Love at First Crawl

Aramis Gutierrez lights the fuse on the year’s first Wynwood arts crawl with an arsenal of combustible works that revel in the uncanny and grotesque. “Even Now, in the Final Hour of My Life, I’m Falling in Love Again,” opening tonight at 7 at the David Castillo Gallery (2234 NW Second Ave., Miami), features the painter’s searing canvases fueled by lurid narratives of untimely death and corruption. A Gutierrez love letter to Eighties Miami depicts a drug runner racing a cyclone on rough seas. Another work captures a pair of bimbos brawling poolside beneath a spectacular sunset, and yet another canvas drips with menace as a prehistoric shark attacks two fishermen on a tiny skiff. Saints, preserve us! See it through February 2. Call 305-573-8110, or visit www.castilloart.com.

Over at Locust Projects (105 NW 23rd St., Miami) London-born artist Graham Hudson unveils his site-specific installation created from found and purchased objects. It incorporates sculpture, light, and hypnotic sound elements played on turntables that twirl light bulbs. In the project room, L.A.’s Aili Schmeltz has used string and nails to create a topographical 3-D map of Miami titled The Magic City, which harks back to 1970s string art or those funky dime-store DIY art kits Granny gave us for Christmas. Through February 29. Call 305-576-8570, or visit www.locustprojects.org.
Sat., Jan. 12, 2008