Porcelain bus steering wheel

The hype on Eye Candy, which opens at the Toy Room Gallery this weekend, was that it would be a local mutant version of the hot-rod visions Ed “Big Daddy” Roth, Von Dutch and Robert Williams were hallucinating in the ’60s. Yes and no. Bruce Gossett’s collection of toilet seats with hand-painted lids, with titles like “Tijuana Bomba,” show a solid connection to period surf and hot-rod art. But a number of paintings by Groovie Ghoulies bassist and frontman Kepi are more like Count Chocula and Boo Berry as reimagined by a Southern primitivist. Best are a number of nightmarish colored-clay miniatures, most mounted in frames with black-velvet backgrounds, by Aaron Clarke. His fine attention to detail, with leering skulls, devils, moons and even a Cthulhu-like octopus, will haunt your dreams. The show is open for two nights, Friday, July 19, and Saturday, July 20, from 6:30 p.m. until “late.” Toy Room is in an alley east of 24th Street, between 2nd Avenue and Sloat Way.