Stumble on MORI CHACK

For this post I decided to keep the fil rouge of the "through-vinyl-toys-discoveries" and those of you who adore such toys and type of art, like I do, will be pleased to read about Mori Chack. 

At least, that's my hope.. well I can't imagine someone who doesn't like him!!

Who's Mori Chack? Well, the below image definitely helps!

 

Gloomy Bear

Mori Chack and the Giant Gloomy Bear

I found no personal paintings but character designs, in fact Mori is originally a graphic designer and that's his nature. He only now entered the vinyl toys world as street artist.

The gloomy bear is his most famous character, followed by Podolly and Kumakikai. All of them are designed with the same style and in intense opposition to what we're nowadays used to: cheap cuteness.

Podolly, wicked sheep almost eaten by the wolf above

Kumukikai, the robotic flying Gloomy Bear

Nowadays we're overwhelmed by companies like Disney, Sanrio's Hello Kitty and others, which keep on emphasizing anthropomorphous animals (terrible!!). An animal is wild by nature and it will never feel the same that humans do. I can't prove it but I know it is so.

I really agree with Mori's belief that humans and animals are incompatible, they stand on a different levels, that's the reality and we have to accept it. Mori's Gloomy Bear shows it expressly as it's covered by blood and eats/attacks humans.

I love the way Mori ventured to design such a character. It's the contrast that we need to, at least, realize what the situation really is.

What I love in his characters is that he was able to smartly bond cuteness and wickedness. The Gloomy Bear, for instance, it's soft, smooth, harmonious, pink and then suddenly you see this bright red blood drops dripping from his mouth and suddenly you realize that it isn't what you imagined at first, because it's weird, wrong, tough.

The simplicity of the image creates such a perfect character, able to make the world's contradictions emerge and leave room to reflection.

At the end, the naughty Gloomy Bear seems to act the part of every single cute bear, which has been (mis)treated from humans and finally our naughty hero is wreaking revenge on them by actins finally according to his wild nature.

I found a video of the naughty gloomy bear and his human friend "hanging out" together, which is beyond limits and controls, as it has to be: totally insane!

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stumble on YOSKAY YAMAMOTO

The very first time I stumbled on Yoskay Yamamoto was in New York. It was the summer 2009, my first time in the U.S, in New York. I spent one week in N.Y with my boyfriend and definitely it is one of my favorite city, it's absolutly awesome (my dream is to be back there soon)!
One day we were walking around the East Village and we saw the small sign "Toy Tokyo" (121 2nd Ave), and as it was closed, the next day at the opening time we were there impatient to get in.
Who knew this seemingly shady 2nd floor shop held so many awesome things!
One of those awesone things was a vinyl toy who attracted my attention: the KOIBITO.

Then, when I came back in Switzerland (my hometown) i googled it and I discovered who was behind this amazing vinyl toy. It's Yoskay Yamamoto.

What was attracting in the Koibito, was the magic it spread only at looking at it.
A simple interesting character with a magic element, a a mixture of reality and fantasy. A combination of modern and ancient culture, which is very attractive to me, it makes somehing very unique and I enjoy that! When reality and magic come together and you cannot see the separation line between them, well I have to admit, this attracts me a lot. It makes me feel more closer to my fantasies, the magic inside me seems to come out. This makes me feel happy and gives me inspiration.
The Koibito strengthen the mythical style, and this helps me to emphasize with it, and makes me feel more mythical than human. A dream.

At this point I would like to tell you something more about Yoskay Yamamoto.
Born and raised in Toba, Japan, Yoskay Yamamoto moved to the United States at the age of 15. A self-trained illustrator, Yamamoto's artistic tastes expanded as he fell in love with the urban culture of the West coast. Yamamoto discovered a way to fuse the two different cultural backgrounds together into his work. Yamamoto nostalgically blends pop iconic characters from his new Western home with traditional and mythical Japanese elements, balancing his Asian heritage with urban pop art. Nowaday Yoskay Yamamoto is a rising Japanese artist in the LA art scene.

Well, now you can understand better why this guy is so amazing and why I like his art! I have to admit that I am a fan of mythical Japanese elements, and those mixed with western elements, totally different, bring to life something new, something really magic.

Here you have a painting of the Koibito, as it is based on an original painting.




In the painting he literally embodies the fish out of the water sentiment. I read that Yoskay has lived in so many places, and as much as he does get along wherever he lives, it sometimes give him a certain "fish out of the water" feeling.
So, I venture a guess that in a way the Koibito could represent him and his feelings.
But he says: “I used to have a pet fish named Tuna and he passed away because of my poor treatment and laziness. So after he died I painted some fish, and the Koibito character came about. People somehow really related to it, or they just found it so amusing or interesting that it became one of the characters that people really know about in my work.”
Anyway I still think that the Koibito is a mixture of the two explanations.
Antoher thing has to be said concerning the Koibito. Even though Yoskay likes the Koibito character, he doesn't want to emphasize it more, as he doesn't want to be stuck as the artists who only does Koibito.
A concern that many artists face in their life, a conern which I've named "the octopus syndrome". However it was thanks to the koibito that I stumbled on this energic artist :-)!

Looking at the rest of his art, it seems there are hurricanes of emotions involved. If you look at his homepage you'll see the rest of his work, with the complex backgrounds, many different patterns, textures, the waves (try to blick once and the waves will look completely different)... All these details are amazing.
It seems that an hurricane of emotions comes out thanks to the motion present in his artwork.
Here you have some Yoskay works I like, but to get a complete idea of all his art you definetly have to visit his website, and you'll discover a lot more about the paintings, sculptures, vinyl, and so on.

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