Molly Crabapple Illustration

Molly Crabapple is a downtown phenomenon.-The New York Times

The Short Version

* Fine artist.
* Illustrator for fine places like Marvel Comics, the New York Times, Red Bull, and the Wall Street Journal – as well as Neil Gaiman, The Box, SXSW, and your neighborhood fire eater.
* Comics Creator behind Straw House (First Second Books, 2013) and Puppet Makers (DC Comics, 2011)
* Creator of Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School, a worldwide movement of alt.drawing salons in over 120 cities.
* Speaker at places like the Museum of Modern Art, The Brooklyn Museum, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Sao Paulo’s Pixel Art Fair and South by Southwest Interactive.
* Caffeine addict.

The Long Version

Molly Crabapple’s hyper-detailed compositions are something akin to a Where’s Waldo diptych—on a 7-day bender. If Dr. Seuss backtracked through the time-space continuum and commissioned Toulouse-Lautrec to reimagine his storybooks, the resulting mayhem would approximate Crabapple’s spiraling scenes of sex, ambition and artifice.

From her auto-didactical beginnings in a Parisian bookstore—where she cultivated her signature aesthetic by copying pages from A Tart’s Progress—Molly sketched her way through Morocco and Kurdistan…and once into a Turkish jail.

Spurred by a desire to de-sterilize the buttoned-up art school scene, Molly founded Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School, a celebratory mash-up of cabaret and live drawing. Now in its 6th year—with branches in over a hundred cities—Dr. Sketchy’s global trajectory continues to accelerate. Molly’s brand of off-grid entrepreneurship caught the attention of major media outlets, securing cover stories and featured profiles in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Post, Playboy, AP Wire, NPR, and hundreds of other media outlets around the world.

No stranger to nightlife (or notoriety), Molly collaborates with avant-garde performers and underground theatrical venues across the globe, occupying the enviable post of House Artist for The Box, one of the world’s most infamous nightclubs. Her latest contribution to The Box—a 90-foot mural for the club’s London branch—required a painstaking application of graffiti, sandpaper, and splattered burnt sienna paint, on surfaces ranging from enamel tiles to raw linen.

Molly’s first graphic novel, the steampunk saga Puppet Makers, was released electronically by DC Comics in 2011, and her forthcoming Straw House will be issued by First Second Books in 2013. With close-woven ties to comic book sub-culture, it comes as no surprise that Crabapple’s celebrity fans include Hugo Award-winning graphic novelist Neil Gaiman—as well as musician Moby and comedian Margaret Cho.

At 28, the New York City-based artist has spoken to throngs of admirers at the Museum of Modern Art, The Brooklyn Museum, and heavyweight galleries and universities from Helsinki to Sao Paulo. Her client roster includes The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Red Bull, Marvel Comics, and a few less-respectable patrons.

Molly adores absinthe, circus performers, leather-bound books and crowquill pens. She is deeply entrenched in plots of world domination, but will (temporarily) set aside her stratagems for commissioned projects…and impromptu trips to Paris.

Do you want to interview Molly for a paper, zine, webzine, radio show, or any other media? [email protected].

Got questions? Comments? Allegations about her past? Email them to [email protected].

My Artiste’s Statement

I learned to draw in a Parisian bookstore. My pen and ink technique comes from hours spent copying Alice in Wonderland and A Tart’s Progress. I soon fell in love with the feel of making ink lines – the crackle of the paper, the scratch of the pen nib, the sensual pleasure in drawing a curve.

Back in New York I came across the subject most dear to my heart – artifice. As a model, I work in an industry where girls turn their bodies into art objects. It’s a beauty doubly poignant because it’s so short-lived. Most girls won’t last past thirty. My time as a burlesque dancer showed me plain women emerging from the club’s dressing room as goddesses. Through paint, feathers and pasties, they made themselves gorgeous. It’s beauty as a garment, a shell, a mask.

In the two time periods I draw from most in my work – Victorian England and Rococo France – people tried to make their entire public lives as artificial as a burlesque dancer’s face. My characters, bewigged aristocrats and corseted ladies, are creatures of the polished surface. They’re molded by ornament – their corsets and cage skirts – and sometimes trapped inside.

But as with any mask, there’s a face underneath. And the face in my work is smirking. For any mask, or mask like society, has a weakness. If you want to crack it, you only have to laugh. Thus, my characters have arched brows and sarcastic smiles. They want to let you in on a secret. It’s all terribly silly, isn’t it?

Selected Solo and Group Exhibitions:
“This is What Democracy Looks Like” New York University (NYC)
“The Art of Drawing” Rugby Art Museum (Rugby, United Kingdom)
“Re:Form School’ curated by Yosi Sergant (New York City)
PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature. Five Day live art installation (New York City)
“Manifest Equality” curated by Yosi Sergant (Hollywood)
Son of Baby Tattooville at The Riverside Art Museum (Riverside) 2009, 2011
Thinkspace Gallery (Los Angeles)
Upper Playground (Los Angeles)
Giant Robot Gallery (New York City)
Gallery 1988 (Hollywood)
Copro Nasan Gallery (Hollywood)
Cabinet des Curieux (Paris)
Vanguard Art Fair at Art Basel Miami (2008)
A & D Gallery (London)
Museum of Sex
Last Rites Gallery (New York)
Ad Hoc Art (5 Person Show, 2008, multiple group shows 2009)
Perihelion Arts (solo show, 2006)
Trinity Art Gallery (solo show, 2007)
Fountain Art Fair at Art Basel Miami (2007)
Deitch Art Parade (2007, 2008)

Selected Clients:
New York Times
Wall Street Journal
Marvel Comics
DC Comics
Bloomberg Corporation
Harper Collins
South by Southwest Interactive
Neil Gaiman’s Neverwear
Red Bull
Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art
Belvedere Vodka
The Box

Books:
Scarlett Takes Manhattan (with John Leavitt, published by Blowfish, 2009)
Dr. Sketchy’s Official Rainy Day Colouring Book (with John Leavitt, published by Sepulculture Books, 2007)

Anthologies:
Occupy! Scenes from Occupied America (Verso Books. Edited by n+1)
Illustration Now! 4 (Taschen, 2011)
The Art of Sketch Theatre (2011)
Heroes and Villains (2011)
Semi-Permanent (2009)
Curvy (Australian anthology of top 100 female artists, 2007)
The Comic and Cartoon Book

Collections:
The Groucho Club. London
The New York Historical Society

Awards:
Shortlisted for Groucho Award. 2011. London
Fleshbot Award. 2011. New York