For Gallery 1988‘s upcoming exhibition “Please Post Bills”, dedicated to comedic legend Bill Murray, I chose to do a companion piece to my Ghostbuster’s piece from “The 3G Show”. My piece, Ugly Little Spud, depicts the scene when Murray’s character, Peter Venkman, comes face to face with his first Class 5 Free-Roaming Vapor, better known as Slimer.
Please Post Bills
Opening reception Thursday, Nov 3rd 2011, 7-10pm
Gallery 1988
7020 Melrose Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90038
I don’t normally blog when I add a new item to my shop, but the demand for posters of Magna Arbor Vitae Deku were so great that I felt I could make an exception! The 15 giclee canvas prints from SUPER iam8bit are nearly sold out, so for those of you who couldn’t make it, or wanted a more affordable option, I have an open edition (no limit) poster of the piece. You can purchase it from my shop HERE!
Tonight marks the Autumn Society’s first international exhibit! 8-Bit Champions opens tonight at La Flaq gallery in Paris, France.
Curated by Chogrin and Thomas Olivri, 8-Bit Champions pays homage to classic 8-bit video games such as Super Mario Bros and Pac-man.
My piece is called Blue is Always Stronger, and is a reference to the 8-bit Legend of Zelda games where the blue version of an enemy always dealt out, and could withstand, more damage. It’s a 9″x9″ giclee print on canvas, edition of 30.
8-Bit Champions
LA FLAQ GALLERY
36 rue Quincampoix ( 75004 )
Paris, France
Opening reception
Thursday, September 15th
7:00pm–10:oopm
Well it’s been almost 3 years since LA-based production company iam8bit put on one of their legendary eponymous video game themed art shows, but the wait is almost over! SUPER iam8bit opens to the general public tomorrow night at the recently renovated iam8bit headquarters located in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles.
For my contribution to the show, I created Magna Arbor Vitae Deku (traslated “The Great Deku Tree of Life”) a sprawling exploration of the evolutionary biology of the 200 most important species from the Legend of Zelda video game series. Complete with binomial Latin names (Zora Bellator and Zora Fluvialis share a common ancestor with the more peaceful species Zora Sapien, for example), the brances of the Deku tree trace the evolution of each species over millions of years. Forks in the branches indicate an extinct common ancestor of the species that follow.
Detail of some lifeforms from the cnidaria and ocularia phylums
Detail of some lifeforms from the Plantamalia phylum
Detail of some lifeforms from the Zora genus, the Blin genus, and some other amphibians and mammals
Detail of some lifeforms from the Primate order, as well as some other mammals
Detail of some lifeforms from the Draconem genus, the Dinosauria superorder, and the Aves class
All the species grouped by scientific binomials
Magna Arbor Vitae Deku will be available in a very limited edition of 15 at the SUPER iam8bit opening (#1 will be framed in a cool one-of-a-kind distressed wooden frame).
SUPER iam8bit
Opening reception August 11, 2011 7pm–11pm
2147 W. Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026
http://iam8bit.com/the-art-show/
My video game-inspired butcher diagram Koopa: It’s What’s For Supper, created for SCION and Giant Robot’s exhibition Pixel Pushers, will be featured in the 3×3 Illustration Annual No. 8, coming out in the Fall of 2011.
Dick Cream Stick Team
Next month, Gallery 1988 will be hosting an exhibition at their Venice location of artwork inspired by the cult classic Wet Hot American Summer, in lieu of the 10th anniversary of the film. I chose to depict my favorite character in the movie, Chef Gene (as portrayed by Christopher Meloni of Law & Order: SVU fame) and his inner struggle coming to grips with his deepest, darkest desires, including but not limited to humping the camp refrigerator, smearing mud on his ass, and fondling his sweaters. And of course dick cream. I mean stick team.
Wet Hot American Summer 10th Anniversary Tribute Show
Opening reception Friday, June 10th, 7–10pm
Gallery 1988 Venice
214 Pier Avenue
Santa Monica, CA 90405
The two Shunga (Japanese erotica) inspired pieces I created for the Autumn Society‘s “East Meets East” exhibition at AxD Gallery have been selected to appear in American Illustration 30, which will be released in November of this year at the annual AI-AP party in NYC.
The Dream of the Octorock’s Wife
Super Utamaro Bros.
The objective of the show was to compare and contrast Japanese fine art with Japanese pop art and or pop culture. I have always been fascinated with Japanese erotica and how that contrasts with our more prudish (or at least repressed) Western cultural outlook on sex and eroticism. And obviously video game graphics are a big influence on my work so that was the logical pop culture lens with which to view this contrast.
The first one is an homage to arguably the most famous artist and example of the Shunga genre, Hokusai’s The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife, which could also be the considered the origin of the “tentacle erotica” genre. The second is a tribute to Underwater Assault by the artist Utamaro.
Tomorrow night, Giant Robot Los Angeles will be holding “Water Works”, a benefit for UNICEF and the child victims of the earthquake in Japan. There will be numerous artworks for sale, as well as other items, raffles, and events, with proceeds going to UNICEF, and of course cash donations will be accepted.
This event was initially to raise money for clean water efforts in Vietnam, but due to the catastrophic events in Japan, and considering Giant Robot’s ties to Japan, the decision was made to allocate funds where they are needed most at the present time.
Here’s the piece I created for the show, titled “Minus World”
It’s an edition of 10, and 100% of the sale will go to UNICEF and the children in Japan affected by this tragedy. At the risk of offending anyone, I want to state that this piece was created for the original fundraiser, which was for clean water efforts. It is in no way meant to depict the tsunami and I hope no one directly affected by the disaster takes it that way.
Water Works at GR2 – A benefit for UNICEF and child victims of the earthquake in Japan
Saturday, March 19 · 6:30pm - 10:00pm
Giant Robot Los Angeles (GR2)
2062 Sawtelle Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90025
The Game Developers Conference is the largest annual gathering of professionals from the video game industry. For GDC 25 I was commissioned by the evil geniuses at iam8bit to design a pixel mural of epic proportions, 20 feet by 8 feet to be exact. The catch? The wall would be completely blank.
Each of the conference’s attendees would receive a 2″ pixel, either cyan, magenta, yellow, or black (the conference color scheme this year) and would get to place his or her pixel on the wall in a corresponding square.
Over the course of the week, the image I designed would reveal itself… but only if everyone participated. Part art project, part social experiement, “Painting with Pixels” was one of the most fascinating and fun projects I’ve ever had the pleasure of working on. Being at the conference all week it was interesting to observe the evolution of people’s behavior; while most attendees would comply with the instructions (I even heard one woman chastise her friend for speculating what would happen if he put his color on the wrong square), others bent or even broke the rules completely. If you watch the time lapse above, around the two minute mark you’ll see one person remove some of the placed pixels to create an image of Super Mario. I observed one person color their magenta pixel black so they could place it on a square designated for black ones.
It was also exciting to see how one person’s idea would quickly spread to others. Though most were content to simply place their pixel in a color-designated spot, one attendee decided to draw a little illustration on his before adding it to the mural. This caught on and by the end of the conference, hundreds of pixels were adorned with artwork, signatures, witty sayings, and even a few mini-resumes from out of work developers.
The GDC logo was the first element to really materialize, followed shortly by the jetpack-wearing cowboy and the dragon incinerating the Golden Gate Bridge.
And here’s the wall 99.9% complete! There were a few pixels left unclaimed at the end of the conference so Jon, Nick, and I filled the rest in.
Overall it was a great success, we couldn’t have done it without the collaboration of everyone at the conference. Each pixel symbolized nothing more than potential on its own, but bring together several thousand of them, take a step back, and you get a real picture of community, and the power of working together.
Game Over IV is an upcoming show at Giant Robot San Francisco that pays homage to the continuous evolution of videogames and their massive influence on popular culture. The impact and inspiration of videogames will be represented through a wide assortment of styles and genres provided by top artists in the fields of illustration, painting, sewing, indie comics, and videogames. Some of my favorite artists are among those to be featured, including Jeffrey Brown, David Horvath, and Matt Furie.
For my contribution to the exhibition, I created this series of 8-bit terrariums. I am actually a bit of a terrarium enthusiast myself, so this idea sort of evolved naturally from that interest. I actually see a lot of similarities between video games and terrariums; they are both closed systems that seek to nurture and sustain an entire world within a small viewing space. And I get equal enjoyment out of interacting and watching both.
Prints can be purchase from my shop, and at the gallery.
Toadstool Terrarium
11.75″ x 15.75″
Hyrule Terrarium
7.75″ x 9.75″
Belmont Terrarium
9″ x 19.75″
Some of my own terrariums after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
