A cartoon show will fill the basement of BSMT’s space as of this week. Produced by Irish actor Robert Sheehan who will be appearing in FAULT issue 22, the exhibition will showcase an abundance of cartoons inspired by the Great Depression, courtesy of artist and filmmaker Joe Sangre.

Accurately entitled “The God Damn Beauty Of It All”, Sangre’s work is heavily rooted in the 1930s depression era with a 1980s counterculture aesthetic. Keeping Max Fleischer’s work at the conceptual forefront (also known as the father of animation and no, it wasn’t Disney who thought of it first), the cartoons have their own language and ambiguity.

Born and raised in the suburbs of North London, Sangre’s early years have been heavily influenced by counterculture rebellion amongst youngsters. Artworks from bands like the Black Flag, The Minuteman and Subhumans were formative influences on his early conceptual developments and strokes of it resurface in his work.

The core subject matter of his upcoming show is the 1930s depression era, used merely as a reflection of modern times, as opposed to a sentimental nod. The cartoons emphasise even further the fact that one of the strange characteristics of contemporary bourgeois life is the sheer pleasure we take in inverting it, our darker natures finding pleasure in allusions to misery.

As Sangre said, the fact of the matter is that “using bold images in mainly black ink allow me to take sometimes complex issues or feelings and represent them visually with simplicity, but at the same time leave a certain amount of nuance or ambiguity. I have to remind myself that I’m not making bumper stickers or greeting cards, at least not until Hallmark offer me a good price for my tattered, soiled mattress of a soul.”

The exhibition will be running on 5 Stoke Newington starting December 11^th and will last until the 17^th. The artworks will also be available for purchase at the gallery.