Exhibit: Funny, You Don't Look Jewish

Funny, You Don’t Look Jewish

Artoons by Jim Wise
Exhibit Dates: November 22, 2024 – January 2, 2025
Artist Wine & Cheese Reception: Thursday, December 19 | 6:00pm

About the Exhibit
This exhibit title – FUNNY, YOU DON’T LOOK JEWISH – refers to his clown artoon.  According to Jim, this particular artoon serves as a good example of how humor can also speak, in a less threatening manner, to an underlying more serious issue – racial and ethnic stereotyping or profiling. In addition to displaying his artoons, Jim’s exhibit utilizes a video of clips that pay tribute to the many great Jewish comedians who have inspired him. All of them have now left us…laughing. Added to the video is a brief animated presentation on the interesting subject of laughter, its physical and mental health benefits, answering such questions as why do we laugh and are humans the only animals who laugh. Finally, Jim has taken the exhibit experience a step further by providing an interactive opportunity for visitors to tap into their own creativity with a caption challenge to come up with their own alternative humorous captions to one of his artoons.

Jim hopes his exhibit may provide visitors with a joyful and meaningful experience. He observes that in these often stressful, rancorous and divisive times, an art project like this might, in some small way, allow us a brief respite to laugh together in our common humanity.

About the Artist
Jim Wise is a man on a mission. The Gambrills, Maryland octogenarian is laser focused on bringing humor and laughter to public spaces through the arts with his gag artoons. What are artoons you ask? Think your basic New Yorker magazine cartoon, only these are on steroids. They’re digitally printed, mounted, framed, massively enlarged, mostly colorized… and funny. All are intended to bring a smile or better yet, an out loud laugh. To accomplish this, Jim has employed two talented local illustrators, Larry Wiedman and Ola Betiku, who bring his creative concepts to life. Back in his old college days, he’d draw his own cartoons, but no longer, admitting his drawing kind of “sucks.”

Jim holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and as a practicing psychologist/psychotherapist now retired, he found humor to be a most valuable tool to create rapport and broach more difficult topics with his patients. He observes that it’s difficult to impossible to stay depressed, angry or anxious when laughing. He even had a large sign hanging in his office that read, PEOPLE WHO SEE DR. WISE SHOULD HAVE THEIR HEAD EXAMINED. Jim is also a novelist and an award- winning playwright, taking first place honors two consecutive years (2012,2013) in the nationally held McLaren Memorial Comedy Playwriting Competition – One Act Division. Jim says he attributes his success here less to his comedy writing skill and more to an uncanny ability of knowing exactly how much to bribe the judges.

More at jimwiseartoons.com