Josh Agle, better known as “Shag,” was born in 1962 and raised in Hawaii and California.
He began doing commercial design work in 1988, which he continues today, though he has scaled it back in favor of his fine arts painting. Shag’s recurring themes of voodoo, devils, musicians and tiki bars are rendered in a graphic 1950s style that owes much to the work of artists Gene Deitch and Saul Bass. He is generally associated with the “lowbrow” art movement which includes artists such as Robert Williams, Mark Ryden, Todd Schorr and Mitch O’Connell and is centered around the La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Hollywood. Shag had his first solo show there in 1998. He has since exhibited in Europe, Australia and Japan as well as many US cities. Shag has illustrated numerous music CDs, appeared in publications including Time and Forbes as well as art magazines like Juxtapoz, and has published two collections of his work, Supersonic Swingers (2000, Outré Gallery Press) and Bottomless Cocktail (2001, La Luz de Jesus Press/Last Gasp). In discussing with Josh a way for him to work Graphic Classics into his busy schedule, Tom Pomplun was struck by the way Shag’s 1950s-style cocktail lounge paintings, executed in the 21st century, fit with Wells’ Le Mari Terrible, a scene at a turn-of-the-last century tea party. Josh agreed, and another Wellsian experiment in time travel is thus presented in Graphic Classics: H.G. Wells. Shag is completing work for solo shows in Tokyo, Sydney, Los Angeles and Dallas, and in August the Brea Museum will host a seven-year retrospective of his work, titled Sophisticated Misfits. Learn more at www.shag-art.com.