Moment of Friday: Michelle Andrade in praise of Joan Rivers, Sarah Silverman

On pieces of ruled notebook paper, L.A. artist Michelle Andrade creates works that play with color and language. An exploding arrangement of lavender and purple geometric forms are layered with the bubbly phrase “Not Everyone is Great.” An architectural framework of bubbles in a 1970s color palette features the words “Please Don’t Outshine Me.” Flowers and a shooting pink star top the slogan “Vodka Forever.”

In many cases, the phrases reveal peculiar anxieties about success, recognition and even health. (An image done in rusts and reds reads “Now Comes the Biopsy.”) But in their design, the images are cheerful: bulbous fonts, cute flowers, bright stars, effervescent circles — all of which seem to jump off the page in ways that evoke 1960s and ‘70s graphic elements. (Think album covers or the opening credits of “Schoolhouse Rock.”)

Andrade likes to work with words: “Everyday phrases and phrases that are taken out of context from conversations,” she explains. But she also plays with tone, presenting often weighty topics in cute and funny ways. “It’s really about taking a situation that might be dark and giving it a cheerful aesthetic.”

For this reason, the artist is a fan of comedians like Joan Rivers and Sarah Silverman, who often do the same thing with their comedy.

“Rivers will talk about abortion and you’re like, ‘Why am I laughing?’” says Andrade. “She was so funny and brave and touched on subjects that might be dark, but she made them funny. And Silverman is clearly related to her when it comes to her comedy. They’re both really funny smart women.”

In fact, Andrade says she often plays stand-up comedy, as well as interviews with comedians, while she’s working in the studio, catching snippets of the dialog as she works.

The video embedded above, from Rivers’ Internet series “In Bed With Joan,” is one of Andrade’s favorites, and it consists of a rambling conversation between the two comedians, touching on comedy, race, men, women’s bodies and the time Rivers got escorted out of the BBC’s studios for using an unsavory phrase to describe actor Russell Crowe. There is even a spat at the end (though it’s hard to tell if it’s a set-up or real).

“I like seeing the conversation that happens between the two,” Andrade says. “I grew up watching Joan Rivers do stand-up, and of course I’m familiar with Silverman’s work. But here you see a different side of them. I like to hear about the process.”

Andrade is now prepping her latest solo exhibition at the Charlie James Gallery in L.A.’s Chinatown, which is set to open on Nov. 1. The show will feature new notebook-style pieces, along with paintings made in a similar style. As always, all of the work is text-based. And it, too, channels dark preoccupations in lively ways.

“One of my paintings says, ‘You Were Too Good For This World,’ and it’s painted in these really bright fluorescent colors,” Andrade says. “There are all of these pinks and yellows.”

In the studio, she continues to listen to a diet of radio, comedy and interviews such as the one above. Like music, she says, “it’s sort of soothing to me.”

“Michelle Andrade: Kind of Blue” opens at Charlie James Gallery on Nov. 1 at 7 p.m., 969 Chun King Road, Chinatown, Los Angeles, cjamesgallery.com.

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