Washington, D.C.- Curator’s Office is delighted to present “Johnathan Monaghan: Sacrifice of the Mushroom Kings”, on view from January 14th through February 18th 2012, with an opening reception on Saturday, January 14th from 6:30 to 8 pm. This is the the first debut solo exhibition of Jonathan Monaghan, a young and innovative artist working at the cutting edge of animation. The exhibition includes an 8 minute computer animated film and two prints derived from the CGI film. The artist is a self-avowed video game fanatic and was highly influenced by video games from his youth, such as Super Mario Brothers and Street Fighter. Monaghan plucks and alters the characters and environments from these games to create a new narrative. Succinctly describing the film, the artist says, “Sacrifice of the Mushroom Kings depicts a lamb and bull’s journey through my own version of Super Mario’s Mushroom Kingdom. The film combines elements from iconic video games with a myriad of references, such as Wall Street, the Metropolitan Club, Bizet’s Carmen, and hair products. Taking a comparative mythology approach to certain aspects of contemporary culture, the film aims to mediate basic oppositions such as good and evil, life and death, and reality and fantasy.”