This Is Not A Bear / The Ears Make The Rabbit

On June 20th, 2014, Snap! Orlando featured me in a group show "Snap! Attacks!"

For the show, I wanted to try something a little different, and my idea came from a conversation I had with my friend Sket One. 

In 2012 Sket and I showed together at the Coachella Music & Art Festival. For that show, we were asked to live paint in an un-airconditioned room in the middle of the Palm Desert. I can soundly say it was the environment that inspired me to I create this painting. As you can see, the piece features an angry bear, and behind it, the words "Fuck It's Hot" are repeated over and over. Afterwards Sket mentioned that he found my letter styling to be intriguing and that he wouldn't mind seeing it employed the same way graffiti writers use letters as graphic art. It was this little compliment gave me the confidence to create the following paintings:

This Is Not A Bear

11"x 14"

Acrylic on Wood Panel

2014

The Ears Make The Rabbit

11"x 14"

Acrylic on Wood Panel

2014

"This Is Not A Bear" states the little know fact that my "bear" character was not originally supposed to be a bear. The design was supposed to encapsulate "cuteness & innocence" and it was based on Hello Kitty's minimalist design. Of course there are certain paintings where the character was definitely supposed to be a bear. (Paintings like "The Queen Is Dead", "Bear In Mind", or "Honey Bear" come to mind.) But it wasn't till I realized that my audience was comfortable with the notion of bears driving the narrative did I settle with him being one.

"The Ears Make The Rabbit" reflects on my shoddy skills as a character designer, and how the difference between my bears and rabbits lie solely on the length of their ears.

Shaved Ice (Bat)

On June 21st, 2014, Giant Robot hosted Ugly Doll's annual Ugly Con.
The feature Ugly Doll this time was Ice Bat, who was celebrating its 10th anniversary.

While I was trying to figure out what to do, I happened to see Sean Chao's contribution.

SHAVED ICE! OF COURSE!

So from there, I was able to conceive my idea for the show:

Shaved Ice (Bat)

12"x 9"

Color Pencil On Paper

2014

Thanks Sean!

Chueh vs Konatsu

Dear readers, I'm sorry from being so behind on my blog. I'm currently working on my upcoming solo show (opening this October at Corey Helford Gallery). Anyways, I've been wanting to get these pieces up, so here we go:

On June 28th, 2014, Q Pop hosted Konatsu first major US exhibition.

Here's Q Pop's Press Release:

Konatsu's first Exhibition in the U.S.A.) She invited her artist friends from Japan to do custom painted versions of her figure "Negora". Those talented friends included : Devilrobots, Keiko Miyata, Kenji Fukuda, Nekonoko, Noriya Takeyama, Rampage, Shimomoku, Touma, Yoko Sueyoshi, Yumi Moriwaki, T9G, Koraters, and Dream Rockets.
From the USA side Q Pop invited artists who did more custom painted Negoras to welcome Konatsu.The U.S. artists included: 64 Colors, Amy Sol, Paul Kaiju, Paul Shih, Sket One, Luke Chuen, Squink, J RYU, Becky Dreistadt, Keiko Murayama, Victoria Ying, Jeff Ranjo, Miss Kika, Patrick Awa, Chris Mitchell, Tara Billinger, Fawn Veerasunthon, Magen Mitchell, Jeremiah Ketner, Mari Inukai, Lissa Treiman and Zach Bellisimo.

Here is a photo of the un-customized Negora

And here is what I created for the show:

The way my design came to being started with my colleague J*Ryu who made a resin cast from the original sofubi figure. From there, we were able to block out the face in the mold, thus giving me a surface I could add Magic Sculp clay onto. The punchline to my design are the pair of legs dangling from my kaiju's mouth. That I got from a tiny mini figure I owned.

San Diego Comic Con 2014

Here's my plans products and schedules for this years SDCC.

For this years SDCC, I got my hands on a limited number of "Decapitated Bear Heads (2014)" from my "Heads" show at Clutter Gallery. I'll be selling them to anyone who comes up and asks if they want one. Extremely limited, these heads were cast by hand, and their features were painted on by yours truly. Original retailing for $150 a piece, I'm planning on selling them at a SDCC for $100.

This year Munky King will have a couple new items for sale. The first is our latest major project: "Bitch" and the very limited "Golden Fleece" colorway (limited to 100 pieces, price to be determined). Along with that, we're also going to debut my self produced shaped pillow (limited to 50 pieces, $85 each).

I'll be signing at the Munky King booth on Thursday 11am - 1pm. 

Giant Robot is debuting our "Headspace Series: Father & Fett" prints. These painting were created for the Super Awesome exhibition at Oakland Museum of California, and are a variation on series I started a couple years ago called "Headspace". The series explores all the things that I grew up with or consider an integral part of my being. ($120 for the set)

Because of the interest expressed in this print, we are splitting the run. Fifty will be available at SDCC, and another fifty will be available on line from the Giant Robot website.

I will be signing at Giant Robot's booth on Friday, 12pm - 2pm.

Shoryuken

Shoryuken

9" x 12"

Acrylic on Wood Panel

2014

This May, I finally created the third installment to my "Street Fighter" series of paintings. Produced for "Game Over", a video game themed group show hosted by Giant Robot.
The foundation for this series comes from one of my more popular paintings: "Possessed". In it, my blood soaked bear is 'possessed' by the devil with a video game controller (Specifically an Atari 2600 controller). The segue between this painting and video game themed narratives seemed only too perfect.
After creating this third painting, it came to me that this might make a fun series of mini figure toys (in the style of Japanese Gashapan/Candy toys). If whoever wants to produce this series wants to do this, then I'm probably going to have to explore another 3 moves. I wonder which ones I should do...

Igneus Ursus

In 2003, when I started painting fulltime, I decided that it'd be fun if I designed a logo for myself, and while I was at it, I thought it'd be fun to incorporate some Latin in the graphic. Why Latin? Well, Latin is everywhere, which is amazing since it's basically considered a "dead language". Anything "official" has Latin in it. The dollar bill has E PLURIBUS UNUM "One from many", ANNUIT CŒPTIS "Fortune has favored our undertakings", and NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM "A new order of the ages". With credentials like that, I don't know why every logo doesn't have Latin in it. So when I was designing my logo, I started with a bear head on fire, and then I thought it'd be cool if I draped a banner with the words "Bear on Fire" in Latin around the flames. A crown of leaves (like a roman crown) would frame the elements together.
Unfortunately, I don't know anything about Latin. I'm really nothing more than a Latin wannabe.
And when I put "Fire Bear" in the English to Latin translator, I got "Igneus Gero". I looked up the words individually, and everywhere I looked "Igneus" translated to "Fiery" or "On Fire", and "Gero" translated to Bear. Back and forth, forwards and backwards, I tested Latin to English and English to Latin translators, and that's where Igneus Gero came from.
Fast forward eight years later,  technology has improved, I've sifted through 3 different social networking trends, and all was right in my world, except out of the blue, something happened to make mer realize that all this time I had it WRONG,. As it turns out, "Gero" did NOT mean Bear (noun), but rather it meant "to bear" (verb), or to carry.
FUCK!
How could this happen? I thought I was so thorough! But after thinking about it for a while, I thought to myself, 'Maybe it can still work… instead of "Bear on Fire", it meant "To Bear/Carry Fire". Sure the grammar's potentially wrong, but it's too late to change it, right?' I mean, shit! I named two different paintings under the premise that "Gero" meant "Bear". "Guitar Gero" (now titled "Guitar Hero - Fail"), and "Gero Hero" (now titled "Bat Bear") were named like this because I thought that Gero meant "bear"!
Well, after mulling it over for another two more years, I finally decided "NO, this isn't going to work". I went online, did some more research, and figured that what I was really trying to say was "Igneus Ursus". But to be honest, I'm still not sure if this is totally right. Ursus definitely seams to mean "bear" (noun) and Igneus definitely still means "fiery". And according to my personal Latin expert, Prof. Google Translate, Igneus Ursus translates to "The Fiery Bear". God I hope Google's right this time.
Anyways, if you are familiar with Latin, please don't hesitate to let me know if I'm right or wrong. I'd rather be wrong, correct it, and get it right, then just plain wrong.

Gratias Tibi

"Bolt" Common Artist Project + LAX/TXL

Bolt

Acrylic on Wood Panel

16" x 16"

2014

On May 17th, 2014, Los Angeles based gallery Thinkspace teamed up with Urban Nation in Berlin, Germany to present ‘LAX / TXL’. For this event, artists were asked to develop artwork on a 16" x 16" canvas. Since I've never shown in Germany (or at least I don't recall ever showing there), I decided to use this opportunity to showcase something a little more 'pop' art. 

For the past couple months, I'd be developing a t-shirt design for the Common Artist Project. The design I came up with was intentionally a little "Rock n Roll". Inspired by the artwork from David Bowie's "Aladdin Sane", I took my trademark bear head and scrawled a red zig-zag bolt across its face. However, instead simply recreating the Aladdin Sane artwork, I thought it'd be fun to try something a little more graphic. So rather than painting the bolt as though it were on the bears face, I illustrated it so the bolt extended beyond its face, like it were floating above it. When it comes to t-shirt designs, I believe it's the simplest designs that translate into the best designs. 

For LAX/TXL  all I did was recreated the design, However, I ended up flipping the face from right to left. When I create the CAP version of "Bolt", I wanted the bolt to blaze across the bears right eye. To make that work, I had to draw a right facing bear. Unbeknownst to the layman, most illustrators usually have a directional preference. For my LAX/TXL painting, I wanted to compose the bear so it was looking my dominant direction: left. 

Heads

This May, Clutter Magazine & Gallery hosted a mini solo show featuring myself and my friend and colleague, Scott Tolleson. In case you're not familiar, Clutter Magazine is a quarterly journal that features artists from the designer/art toy scene.
Taking this into consideration, I felt that this show should feature something a little different from my regular paintings on canvas. After much deliberation, I decided it would be fun to have a show dedicated to the customization my trademark bear heads.
Toy "customization" has been around for as long as there have been toys, but it's a particularly important part of the designer/art toy culture. Entire art shows have revolved around the idea of taking a toy, treating it like a canvas, and imprinting ones signature style across it. It's also a discipline I regularly indulge in, and so I felt that a show featuring my own customs on my own sculpture in a gallery owned by a magazine that showcased the works of designer/art toy artists was only natural.
The heads was originally based on the head of my toy "Target". I handed Clutter one of these heads and asked if they could make an 8" in diameter version of the head. A couple months later, two big boxes of blank heads showed up, and the foundation of my show made.

 

Original

Acrylic on Rotocast Resin Bear Head

Approx 8" in diameter all the way around

2014

Original (Black)

Acrylic on Rotocast Resin Bear Head

Approx 8" in diameter all the way around

2014

Blackfaced

Acrylic on Rotocast Resin Bear Head

Approx 8" in diameter all the way around

2014 

 

Gouged

Acrylic on Rotocast Resin Bear Head

Approx 8" in diameter all the way around

2014

Feeling Blue (Bear Head)

Acrylic on Rotocast Resin Bear Head

Approx 8" in diameter all the way around

2014

Seeing Red

Acrylic on Rotocast Resin Bear Head

Approx 8" in diameter all the way around

2014

Luke Chueh and the Psychedelic Experience

Acrylic on Rotocast Resin Bear Head

Approx 8" in diameter all the way around

2014

NOTE: As of the the posting of this article, I'm surprised to say that this is one of the two heads that hadn't sold yet. I'm surprised because this was probably the second most time consuming head I created. It has a vibrant presence, and if you know the story as to why I use the bear as a metaphor for myself, you'd know why I created a design inspired by the psychedelic experience.

Decapitated (White)

Acrylic on Rotocast Resin Bear Head

Approx 8" in diameter all the way around

2014

Decapitated (Black)

Acrylic on Rotocast Resin Bear Head

Approx 8" in diameter all the way around

2014

Skull

Acrylic on Rotocast Resin Bear Head

Approx 8" in diameter all the way around

2014

Pink

Acrylic on Rotocast Resin Bear Head

Approx 8" in diameter all the way around

2014

NOTE: After getting to know the people at Clutter Magazine, I learned that Pink is one of their signature colors. As such, I thought it was appropriate that I created a pink bear head for our show.

Asides for my own "Heads" show, my friend Scott Tolleson presented a sculpture line he named "Heavenus". Since we were going to share the same space, we thought it would be fun if we traded and customized each others work. From Tolleson, I was asked to customize one of his "Stuffed Idol" sculptures. From me, I asked him to customize one of my bear heads.

Asides the original artwork for the show, I thought it would be a good idea to have for sale a limited run of pink bear heads. (Pink is the Clutter Magazines signature color). We also produced a limited run of Decapitated Bear Heads. This particular bear head design has never had the decapitated treatment, and it seamed only fitting that we produced these for this show. Each heads facial features were hand drawn by myself for this event.

If you're interested in buying either of these items, please contact: 

Clutter Magazine or click on this link.

Finally, due to the interest expressed from other artists concerning the availability of the blank Bear Heads, Clutter will be making them available, directly through them. I'm not sure when they'll be available for sale, but they're definitely going to be made soon. I'll be sure to mention it through my social media sites when it happens.