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Grove City resident Dan Gerdeman's hauntingly uplifting art is being featured this month at MadLab Theatre, one of Columbus' more avant-garde venues.

A collection of five of Gerdeman's paintings will hang in the theater lobby through March 25 as part of the theater's "big ideas, small works" exhibit. All the works displayed in the exhibit are no larger than 18-inches by 18-inches.

Gerdeman's paintings are a juxtaposition of a dark, black and white cartoon-type character, a vibrant, single-color background and a short phrase rising in a large white speech or thought bubble near the center of the piece.

He uses latex and acrylic paints, usually on black panel, though some of his work is on black canvas.

"I start with a black canvas and I work it up from black," he said. "If I start with a white canvas, I'm stuck."

He said he adopted the style as a student in a printmaking class when he was attending Bowling Green State University, where he majored in Art Education with a printmaking minor.

By using a combination of three different types of image -- dark, bright and text -- Gerdeman said he hopes to broaden his work's appeal.

"I think I finally found a way, by sort of using cartoony images, which almost everyone likes cartoons and using text and keeping the color palate really simple, that they can be exciting for everyone," Gerdeman said. "I want it to be accessible to anyone. I sort of like all of the work to be a little bit hopeful, but it can be dark as well. The imagery is sort of dark."

The text in his paintings come from a variety of sources. He has a series that pulls sticky lyrics from songs, one that pulls interesting lines from conversations between thirty-somethings and one that focuses on the offbeat things his four-year-old son says.

"I'm really inspired by the music in my life and I'm working on a pretty large series called Imprints," he said. "The idea behind it is music, or just snippets of music will stick or be imprinted into our head for years and years."

"So maybe you're wondering why you're singing 'Sweet Caroline'... in your head and you haven't listened to Neil Diamond since 1980."

One of the paintings from that collection hangs at MadLab. A speech bubble floats out of the mouth of a creepy alligator-looking creature in a suit with the lyric, "I know I know it's serious," which the artist lifted from The Smiths' "Girlfriend in a Coma."

"I think they really connect across generations," Gerdeman said. "I really find that pop music has really been the most influential and it's one of those things that everyone knows."

Another series pulls lines overheard in conversations which Gerdeman said show the similarities between teen angst and the frustrations faced by his own peer group.

"As much as we are different, we are more alike," he said. "The paintings are about all of us and it's not just about me and my life. I really hope people can connect. I want it to be accessible to anyone."

Other paintings are based on the delightful phrases that come out of the mouths of babes.

"I've got a couple more (paintings) that are (based on) things my son said, like 'Let's get a car shaped like a buffalo," he laughed. "Kids say the most wonderful things. I think language has a big influence on everything I do."

One of this type of painting hangs in the gallery at MadLab, and features a demented bunny who says, "Jesus needs a car."

The phrase was uttered by his son, Sullivan, who one day while the family was exiting church asked his parents how Jesus could be everywhere at once.

"We described it three or four different ways and we were sort of stalled on the whole idea and there was quiet in the car and he just said, 'Jesus needs a car,'" Gerdeman said.

Gerdeman is no stranger to having his art featured in shows, he said his work has been featured in the professional art division of the Ohio State Fair, in some European newspapers and college galleries.

"My third-grade teacher hung my dinosaur paintings behind her desk and it was all over from there," Gerdeman said. "I've really been painting pretty seriously for the past 15 years and just in the past two years started to exhibit pretty seriously."

Currently he is a junior and senior media arts teacher at Hilliard-Davidson high school. His classes focus on film making, animation and PhotoShop. He also teaches an advanced drawing class. Gerdeman, a former teacher at Franklin Heights High School, and his wife Judy and his son and two-year old daughter Sophia live in Grove City.

"I just hope that the work is viewed as really hopeful work," he said. "I hope it's uplifting and thought-provoking."

MadLab Theatre is at 150 N. Grant Ave. near Columbus State Community College. The works are available for public viewing during the theater's performance hours. For more information call (614) 470-2333.