CoART Magazine

Contemporary Art Rendered as Toys

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Life is an unpredictable series of events that happens between two required certainties: birth and death. Similarly, a story’s meat unfolds between the beginning and the end, so let’s skip our tale ahead and start in the middle. Let’s assume you already know Brazilian artist Igor Ventura and that I’m a friend of his, or at least that we’re two offline strangers who talk online. Then let’s presume that you […]

Continue reading this article, The Long Road to the Exquisite Corpse Dunny Series, on CoART Magazine.

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At the base of the flagpole within the south end of Disneyland’s Main Street, there is a dedication plaque that reads: “To all who come to this happy place: Welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past… and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America… […]

Continue reading this article, Blank William’s Ideals, Dreams, and Hard Facts, on CoART Magazine.

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Whether it’s the cinematic Wild West‘s ‘white hat’ law-bringers shooting from twenty paces at ‘black hat’ scoundrels or Medieval literature‘s virtuous white knights clashing swords with sinister black knights, it seems like we’ve sought since time immemorial to visualize good and evil as these opposing, contrasting colors. And similar instances date back to when Byzantine era artists depicted white doves as divine messengers and black crows as ill omens, both […]

Continue reading this article, mr clement’s ji ja bird-based porcelain sculptures, on CoART Magazine.

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With the Lunar New Year rapidly approaching, the Chinese people are preparing festivities to ring in the Year of the Rat. Or, as their culture doesn’t have distinct words to differentiate the two, the Year of the Mouse. According to Eastern astrology, those born during this Zodiac-based year will be clever and confident, cheerful and chipper, and — while destined to be successful — also content with having a quiet life. As […]

Continue reading this article, Okedoki’s Dreamer Mouse, on CoART Magazine.

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While becoming a worldwide success at a multi-hyphenate barrage of careers is rare, it seems downright impossible to accomplish this before turning twenty-two years old. Yet, that’s what Lauren Tsai has done. Arguably achieving her celebrity status on the reality show Terrace House: Aloha State, Tsai’s on-camera appearances were notably awkward, a trait that counterintuitively endeared her to a legion of fellow introverts. Following Tsai’s early 2017 departure from the […]

Continue reading this article, Lauren Tsai’s Unreal, on CoART Magazine.

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Offering traditional Chinese medicine from her Canadian residence, employing diploma-level acupuncture training from MacEwan University, the Vietnamese-born Tam Duong is — in short — a holistic healer. But, at the end of the day, who heals the healer? For Duong, she at least partially relies on her fine arts studies at the University of Alberta to balance herself, creating deeply personal works under the alias of Okedoki, expunging any inner turmoil as […]

Continue reading this article, Okedoki’s Benny World, on CoART Magazine.

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The ’80s brought forth a flurry of seminal French street artists, like Philippe “Bando” Lehman and Xavier “Blek le Rat” Prou, whose painted wall adornments inspired the next decade’s generation of graffitists. One such individual was Parisian student Guillaume Lemarquier, who discovered graffiti along his Réseau Express Régional rail system route in 1988 and immediately became captivated by this art form. In fact, the following year, Lemarquier would be interrupted […]

Continue reading this article, Mist’s Devilo Erectus, on CoART Magazine.

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Once DesignerCon‘s doors opened, a thunderous trample of VIPs stormed towards the Medicom booth, a massive queue of people forming in mere moments. In their rush to ostensibly buy hyped works such as Hajime Sorayama‘s 1000% Bearbrick tribute to Mickey Mouse, these collectors sadly raced past ToyQube‘s gallery-style display space, an inviting area abundant with diverse artistry. Among this treasure trove of works, a selection of animal-like sculptures may entice […]

Continue reading this article, Chao Woo’s INLY COOL Series, on CoART Magazine.

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Obsessed with becoming a comic artist, she studiously filled her sketchbooks, intent on developing her sense of character creation and panel-based storytelling. By the tender age of ten, this Japanese girl submitted original work to a girl’s comic magazine publisher, but the polite rejection she received didn’t discourage her. Spending years honing her craft, she turned to self-publishing black-and-white photocopied art zines, such as the one that any passerby might’ve […]

Continue reading this article, Junko Mizuno’s La Flamme Dunny, on CoART Magazine.

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In 1982, Hobby Japan readers must’ve recalled the adage “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” as they encountered SF3D, an ongoing feature in the magazine that took World War II aesthetics and applied them to retro-futuristic war machines. These photo-based installments, through real-world backdrops, forced perspectives, and motion blurring, hyper-realistically highlighted the original models of artist Kow Yokoyama, ones he’d constructed from various kit parts […]

Continue reading this article, Klav’s One Off, on CoART Magazine.

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As the calendar changed to December in 1959, the residents of northern Japan’s Tōhoku region surely prepared for the approaching winter by bracing themselves against the severely cold-filled air and heavily snow-blanketed ground. Thus was the atmosphere when a baby named Yoshitomo Nara was born to the small town of Hirosaki, a creative child whose rural-upbringing was slated to be devoid of like-minded interactions. Satisfied to have one-sided conversations with […]

Continue reading this article, Yoshitomo Nara’s PupCup, on CoART Magazine.

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Her yellow button nose is flanked by trios of whiskers, cartoonishly dot eyes completing her mouthless visage, all contained within a page white, oval-shaped face. Topped with a playfully perched red bow that overlaps one of her feline-like ears, this is the iconic appearance of Hello Kitty. Since being created for the Sanrio company in 1974, she’s become a staple of kawaii — the Japanese culture of cuteness — and a […]

Continue reading this article, Quiccs’ HelloKitty TEQ, on CoART Magazine.

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Mutant punks. Two simple words which probably evoke a very specific image that has been guided by popular counter-culture. Whether the irradiated ruffians at the Class of Nuke ‘Em High‘s heart or the gang of seemingly sub-humanoid scum from Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, “mutant punks” sound like the vile inhabitants of an apocalyptic, freakazoid nightmare. But when Rich Montanari Jr used those words as the subtitle for his fourth […]

Continue reading this article, Mutant Vinyl Hardcore’s Black Sabbath 4: Mutant Punks, on CoART Magazine.

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Seeking to put some “fun” back into his fine art, Aaron Moreno skewed away from his established career as a painter and muralist in 2013, cementing himself in a new direction by creating handmade “action figure” tributes to the cult films that he loved. Yes, basing works on films like Night of the Creeps and New Jack City could be viewed as opportunistic fan servicing, but this path was actually […]

Continue reading this article, Retroband’s I can’t stop the Monster I created, on CoART Magazine.

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The number three has power in fairy tales. From the three attempts that Rumpelstiltskin grants the queen to guess his name to the three magical gifts that Cinderella is given, from Snow White’s stepmother trying to kill her three times to the number of little pigs beset upon by a wolf, the number three has power in fairy tales. And should that number relate to three siblings, it is almost […]

Continue reading this article, Okedoki’s Mighty Mo, on CoART Magazine.

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Our Lady of Holy Death. These words perhaps inspire direness, dread, or a sense of sinisterism, but this devotional title belongs to a female saint in Mexican folk Catholicism, one who can impart healing, protection, and safe transport into the afterlife upon the faithful. With her proper Spanish name being Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte, or Santa Muerte for short, she is a religious personification of death, her traditional […]

Continue reading this article, Stephanie Buscema’s Santa Muerte Dunny, on CoART Magazine.

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Torn from their homes, his friend’s limbs were destined for amputation, their sadistic enemy bent on callously consuming the meaty appendages. The lone survivor watched in wide-eyed horror and a burning hatred swelled within him. Rising from his sunken shelter, journeying from his watery sanctuary and onto unpleasant land, he would use the methods of these savages against them. He’d take the name Tako, the Japanese word for his species, […]

Continue reading this article, The Tako’s Revenge Dunny by Fakir, on CoART Magazine.