The Artcade Show Opens Tonight at Parazol Studios in Downtown Phoenix

By Benjamin Leatherman Fri., Feb. 1 2013 at 7:00 AM

Categories: Visual Art

Continued from page 1

Sekoia's rendition of Sir Charles on an NBA Jam cabinet.

That's been one of the main focuses of Artcade, Paredes says. The pair wanted to spruce up their collection of more than 50 games, which they began collecting and restoring more than two years ago with the intent of opening an arcade in Phoenix.

"We were thinking, 'Why would we want to have the games look like they did back in the day?" Most of our friends that are artists could play this machine and get some great ideas off of it," he says.

Most of the redesigned cabinets reflect a hybrid of the game itself with an individual artist's chosen medium and particular aesthetic, Paredes says.

Local muralist Sekoia, for example, amped up the '90s basketball game NBA Jam with a depiction of onetime Phoenix Suns superstar Charles Barkley dunking on top of former L.A. Lakers center Vlade Divac. Pablo Luna, on the other hand, covered the sides of the World War II-themed shooter 1943 with some of his signature skeletons flying fighter planes in an airborne dogfight. And Spencer Hibert, adorned the 1982 Williams Electronics classic Robotron 2084 with an "an amazing design" that was digitally created.

Some of the artwork, however, has little to do with the game, like when Sierra Joy decked out a sit-down version of Tetris with a series of kinky, twisted lines and a dreamy mural of clouds and mountains.