Masterminds Finalist Katie Bush

This Thursday SF Weekly will be hosting Artopia, an art show at Project One featuring the 10 finalists in our annual Masterminds contest. That night, we'll award $2,500 grants to three lucky artists. In the meantime, we'll be previewing the works of the works of the finalists here on All Shook Down.

We knew we'd like Katie Bush when we read her letter to us saying that "her art vagina hurts" after having spent her life "giving birth to a distinct body of creative digital work."

Boing Boing blogger Xeni Jardin describes Bush as "an American artist whose work explores the possibilities of ready-made clip art in a warped, funny, and satirical reevaluation of the American Dream."

Bush's Web sites and supersized digital illustrations are political, but not preachy, thanks to her bawdy sense of humor. Her most recent exhibition, for instance, was inspired by the recent voter-approved ban on gay marriage. The exhibition's title for this serious subject: "You & What Army! Combative Digital Love Squirts by Katie Bush." One large-scale triptych shows, in Bush's words, an ominous Mormon church aiming nuclear missiles "at screaming gay baby heads who projectile vomit color onto ... lesbian cheerleaders." In other words, something for everyone.