Here is my contribution to the Heavy Hitterz: Manila show. I basically went with the same theme as in the last paintings I did for the show in San Francisco but now it is all glorious technicolor. Again a happy kaiju monster that takes a particular interest in planting things into an urban landscape. This time “happy beans” are being planted. The buildings are actually in Kyoto, Japan albeit with some little changes. The type, a new addition as well, reads プランター or “planter”. It is supposed to be as artificial and multicultural as the monsters: Japanese and Western.

The painting is 14″ by 11″ and painted with acrylics on construction cardboard. It took me a bit longer to get it finished but I am happy with the result. Look out for more paintings in the future. I am also planning to make small limited edition print runs of these paintings. So stay tuned.

This time the show is sponsored by the company with the fancy shoes: Royal Elastics, IMEEM, Scion, Lost at E Minor, Distinction Gallery and Fabric8. On April 4th there will be a Launch Party for HH:Manila at Club 6 in San Francisco, dubbed “HOW WE DO”. There will be Art displayed and some of the best local underground MCs and DJ’s are performing. LINK

You can keep updated on things leading up to the show and during at our custom IMEEM page, there will be 4 artists that will be traveling to the Philippines for the openin. We will be posting blogs, photos, and video and a lot of other goodness – whatever that means. LINK

Last but not least there will be a new microsite that is launching soon, that will have the artwork posted and for sale. LINK

A while ago there was an open call for submissions to the second volume of Beasts! by Fantagraphics’ Jacob Covey. The results have been posted and I have to admit that the few that have been posted to the blog are wonderful illustrations. Jennifer Tong deserves to be the winner.

My submission to the Beasts! Volume 2. It’s a classic Japanese Monster. There are many stories about different kinds of ushi-oni, which are incredible creatures that all have a cow’s head. The most common and widespread description is that of a creature with a cow’s head and spider’s body, a gigantic creature the size of several bulls, much larger than humans. Taken from yokaimura.org

Also the gyūki/ushioni sometimes transforms itself into a beautiful woman, as it did in a famous story from Kouchi prefecture. There an ushi-oni lived in a deep mountain pool, along with a great number of fish. One day a rich man from a nearby village came up with a scheme to poison the pool and have all of these delicious fish for himself. The gyūki of course did not appreciate this, and appeared in the man’s dream as a woman, asking him to not go through with his plan, but he ignored this warning and poisoned the pool anyway. Subsequently the woman/cow-demon was seen leaving for better waters, and the man’s house was crushed in a landslide and he was killed. Quoted from obakemono.com

A few days ago I’ve been blogged by the kind and awesome Jenn Porreca and the Raw Art Blog mentioning my previous contributions to the first Heavy Hitterz exhibition at the AgeSong Gallery in San Francisco… Here is a little shot of my painting for the upcoming Heavy Hitterz in Manila. As you can see I am using a bit of Photoshop for planning my next steps into the painting.

Some sketches plus I’ve been having fun with photos on flickr lately.