Of the many new galleries that have opened in Brooklyn this year, the newest and freshest is the Brooklynite Gallery, now established in the unlikely neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvant – a post-apocalyptic locale known more for its high rate of crime than for its budding art scene. "Not the first place you would think to find an art gallery," says co-owner Rae McGrath, "but the type of art we want to continue to show fits right into the street culture here. It's real and it's raw." By luring gallery-goers and talented up-and-coming artists to the area, owners McGrath and his wife Hope are aiming to inject some creativity into this art-deficient 'hood.

Brooklynite's premiere exhibition is Nose Candy, the much-anticipated new collection of splintered artwork by infamous Brooklyn graffiti artist BAST. A childhood friend of McGrath, BAST grew up in Glenwood, Brooklyn and spent his youth with a spray can in hand, tagging the streets and dodging authority before delving into the more adventurous dimension of multimedia. Over the years, BAST has fine-tuned his distinctly chaotic style. He merges a gritty street aesthetic with aspects of hip hop and pop culture to construct off-the-wall presentations that enrapture the ADD generation.

"The most important thing we take into consideration is work that has a presence," says McGrath of the art he seeks for Brooklynite. "Work that makes you stop dead in your tracks and forces you to look longer at it than you would most other pieces." Nose Candy certainly fits the bill. Described by one spectator as "the spaceship that landed in the 'hood," the exhibit transports viewers to the alternate reality of BAST's twisted mind. It's a fantastic explosion of sexual imagery, neon colors, wild beasts toting bling and other bedlam.

A combination of screen prints, oil, acrylic paint and other found materials on wood, these mixed media collage paintings depict a posse of ghetto fab alien-like creatures with many eyeballs and seductive lips moaning with pleasure. These abstract portraits are mired with images of floating body parts, jewelry, candy wrappers and newspaper clippings of lewd phrases like "big and bouncy" and "lick my latex". Overwhelming to the eyes, the cluttered works seem constantly in flux, like whirling kaleidoscopes or puzzle pieces that need to be put into place.

Other startling and controversial pieces include the motley crew of plaster cast-mounted animal heads in fluorescent shades of pink and yellow. There's no doe-eyed deer to be seen here, but rather the menacing stares and gaping jaws of an ape, cheetah, pig and alien decked out in standard "gangster" attire. Not only are these fauna flaunting golden grills, they sport plenty of bling hanging round their necks and New Era caps emblazoned with dollar signs. They may be crude, but they're also difficult to ignore.

Nose Candy is on at the Brooklynite Gallery until July 12th. From September 12th it is followed by an exhibition of new artwork by Aiko Nakagawa, one of the founding members of Faile, the international Brooklyn-based art collective.