Jim Evans/TAZ (Born 1950s) American, Signed and Numbered Green Day 1994 Concert Poster. Lithographic print depicts a pulp-inspired image of a green-hued man struggling against a straight jacket, with dates, times and more information about the performance at the Hollywood Paladium at the bottom and the name of the band across the top. Signed in pencil bottom right. Numbered 86/400 in pencil bottom left. Unframed, wrapped in plastic like Laura Palmer.
Size: 37 1/4 x 20 1/4 in.
Jim Evans was born in San Diego, California some time in the 1950s, and grew up immersed in the surfing culture while attending Oceanside High School, where he played in several local bands. He became interested in art in his junior year, and began creating comic strips for the Los Angeles Free Press and other underground papers, quickly landing a job for Eric Matlen’s Sawyer Press. Evans then began to take commissions doing work in several comic books, including Yellow Dog, and a solo effort titled The Dying Dolphin, released by the Berkeley-based Print Mint. He served in the United States Naval Reserves, learned to play the sitar at Ravi Shankar’s Kinnara School of Music, and studied Kundalini Yoga as an early student of Yogi Bhajan, before attending Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles. He began using the pseudonym TAZ during this period, and became one of the fundamental contributing figures in the visual art movement known as underground comix. The Underground period was followed by a move to the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii, and contributions to both Surfer and Surfing Magazines, as well as illustrating a succession of surfing posters. He began to branch out by making posters for many Australian surf films like On Any Morning and A Winter’s Tale, as well as early Hawaii-specific posters for bands like Santana and Little Feat. Evans returned to the mainland in the 1980s, and became known for his album cover and film poster art and hundreds of rock music posters, in addition to being owner and creative director of the digital marketing group Division 13. His diverse list of band album jackets and posters includes Alice Coltrane, Chicago, The Allman Brothers, Neil Young, The Beach Boys, Beastie Boys, Beck, Green Day, and Toto. A growing interest in film led him to work as an art director, set decorator, and storyboard artist for several films, and eventually an ongoing relationship with Lionsgate Films, making posters for the Saw series and others. An association with Playboy led to a series of silkscreen portraits of celebrities including Sean Connery, David Letterman, and Marilyn Monroe. In 2014 his first one-man show celebrating Evans’ early work was mounted by the Palm Springs Modernism Week in conjunction with Gallery 446 and Eddie Donaldson, and in recent years he has moved into electronic media, founding The Big Gun Project to help budding artists find work in the film, music, and online media industries. Today, Evans resides in Malibu with his wife and business partner Nancy Lucas Evans, and shows no signs of slowing down, embracing new art forms and experimental ideas with the same energy he has for the last sixty years.
