While he’s being watched by the government for making art and statements contrary to them, he set up webcams and broadcasted his life, to be as transparent as possible, but that got shut down. He can’t win, especially when he’s constantly mocking his government’s authority and making art out of it. As innocent as it all sounds, he knows what’s up. (VOA News – Ai Weiwei)
Thanks to Liz Ohanesian for the support of GR2. Read it at the link. (LA Weekly – Paul Robertson)
It’s amazing how crowd sourcing can help. $840,000 so far and he turned down $157k from a single person. I hope the crowds will continue to help him and the many others out there including us. Ai Weiwei has become a symbol for artists and freedom. It was just a few years ago that he spoke on campuses and was as approachable as anyone else. (NY Times – Ai Weiwei)
Chinese artist He Xiangyu’s “The Death of Marat”. It’s Ai Weiwei. Some passers in a German Gallery thought it was real and alerted police. The government might wish it to be true, but this man is alive and talking.
James Jean Lotus War Pyramid Print. Edition of 555. $40! A lower price point for the fans. A beautiful print at a great price. From James Jean: “Lotus War Pyramid features all of the characters I’ve created for the Lotus War Series.” (James Jean – Lotus War Pyramid)
Sometimes, it’s good to see it in a another setting.
Rob Sato is originally from Sacramento but now calls Echo Park is home. He showed at the Giant Robot Biennale 2 in 2009 and will show again in the Biennale part 3 in 2012. A long time supporter of Giant Robot, the fast witted Sato has an interesting sense of humor and a distinctive laugh. His art speaks of his hard work and attention to detail. You can see his work on the cover of Giant Robot 62, and we do carry some of his other handiworks at Giant Robot.
But there’s more. Sato isn’t a great self promoter, but he does stock a number of his prints which are available at his site.
There are also further selections at:
“The Choice Cut Cult”, the occult sushi menu print for sale at NUCLEUS GALLERY
“Land Admiral Lefebvre’s Fleet…” (below) print from TRAPEZE EDITIONS
Eleanor Davis is a cartoonist and illustrator who’s work has appeared in Fantagraphics compilations, graphic novels for kids, and at art exhibitions. Her work is the type of work that you can see, be puzzled by, and then come to enjoy. We’ve hosted in her numerous exhibitions, and her pieces in the Robots exhibition are monochromatic portraits of Robot people.
Below is this beautiful print with girls and horses! It’s available here. Davis has two websites where you can see his works. Doing-fine and her blog is here.
Bay area artist, Kelly Tunstall is a long time Giant Robot supporter and submitted a great and large piece for the Robots exhibition called Beethoven. It’s still available. She attended California College of the Arts and continues to show often.
She currently has an exhibition at 111 Minna Gallery called Secret State is now available online. The exhibition is set to travel to Palm Springs later this year.
facebook page and twitter page.
Susie Ghahremani is a long time artist and supporter of Giant Robot. Some of her most popular work are tiny pieces that gave her major hand problems in the past, but the results are a beautiful array of birds, trees, and other spirited images. It’s hard to show just one or two Susie Ghahremani artworks since her career is expanding into products by Chronicle Books including a travel journal called Bon Voyage. You can see her works and more at her site boygirlparty.com
Susie is also working on a picture book which will be out in 2013, illustrations in the Bust – Diy Guide to Life book, and has an exhibition currently in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. A strange link is her affinity for the game of Sudoku. She even illustrates the covers of Sudoku books. Take a look! Her works continue to balance cute, technical, and colorful.
We also feature some of Susie’s goods at our own site like the print above. Please take a look and watch for Susie Ghahremani at Giant Robot 2 in 2012.
If you haven’t had enough of Susie just from the above, there’s even more:
http://dribbble.com/
http://www.twitter.com/
http://www.facebook.com/
http://boygirlparty.etsy.com
Ryan Jacob Smith has a painting style that’s developed into work that’s recognizable as his. He’s an Art Center graduate who now resides in Portland and is learning the art of tattooing. He’s recently tattooed a lemon as practice.
His art piece below My CPU’s a Neronet Processor: A Learning Computer.
This piece is available here.
Always a supporter of GR, Smith will be releasing some new prints and t-shirts for the holidays. Ryan Jacob Smith prints. Meanwhile take a look at more of his work here: http://www.ryanjacobsmith.com
David Henry Hwang, like him or not is a busy Asian American theater guy. His play Chinglish is on Broadway and will gain a lot of notoriety. We posted a video preview, but more importantly, his words in this blog post make the play more interesting than many Asian American tales. (blogswsj – David Henry Hwang)
That’s Martin Hsu and Lawrence Yang and they’re perfectly centered where both of their works show in the background. They’re at the opening of Undercurrents at GR2 on Saturday October 15th. Great times and fun photos of the Bay Area artists.
Giant Robot 2 is always proud to host Jesse Fillingham. Alongside Jeni Yang, we exhibited Fillingham at Giant Robot 2 in 2011. Here’s some images. Below is the piece from Robots which was happily sold.
Junko Mizuno is a manga artist from Japan now living in San Francisco. We interviewed her for Giant Robot magazine years ago at a time when she hardly spoke English. Now, she speaks English without issues and is busy exploring her comics and artwork. For GR2′s Robots exhibition, we have original pages of a special Japanese edition of Pure Trance. They’re all drawn by hand with some Zipatone added for shading. We have some of these pages available here.
Art Review magazine put Ai Weiwei as the most influential artist in the world. That makes sense, doesn’t it? Without knowing a thing about his work, or seeing what it looks like, his name nearly became household this year. In the BBC’s news, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said: “China has many artists who have sufficient ability. We feel that a selection that is based purely on a political bias and perspective has violated the objectives of the magazine.” That makes sense right? Influential art doesn’t have to signify anything that has to do with art itself. It’s the ability to use art as well. Although what Ai Weiwei will do with this influence or power? Or what it really means to have it, or not have it, we’ll see. But for now, he’s already in high demand as an artist anywhere and feels like he has no power at all. Does he? Probably not, but he can land an art show anywhere. That’s power enough. (BBC – Ai Weiwei)
We’ve known Buff Monster for years and have happily witnessed his rise of local street art wheat paster to now an internationally known artist. We proudly hosted his art show The Monster Within in 2010, and you can see the photos here.
Just on friday, he released his Cat Plush that you see below. The eyes are pink which is his trademark color. You can easily see this edition of 200 pieces on his own website.
We have our own plush by Buff Monster also at the $18 rate that was made in edition of 200. You can see it below and get it here among a few other Buff Monster goods.
The video below is from Tara McPherson’s Cotton Candy Factory in Brooklyn. There’s a few customs still available.
Buff Monster and Jeremyville from Tara McPherson on Vimeo.
Martin Hsu is friendly with an effervescent positive energy. It’s easy to just write something like that, but when you first meet him and see his eyes get genuinely wide, you’ll know it’s all true. Originally from Taiwan, Hsu lived in Southern California and went to school in Orange County. He’s nearly a 100% LA native, but his recent move to San Francisco provides a new energy into his art work. A slight hike from the Mission District, he lives in the Castro area in a Victorian home.
An impromptu visit yielded a charming house, great artwork everywhere (no, not all by him), and many “cool things”. He made me some tea and showed me his studio area where I got to see his works in progress for Undercurrents, which is beginning at Giant Robot 2 in just under two weeks.
GR: How did you get started in art?
MH: As far as I can recall, I started in art on drawing on the back of torn out calendar pages at my grandparents’ house in Taiwan in elementary school. They took care of my cousins and I when our parents were at work. Those are still the most treasured times of my life.
After graduating from CSUF with a degree in animation, I worked professionally as a character designer for a number of years before diving into the world of putting paint on wood. It’s an incredible feeling turning personal ideas into original pieces people enjoy, and I couldn’t do it without the support from my amazing friends and family.
GR: What’s your day time life like? Can you mix that with your art work?
MH: This year I’ve decided to take a break from my professional work and focus on personal art for a bit. For the first time in my life, I’m on my own working for myself and I feel extremely blessed being able to do so. My days nowadays are consisted of lots of walking around in San Francisco. When I’m not sketching or painting, I enjoy lying down on the grass at Dolores Park in between coffee shops watching and listening to people around me. It’s something quite special and I hope to do it for a while.
Some pieces from his upcoming exhibition Undercurrents
