By TREVOR RISK on Aug 10, 2009 in POSTER ART
[Poster Art] Burlesque of North America
Mike Davis is part of a graphic design/screenprinting collective (group? troupe? I dunno…) called Burlesque of North America, and is a self-proclaimed lover of Canada. BoNA are a neat-o assortment of young men who appear to rival the ION staff for the title of having the most fun at their jobs. Here’s the creation story from the mouth of Mike. “I was a freelance graphic designer living in St. Louis, Missouri, and knew Wes through graffiti and Life Sucks Die, a magazine he and some other graffiti writers from Minneapolis were working on. Around 2003, they were no longer working on the magazine but were doing graphic art for hire. St. Louis was getting pretty boring, so I packed up and moved up to the Twin Cities to start Burlesque with Wes and our incredibly talented friends George Thompson, Aaron Horkey, and Todd Bratrud. Wes had been screen-printing in his basement and his posters eventually started to catch on at local shows. I had designed fliers and posters, but never anything for screen-printing, so this was a great chance for me to learn as it was taking off. I’ve been into art my whole life, whether it was cartoons, video game art, action figures, packaging, album covers, graffiti, whatever.” The Twin Cities have Prince, Paul Westerberg, Soul Asylum, and now Burlesque of North America. Saint Paul is the new Berlin.
