Headspace (Reboot)

In May 2015, Rotofugi Gallery hosted my "Headspace (Reboot)" show. To be honest, "Headspace (Reboot)" is a show I created to promote my upcoming release with Munky King. That sounds kind of cold, but I can't deny that the "Headspace" sculpt was on my mind when I planned the show out.
Regardless, when I first conceived of "Headspace" (in 2012), it was my attempt to give credit to everything I love or hold dear to my being. In it, a bear removes his head to reveal something underneath. The things underneath range from pop culture icons, to artists whom I consider important or influential to my understanding of contemporary art, to graphic musings about removing ones head.
I arranged the paintings in 4 different sizes. These sizes help illustrate their importance in the series.
The largest painting (24" x 30") is a self portrait. The second largest (16" x 20") is relegated to my 5 most "important" characters: Bear, Rabbit, Monkey, Chicken, and Skull. These 5 characters are also definitely going to be made into heads for the toy line.. The 3rd size (11" x 14") are designated for designs that we plan on making as heads, and the smallest paintings (8" x 10") are mostly new ideas.

Headspace (Luke Chueh)

Acrylic on Wood Panel

24" x 30" 

2015

Headspace (Bear)

Acrylic on Wood Panel

16" x 20" 

2015

Headspace (Rabbit)

Acrylic on Wood Panel

16" x 20" 

2015

 

Headspace (Chicken)

Acrylic on Wood Panel

16" x 20" 

2015

Headspace (Monkey)

Acrylic on Wood Panel

16" x 20" 

2015

Headspace (Skull)

Acrylic on Wood Panel

16" x 20" 

2015

Headspace (Boba Fett)

Acrylic on Wood Panel

11" x 14" 

2015

Headspace (Darth Vader)

Acrylic on Wood Panel

11" x 14"

2015

Headspace (Devil)

Acrylic on Wood Panel

11" x 14"

2015

Headspace (Grizzly Bear)

Acrylic on Wood Panel

11" x 14"

2015

Headspace (Hello Kitty)

Acrylic on Wood Panel

11" x 14"

2015

Headspace (Mao Zedong)

Acrylic on Wood Panel

16" x 20" 

2015

  

Headspace (Pirate Abe)

Acrylic on Wood Panel

16" x 20" 

2015

Headspace (Batman)

Acrylic on Wood Panel

8" x 10" 

2015

Headspace (Salvador Dali)

Acrylic on Wood Panel

8" x 10" 

2015

Headspace (Fountain)

Acrylic on Wood Panel

8" x 10" 

2015

Headspace (Ghost)

Acrylic on Wood Panel

8" x 10" 

2015

Headspace (Mickey Mouse)

Acrylic on Wood Panel

8" x 10" 

2015

Headspace (Winnie the Pooh)

Acrylic on Wood Panel

8" x 10" 

2015

Headspace (Takashi Murakami)

Acrylic on Wood Panel

8" x 10" 

2015

Headspace (Yoshitomo Nara)

Acrylic on Wood Panel

8" x 10" 

2015

 

Headspace (Terminator)

Acrylic on Wood Panel

8" x 10" 

2015

Headspace (Andy Warhol)

Acrylic on Wood Panel

8" x 10" 

2015

Self-ish

In October, 2014, Corey Helford Gallery hosted my "Self-ish" show. As the title suggest, the work featured explores a lot of very personal themes, and are loosely "self portraits" (some obviously more so than others). But then a chunk of the show has me taking the name (selfish) a little more literally, with me creating a new body of work with a decidedly new stylistic direction.

You Are What You Eat (Self)

Acrylic on Canvas

24” x 30"

2014

You Are What You Eat (My Other Self)

Acrylic on Canvas

24” x 30"

2014

 

Dead Inside

Acrylic on Canvas

36” x 48"

2014

Some Trends Make Me Want To Puke

Acrylic on Wood Panel

24” x 18”

2014

Colorfield Series (Black)

Acrylic on Canvas

48” x 60"

2014

Colorfield Series (White)

Acrylic on Canvas

48” x 60"

2014

Anthropomorphized

Acrylic on Wood Panel

18” x 18”

2014

Monkey On My Back (Sleeping Burden)

Acrylic on Wood Panel

16” x 20”

2014 

Monkey On My Back (Rude Awakening)

Acrylic on Wood Panel

11” x 14”

2014

Coffee & Cigarettes

Acrylic on Wood Panel

16” x 20”

2014

Headphones

Acrylic on Wood Panel

18” x 24”

2014

Tengu

Acrylic on Wood Panel

12” x 16"

2014

Yawn

Acrylic on Wood Panel

11” x 14”

2014

Headspace Series (Star Wars - Darth Vader)

Acrylic on Canvas

36” x 48"

2014

Headspace Series (Star Wars - Boba Fett)

Acrylic on Canvas

36” x 48”

2014

Untitled (Sad Bear)

Acrylic on Paper

15” x 19”

2014

Untitled (Mad Rabbit)

Acrylic on Paper

15” x 19”

2014

Untitled (Monkey King)

Acrylic on Paper

15” x 19”

2014

Untitled (Sweet Bear)

Acrylic on Paper

15” x 19”

2014

Red Skull

Acrylic on Wood Panel

6” x 6”
2014

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.

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...

"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. 

Boba

Boba

Acrylic on Wood Panel

18" x 24"

2014

For Corey Helford Gallery's final show in their original space, they chose to host "Pop-Eyeconic", a group show with a Pop/Icon theme. This was the perfect opportunity to bust out an idea I'd been sitting on for a couple years now: "Boba".
To me, "Boba" was a simple, almost obvious, visual pun. I was honestly surprised I hadn't seen it yet. Combine Boba Fett (the infamous bounty hunter from Star Wars) with Boba Milk Tea (a popular tea based drink featuring "boba" or tapioca balls).  Both of these things have played some kind of role in my life. As a child, the character Boba Fett and the Kenner action figure were hugely popular to me. And as a young asian american adult, I'd indulge in Boba Milk Tea whenever I visited my folks in the San Gabriel Valley. For the painting, I also added a hoodie because it's one of my favorite articles of clothing. 
"Boba" will be available as a limited edition print from my friends at 1xRun on April 11th, 2014.

Alcoholic's Anonymous

In December, 2013, my friend and colleague Michael Mararian curated a show called "Bound Requiem". Hosted by Last Rites Gallery, the idea behind the show was to have artists "reinterpret paper bound books into contemporary art pieces".
For this show, I chose to create a painting on the cover of an Alcoholics Anonymous.
This particular copy of AA was given to me while I was checked into a rehab for a substance abuse problem. Though I personally don't have an issue with alcohol in particular, many addicts are referred to the AA book because of the college level writing featured in its pages. (The NA book is written at an elementary school level)
The painting I created is essentially a revisit of my painting "Dirty Martini". The biggest difference being the crucifix toothpick that's impale the head/garnish in the cocktail. I chose to feature this kind of religious imagery because Alcoholics Anonymous (and Narcotics Anonymous) turn to religion as a tool to help addicts come to terms with their humility. Unfortunately, it's this religiousness that I find difficult to accept, and usually kept me from accepting their fellowship.