Commentary and caricature join in Caplanis' artwork

Mike Caplanis' "Mount Rushmore of the Blues" is at L Ross Gallery.

In "Work and Play," his second exhibition at L Ross Gallery, Virginia-based illustrator Mike Caplanis initiates droll, pithy commentaries about American pop culture.

Caplanis, an advertising agency veteran who has contributed illustrations to newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post and the Philadelphia Inquirer, as well as magazines like the Oxford American, American History, and Yankee, uses a simple currency -- ink and gauche wash -- to tell rich tales about familiar icons ranging from writer F. Scott Fitzgerald to blues musician Lightnin' Hopkins.

Mike Caplanis' "Mount Rushmore of the Blues" is at L Ross Gallery.

Stylistically, Caplanis occupies a territory that shares borders with the oeuvre of the great, English-born illustrator Ralph Steadman, comic artist Drew Friedman, and master of gauche Maira Kalman. Conceptually, however, he's in a league of his own.

"He's got such a funny, wacky mindset," says gallery owner Linda Ross, pointing to the random groupings in various illustrations, such as "The Great Stevies of Rock and Roll," a caricature of Stevie Wonder, Stevie Winwood, Stevie Nicks, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, and "Surprising Spies," a portrait that includes Julia Child and Marlene Dietrich as unlikely emissaries during World War II.

"It's a way to get past the first level of what I'm doing -- the caricatures -- and making something slightly larger, more conceptual," Caplanis says of the work.

Memphians will enjoy the caricatures of Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley, who share space in "Sons of Sun," a portrait of the Million Dollar Quartet, and "Mount Rushmore of the Blues," a telling illustration that depicts a doleful Robert Johnson sandwiched between Son House, Leadbelly, and a squinty-eyed Blind Lemon Jefferson, all eight hands struggling to dominate a single guitar.

For some of his work, Caplanis wrinkles the "canvas" of layout paper; other times, he stains it with coffee or tea. It's a sublime process that he uses to great effect in his single portraits. Take the caricature of a young, piercingly blue-eyed Eudora Welty, where the texture foreshadows the wrinkles and wattles of her later years.

"I'll do a sketch, and if I like it, I destroy it," says Caplanis. "I crunch the thing up, ball it up and flatten it out, over and over again. Then I dry mount it to a good surface and go back at it with coffee, tea, Clorox, colored pencils, and pastels to negotiate with the surface."

He plays with his subject's biographies as well, weaving impossible lies into slim paragraphs of text that float across the page.

In Caplanis' world, blues guitarist Albert King approached Martin Luther King Jr. with a concept for a performance of "The Three Kings," including B.B. King and Freddie King, during the 1963 March on Washington. Singer Billie Holiday is portrayed as "mean and hard and tough as nails," and an imbiber of the Matamoros Sunrise, a cocktail comprised of cocaine and tequila. Jazz bassist Charlie Mingus insisted that his $650,000 double bass be buried alongside him, and Jelly Roll Morton's nephew turned the family bakery into a Dairy Queen.

"The thing about the tequila and the cocaine was true, but that was Stevie Ray Vaughan's drink; it didn't originate with Billie Holiday," Caplanis says.

"I knew a guy who knew music, and I know he did buy his bass airplane seats. We call 'em lies now, but if this stuff lives on, maybe we can more charitably refer to 'em as myths."

Mike Caplanis, "Work and Play"

At L Ross Gallery, 5040 Sanderlin Ave., Suite 104. Through Feb. 28. For more information, go to www.LrossGallery.com or call 767-2200.

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