PodgyPanda Creates Art That Makes You LOL

Gut-wrenching, thought-provoking, nostalgic, arousing, anger-inducing… these are some of the common impressions that artists often seek to evoke through their art. This intentional pulling of heartstrings is either accomplished by means of cognitive antecedents or clear messaging through powerful imagery. It is often argued by art critics that good art isn’t just a pretty picture; moreover, it makes the viewer feel some kind of way. But Richard Kuoch, known in the art world as PodgyPanda, just wants to make you smile. Maybe even chortle or LOL.

In his first ever solo show in the United States, Kuoch is revealing his newest digital illustration series at Dragatomi in Midtown Sacramento. The series places his cute little characters, familiar to fans of his previous works, into recognizable Disney movie scenes. In one of these pieces, his panda character replaces Ariel as the mermaid bursting out of the foamy ocean and onto a rock while in song. In another, the panda as Tramp shares a single strand of spaghetti with Lady in Little Italy. Another illustration depicts PodgyPanda as Simba from The Lion King being held up by a baboon character over Pride Rock in the iconic birth announcement. You get the idea.

The effect is like being bombarded by adorableness and humor, although people who like to read into things could probably extrapolate some meaning in the theme in regards to pop culture, icons, blah, blah, blah. Kuoch says he just wants the viewer to feel happy. Beyond his little dudes’ unabashed cuteness, his use of cartoonishly vibrant colors also lends to the visually pleasing and uplifting result of looking at his pieces.

A New Zealand native, Kuoch just moved back home to Auckland after a two-year stint in London. While in England, he was lucky enough to land a job at Kidrobot, the famous adult toy company (not that kind of adult toy—the collectible, endearing figurine sort) and was able to bolster his art career to new heights. He has shown his work in the United States in group shows, as well as in Canada, New Zealand and Europe. His first solo show was in Calgary.

The solo show at Dragatomi opens on Second Saturday, Aug. 9, and will be coming down on Sept. 12, 2014. If you’ve never popped into Dragatomi before (it’s on J Street between 23rd and 24th streets), it serves as the perfect venue for this show. Dragatomi is a gallery and boutique that features toys, apparel, art books, and art inspired by urban pop culture—PodgyPanda fits right in.

Besides his popular digital illustrations, Kuoch also creates logos, drawings on wood or paper, resin toys, and apparel. His updated website launch (Podgypanda.com) is slated to correspond with the solo exhibit at Dragatomi, and his online shop is bustling, though Kuoch says it usually experiences a spike in sales following a show. Exhibit attendees can also purchase his work in person at shows—Kuoch likes to attend his shows so he can meet the people who come to them.

With a background in animation, Kuoch’s cheerful imagination led to the birth of the characters that are depicted in a unique world throughout his work. PodgyPanda is sort of the main character, with a cast of supporting pals. The characters are adorable little chaps in odd situations or locations that support his overall motto about art—“Blink, smile, share.” His father influenced his outlook by being a funny guy that loved to make people laugh, and for Kuoch, making art is all about the importance and contagiousness of happiness.

In addition to sharing his art on his website and at exhibitions, PodgyPanda is all up in the social media, too—Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, Flickr, Pinterest, Twitter—and Kuoch has participated in Creative Mornings in Auckland, a breakfast lecture series for the creative community which takes place in cities around the world. These rad and inspiring themed talks are available to view online at Creativemornings.com.

“’Blink, smile, share’ refers to an emotion, what I want people to get out of experiencing my art. I try to evoke some sort of feeling, mostly a happy thought worthy of sharing,” explains Kuoch, who hopes to see your smiling face at Dragatomi.

Kuoch’s solo show featuring PodgyPanda will be at Dragatomi, 2317 J Street, from Aug. 9 to Sept. 6, 2014. For more info, visit Podgypanda.com or Dragatomi.com.

Toy Sculptor Jay222 follows his gut… and then spills it on his grotesque creations

Following your instincts may sound like the easiest thing in the world to do, unless of course a primal urge is pulling you in an unlikely direction. East Bay toy sculptor Jay222 can certainly relate. Just a handful of years ago, he was enrolled in the Paul Mitchell school, studying hard at the hopes of “working full-force in a salon” as a hair stylist. But a class in special effects/horror movie makeup drastically changed the course of his life.

“That one-day class made me want to put all my focus toward creating monsters instead of doing people’s hair,” he says.

Though his skill at his craft may speak of a life’s work, in reality Jay is relatively new to sculpting. He says he started in 2006, barely five years ago. In fact, fine arts were just something he appreciated in the past. He admits he used to “paint a little bit,” but one day he went down to an art store to pick up some clay and decided to make sculpts of his friends just to see how they would come out and to impress the many visitors to his then home in Daly City, Calif.

Scratchy Seal Robot

“We always had a lot of people over,” Jay says. “I’d constantly come into contact with so many new people, and I just thought it would be dope if the people who lived in the house had their own figures set up on the fireplace.”

The turn in Jay’s path that led him to toy sculpting occurred when he wanted to bestow a fellow artist with a token of his esteem. After getting tattooed by Horitaka, a renowned tattoo artist and owner of State of Grace in San Jose, Calif., Jay made his way to San Francisco to buy him a gift.

“I was loving his tattoo work,” Jay explains. “I was loving what he put on me. He’s such an amazing artist, so I wanted to give him a gift. I went down to Haight Street in San Francisco–Kidrobot–and I came across a tattooed Dunny [“a blank canvas designed to be repainted and reinterpreted by artists from many different backgrounds,” according to the Kidrobot website; it takes its name from its cartoonish rabbit shape] that Huck Gee had made. That was my first exposure to the art toys, and from there, I was just hooked.”

Jay isn’t the first fine artist to make the jump into making art toys. For example, in addition to the work of Gee, a United Kingdom-born illustrator and toy sculptor, Kidrobot’s Dunny series also includes the work of Japanese manga artist Junko Mizuno and Frank Kozik, best known for his iconic rock posters.

“I think a lot of it has to do with nostalgia, but it’s also something you can hold,” Jay says of the fine art toy movement. “You can bring it with you. You can bring it on trips. You’re able to collect them and display them as three-dimensional art pieces in your home or studio. I think that has a lot to do with it.”

Qbert Mixer

Whatever the reason, toys are clearly not just for kids any more. A quick perusal of Jay’s creations is proof of that. On his website, Jay222toy.blogspot.com, Jay has posted videos (one featuring DJ Qbert) of the artist at work. In them, you can see as he turns blank, white, rodent-shaped action figures into grotesque (yet still kind of cute) creatures–the kind that would make George Romero, Sam Raimi or even Italian “Godfather of Gore” Lucio Fulci proud. Jay’s horror-inspired work can also be found here in Sacramento at Dragatomi, which features his splatter-ific Benny Burlap sculpts and the charmingly nauseating Up-Chuck Throw-Up Kids figure. What’s remarkable about these creations isn’t only the vivid and twisted imagination behind them, but also the level of detail. Strangely enough, it’s Jay’s training as a hairdresser that honed is skill in recreating sinew and fascia.

“At [the Paul Mitchell school], they teach you all anatomy,” Jay says. “I studied it during school and kept all the books and kept looking at all the anatomy and kept trying to match the muscle tissue in the books and recreate what it would look like on these characters.”

Jay will bring a whole slew of memorable characters to Dragatomi April 9 with the opening of his latest art show. A tribute to one of his all-time favorite films, Big Trouble in Little China, this will be the first show for which Jay has served as curator. He’s getting off to quite a start, too. Also featured alongside Jay will be notable artists such as local favorite Skinner, Dave Correia, Task One and Alex Pardee.

“I met Alex a couple years back at Wondercon,” Jay says of Pardee. “When I first saw his work, it really blew me away–his detail, his colors, his imagination. He’s brilliant. He’s a genius. His work really caught me, and I’ve always been a big fan. I was really stoked when he said he’d be down for it.”

Jay describes Big Trouble in Little China as a film that has “everything.” Debuting in 1986 and starring Kurt Russell and Kim Cattrall, it’s a story of a truck driver (Russell) who ends up in the thick of an ancient, mystical battle in Chinatown. The action-adventure/comedy was directed by John Carpenter, better known for his horror films such as The Serpent and the Rainbow and the Halloween series (the good one, not the Rob Zombie one).

“It had black magic, sword fight scenes, martial arts, comedy, monsters, creatures,” Jay gushes about Big Trouble in Little China “It had everything that’s awesome about a movie in one movie.”

While his love for the campy classic is clear, would other artists jump on board and share his fervor for the film?

“I wasn’t really sure how it would go over, because I’ve never seen a show that was based on one film,” Jay says. “I’m sure there have been gallery showings that are based on one film, but I wasn’t aware of any, and I wasn’t sure how it would go over with other artists.”

However, Jay stuck with his original idea, and in the end found that others were just as stoked about the project as he was. “It felt right,” he says.

Jay also went with his gut when creating his contribution to the show. He sculpted the Three Storms, characters from the film imbued with the powers of thunder, rain and lightning, which will be available in three different versions thanks to Task One, who helped Jay with the roto-cast resin process.

“I kind of normally stick with my first instincts as to what to make,” Jay says.

And why not? They seem to be serving him well thus far.

Remote Control

Big Trouble in Little China: A Tribute opened at Dragatomi on April 9. A full list of participating artists can be found at Jay222’s website, Jay222toy.blogspot.com. Dragatomi is located at 2317 J Street in Sacramento and online at Dragatomi.com

Artists Joseph “Bron4000” Molina and Ayami Suzuki-Molina Set their Sights on Second Saturday

Though there haven’t been many dry days so far this year, there are far worse ways to spend a Saturday night than strolling around the city and perusing the works of different artists. Second Saturday provides Sacramentans with the opportunity to do just that, with galleries through out the city staying open late to receive guests as well as host artists whose works are on display. The next Second Saturday will take place on February 9th, and two artists you’ll be able to familiarize yourselves with are Joseph “Bron4000″ Molina and his wife Ayami Suzuki-Molina, who will be showing their work alongside Bradley Platz and Josh Heilaman at SaraJane & Co. at 908 21st Street in Midtown. The San Francisco-based Molina (with a little help from Ayami) answered a few of Submerge‘s questions regarding the couple’s upcoming gallery show and his artistic background.

I saw that you and Ayami Suzuki had done a show together at KidRobot in San Francisco. The two of you are married, correct? How did you two meet?
Bron4000: Yes… to each other. I tugged at the red string tied to my pinky and her pinky happened to be tied to the other end of it. She’s a Molina now.

What are you bringing to the show in Sacramento? Is it different than last year’s show at KidRobot?
Bron4000: A little bit of this and that with some of those over there. I would like to think the new pieces are different from the KidRobot show. I would hate to be that “stuck artist”… too many of those. I might revisit an idea or two and flip it. After the pieces are hung… my opinion gets thrown through the window because it’s up to the viewer to formulate there own interpretations so, I’ll leave that up to y’all to decide.
The show at SaraJane & Co. in Sacramento also features the work of Bradley Platz and Josh Heilaman. Are you familiar with both these artists’ work?
Bron4000: I am now.
Ayami Suzuki-Molina: Me too.
Both at the same time: Interesting.

From what I’ve read, you were involved with the graffiti scene in San Francisco. Is this how you got your start as an artist?
Bron4000: I actually got into art from cartoons and Marvel comic books. John Romita, Sr. plus [John Romita] Jr. equals magma loogies. Graffiti had always been around, but it wasn’t until about ’82 when I caught my cousin doing it. Then I started to differentiate gang stuff from the dope shit. Thanks Swaz1er! Then I started biting folks like Dondi and Vaughn Bodé. I got foundations in San Francisco, but it was when I was living in Sacramento that I started to refine my stuff and began to get more notice.

How has the graffiti scene in SF changed since you’ve been involved in it?
Bron4000: Same baloney, different bread. Including myself at times. One thing I can’t stand is the hipster graffiti heads… 85 percent of them.

Had you always had designs to move more into the fine art realm?
Bron4000: I guess so… What I do love is the creative process—the more outlets, the better. The transition from graffiti to gallery is tough, because once it’s on a canvas it’s no longer graffiti. I would love to make that fine art money, though.

Looking at the characters you paint, I see a lot of different things in them—from pop culture icons to perhaps a bit of an anime influence—and they have a sort of cartoon-y feel. Did you watch a lot of cartoons growing up? Do you still? If so, which ones do you think had the biggest impact on you as an artist?
Bron4000: Adult Swim. I wish it was on all day, but then I might as well get into Star Trek. Voltron, Tranzor Z, RoboTech, Transformers… whatever. I even watched The Snorks, Paw Paw Bears, Black Star, She-Ra, fuck it. Nowadays I like Aqua Teen Hunger Force, some SpongeBob and Ben 10. I don’t like the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Saturday TV Fun House. Hell yeah … I think the writing in those cartoons is genius… even those old racist ass Warner Brothers ones. Droopy Dog was a pimp. South Park is kingin’ ’em all… Butters for Prime Minister! My wife being Japanese has nothing to do with any anime influence.

I saw that you’d done a vinyl figure for the KidRobot show. Is this something you hope to do more of?
Bron4000: Yes, I think I might have one for this upcoming show hopefully. I actually like painting those things because it’s 3-D. We’ll see…

When I was doing some research on you, I saw that your name also came up in regards to music. Do you also record? If so, how would you compare that creative experience as opposed to your artwork?
Bron4000: At times you can find me behind a mic, but not as much nowadays. I still keep writing rhymes, though. Gotta keep the sword sharp. Addict Merchants …yehbebeh. Music is more therapy for me. My focus has always been to paint. As far as the creative differences … with a band, it’s a give and take because there are more entities involved and you can only move about within certain perimeters without causing a conflict of ideas. It happens. You can only let so much out before the collective thinks you’re nuts.

In painting, it’s free jazz… all day. The influences are the same, though … at least for me. The thinking process is the same, just different ways of application. If you’re not looking for the perfect beat, then you’re looking for the perfect line or stoke. I haven’t found either.