Shag (Josh
Agle)
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Leaping Lounge
Lizards, It’s Shag!
It’s a no longer a secret that Shag is the main
hipster artist behind the big retro lounge revival
currently hitting our culture with the force of a
Polynesian typhoon. Are capri pants back in?
You betcha, along with
Audrey Hepburn "do’s", tiki’s, cocktails with
little paper umbrellas and the Jet Set. In
short, the tiki culture of Shag is where secret
agents hobnob with cool chicks on scooters, where
jet setting hipsters hook up with Shriners and
Polynesian Icons, lounging on
Jetsons furniture, sipping a never-ending
cascade of tropical drinks and martinis.
British slang-a-go-go is definitely the nomenclature
of the day.
So, who is this secret agent man behind this hip
revival? It’s Josh Agle, of course. Take
the last two letters of his first name and combine
with the first two letters of his last name and
you’ve got the recipe for Shag.
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He’s everywhere it would seem: books, purses,
clothing, decals, stools, lamps, posters, magazines, organizers,
Hollywood Squares (Whoopie Goldberg, an admirer and client regularly
displays his Cat Paintings in her square). Shag has also been in
negotiation with Universal about an animated series, "Spy Lounge".
Shag recalls going to drive-in movies and how the suave super
agents, gadgets, fast sports cars and underground lairs of the James
Bond films really appealed to him. He wanted to live that life and
he does through his art.
Raised in a strict Mormon family, Shag spent his formative years
bouncing around California, Hawaii and Utah. He credits his Mormon
high school in Utah with instilling in him a strong work ethic
because, he says, he spent sixty hours a week doing school work. Today, even though he’s married - with a young daughter, Shag still
finds time to paint almost seven days a week.
After leaving Cal State Long Beach where he had studied to be an
accountant (his father and his twin brother are both accountants),
he began his career as a commercial artist doing various
illustrations for magazines and record covers. In 1989 he became the
art director for the punk label Doctor Dream. Later, he helped to
start his own label, Mai Tai Records which distributed old ‘60s surf
music, "B" movie soundtracks and the kind of lounge friendly exotica
that you could find in those old 007 movies. The label, like Doctor
Dream, was eventually swallowed up by Polygram Records.
As his commercial art became more and more popular, people began
clamoring for originals. Finally in 1995 he gave in to popular
demand and began painting unique pieces. Wanting his originals to
remain "one of a kind", Shag hesitated reproducing his paintings as
serigraphs and lithographs, but of course, eventually he did and
today his work is reproduced by a number of respected publishers.
Josh augmented his work as an artist with playing in various bands,
going as far back as the mid-eighties with the garage band The Swamp
Zombies. However, one casualty of Shag’s success is that he had to
abandon any hope of being a rock star. He opted out of his surf
band, The Tiki Tones and the Huntington Cads disbanded as well a few
years ago.
These days, demand for Shag originals seems to out distance supply. La Luz de Jesus Gallery says they have a waiting list fifty people
long waiting to plunk down some serious dosh for one of his
paintings. He has sold out shows (many almost before the doors open)
all over in places as diverse as Spain and Germany and has had
one-man exhibitions in such prominent galleries as Outre Gallery in
Melbourne, La Luz de Jesus in Hollywood and BGH Gallery in Santa
Monica.
A major retrospective of his work entitled "Sophisticated Misfits"
was shown at the Brea Museum in Orange County this year as well as a
solo show in Tokyo, Japan.
Commercially, Shag’s illustrations have appeared in such media as
Time, Entertainment Weekly and Forbes. Most recently, Shag has been
spotlighted in The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Barracuda, House
Industries and Lucky Magazine (a shopping magazine brought to you by
the people at Vogue).
Shag products
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