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 AMANDA VISELL

Since in the last post the artist was particular and at points bizarre for some tastes, I decided to compensate by writing about a softer, smoother and vintage alike artist.

Here she is: Amanda Visell.

Her art is so naive and so funny that it makes me feel good every time I see it.

As happened with Yoskay Yamamoto, I discovered Amanda Visell in the same way: through her vinyl toys (like the zebracorn, the pink elephant, the fat cat, etc. ).

The Zebracorn and Amanda Visell

She's been very productive so far and seems that whatever she has in mind she can realize it, both 2D and 3D, and of course I profited by collecting all her vinyl toys (needless to say how proud I am of it).
It seems to me that through her characters I can lighten in 3D the atmosphere of her art.

I love to see at home all my (tiny and giant) Amanda's toys moving around and making a mess in my room, because, of course, they do not really stay still... huh-huh :)

At the very moment that you turn the corner you don't know what to expect from them!

the other day jackalope threw a party under the couch &

the devil businessman was already on the floor.

As you have noticed my username seems to have something in common with the vinyl toy above and I confirm you that your assumption is totally right!

I loved it at first sight and I imagined myself as a tiny zebracorn. Is it a zebra with a corn bizarre? Of course it isn't! 

Well, in any case, I love it because the corn adds a magic halo to the zebra character and moreover it reminds me to my childhood's characters I used to imagine.

What's more intriguing are the corn' special powers that the tiny zebra has (of course without beeing even aware of it) and the same is true for me: I know I have this special ability too, but I'm still figuring out how to activate it, so far works only accidentally.

Here you have some of her quirky paintings.

 Bayou Hoo

Robot Tea Party

Cats

I enjoy her bizarre characters and the stories she tells through them. It's amazing how powerful and harmonious they are and by looking at them you can imagine what will happen next. It seems to me that the image comes into life and if you close your eyes and reopen them quickly, something in the painting has changed: as if in that very moment one of the characters is having fun by winking at you.

You have no idea what a crazy story of the stray cats above I could tell you... huh-huh.

One of my favorite is this crazy alligator. I laugh by imagining that he devours the icecream pile and pretends the second after an instantaneous refill, like he never had one.

Ice Cream Crazy Alligator

If you wanna smile and see the quirkiest stories don't hesitate and have a loot at all her art. You are going to enjoy it, like I do continuously.

I heartily recommend you to check here her website and her blog.

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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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