FUTURE ARTS 2008

By RAPHAEL LUCKOM

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Ever since the big bang, the future has been the coolest thing going. Now, with 25 local and out-of-town artists set to exhibit in Future Classic's Future Arts show, the focus is finally where it should be. Featuring urban artwork—mostly with roots firmly in freehand graff and stencil work—the show includes the work of musicians, tattooists and fashion designers with an eye for the place of art in modern life. They bring a wide range of styles from an equally wide range of situations. Kenji Nakayama, a Japanese immigrant, renders the back alleys, hidden squares and train yards of the city oddly serene with his careful, intricate stencils. Andy Regan, a tattoo artist working in Quincy, ventures into the cliché-ridden world of Ukiyo-e-influenced Western art and returns with images that combine the best of both; elegant, nearly candid scenes awash in color. Sara Theophall's oil paintings and fabric collages make excellent use of texture to coax meaning from abstraction. Future Arts promises to live up to its name—if there's one thing the artists all have in common, it's a sense of wonder at what the world is becoming. Hold out for flying cars and space travel if you want, but the future's a great time to be an artist.

[Sat. 4.19 8pm-1am/21+/$10 adv., $20 dos. Boston Center for the Arts, 539 Tremont St., 617.256.4093. futureclassic.net]