We Love You So – Where The Wild Things Are – Spike Jonze

McDonald’s PlayPlaces, tree houses, Nintendo, inflatable pools: these are the uniquely youthful worlds that serve as backdrops for Khalif Kelly’s staggering, nostalgic paintings. Freezing forgotten childhood moments of both the frenzied and docile variety, Kelly’s work is like a pre-raphealite rendering of Peanuts. His subjects’ gracefully expressive poses to seem hint at the dramatic depth lurking beneath youthful playacting.

A playground fight could be a monumental development for the children in Kelly’s paintings– a Radio Flyer ride has the power to transform identities, and an enterprising drink stand might shape attitudes about gender, race, and politics. Treading a line between the personal and archetypal, draped in drama but sharply comic, Kelly’s work seems to invite interpretation and intentionally push buttons to illicit a range of surprising emotions.

Thierry Goldberg Projects in NYC will be opening a Khalif Kelly solo show on September 9th.

Does anyone lay claim to the knowledge of all the Peanuts-related merchandise ever created? Someone knows. Someone out there has that information in their mind. We’d have to track them down and ask them, but something tells me the Peanuts Cook Book has got to be in the top ten raddest peripheral objects ever derived from the imagination of Charles Schulz. Recipes include:

Lucy’s Lemon Squares
Great Pumpkin Cookies
Security Cinnamon Toast
Charlie Brown’s Mother’s Buttered Oven-Potatoes

Paula Deen who? It’s all about Lucy with her Divine Divinity and Snoopy’s Steak Tartar. Found via Kitsch’n.