: Musing About Collections," Jun-2006, Joseph Keehn and Madeline Rislow
Tony Fitzpatrick has done many print series that have interesting correlations with printed series and cycles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These include series of birds, flowers, insects, and an alphabet. Like Hoefnagel’s images of insects and other natural forms of 1592 that are accompanied with moralizing texts (also exhibited here), Fitzpatrick interlaces his prints with background images that consider human motives and behaviors through the wisdom of “street smarts.”

Exhibition Label:
"Sum of the Parts: Recent Works on Paper," Jun-2001, Stephen Goddard
Early printmaking has many connections with the human impulse to catalogue and organize knowledge. For example, in the field of natural history prints were often used to carefully record taxonomic details. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there were many sets of prints dedicated to botanical specimens, insects, and shells. Some of this encyclopedic impulse still animates Fitzpatrick's wonderful color etchings of insects, but the lexicon is now sreet-wise and includes bits of graffitti and tattoo art.