ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

DATE FARMERS

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(California, US)

The Date Farmers are Armando Lerma and Carlos Ramírez. The artwork by The Date Farmers echoes Mexican-American heritage rooted in California pop culture. Their paintings, collages and three-dimensional sculptures contain elements influenced by graffiti, Mexican street murals, traditional revolutionary posters, sign painting, prison art and tattoos. Living in the peaceful seclusion of the desert, the artists often travel across the border, into Mexicali and Oaxaca to scavenge for materials. With traces of ancient indigenous art, mushrooms, and mescal, the Date Farmers combine familiar pop iconography and corporate logos with figures from comics, folklore and Catholicism. Desert creatures such as coyotes, snakes, and scorpions appear frequently in their works as well as found materials like stamps, bottle caps, hand painted or collaged lettering.

The Date Farmers have a history that is just as compelling as their artwork. Originally from Indio, California, they met at an art gallery in Coachella Valley ten years ago. Marsea Goldberg of New Image Art gave them their first show, naming them The Date Farmers because Armando’s father owned a Date Farm in Coachella where Carlos worked, picking dates. Carlos’ mother was a migrant who once worked with civil rights leader Cesar Chavez -American activist and co-founder of the United Farm Workers- during the grape boycott of the 1970s. Through their unique perspective as American-born Chicanos, The Date Farmers explore topical subjects with a profound simplicity.

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DALEK

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(1968, Connecticut, US)

Dalek is an American artist and designer based in Raleigh, North Carolina. He has published two books featuring his artwork, as well as being included in many other books and magazines.

Merging animation, Japanese pop art, and an urban aesthetic, James Marshall 'Dalek' is best known for his Space Monkey character -a strange, vaguely humanoid mouse that he would depict in an array of bright colors and twisted circumstances, often wielding a butcher’s cleaver. Working under the name Dalek, Marshall expressed his ideas through the Space Monkey character until 2007, when he began working in a purely abstract style. 

He has always been engaged in skateboard and graffiti subcultures, and Marshall cites his two-year assistantship in the studio of controversial Japanese artist Takashi Murakami as a formative experience.


Watch a timelapse video by Hurley here:

D*FACE

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(England)

D*Face is a London-based sculptor and stencil artist, who uses the city as his own personal gallery sticking, pasting and drawing on any wall or space available. Known for its subversive nature, his work challenges our expectations by overturning iconic imagery and introducing us to his own bizarre characters and creations.

Growing up in London, D*Face had a childhood interest in graffiti, and as a teenager was drawn to the street culture and imagery associated with skateboarding. Following a degree in Illustration and Design, D*Face went to work at creative agency, but was disillusioned with it and continued to pursue his own work on the side. Eventually his personal work eclipsed his paid work and he left his job to concentrate on his artistic ambitions.

His characters, such as "D*Dog" are vehicles for which the viewer questions their relationship with the work, it aims to encourage the public to not just see but to look at their surroundings. An associate of Banksy, he has shown works at the world famous Santa's Ghetto and recently had his own solo exhibition at the Stolen Space gallery in East London.

Watch this interview by Walrus TV:


CRITTER

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David Choe's bodyguard, personal trainer, publicist, and lover. He is the illegitimate love child of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher; as such he is Immune to the Influence of Third World Sewer Cultures, i.e. [Los Angeles]]. David Choe & Critter met in Colombia in an instance of Cosmic Importance.

A Monstrous Teutonic Mutant with the Golden Hair of a Cherub. Critter is the Author of "83 Ways To Make A A Love Story", available at finer "Bookstores" everywhere. His favorite food-stuff is Brick. Never approach him in the evening, that's when his powers are strongest.

Critter is often the moral compass of Reality, which must be Simply Fucking Terrifying. Fuck It. Critter recently signed a deal with Martha Stewart to make cakes and babies for a TV show, after headbutting and a brutal fight, the 'Mrittera' parted ways.

GREG 'CRAOLA' SIMKINS

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(1975, California, US)

Greg “Craola” Simkins was born in 1975 in Torrance California, just south of Los Angeles. He grew up with a menagerie of animals including a number of rabbits, which often emerge in his paintings. He began drawing at the early age of three and was inspired by various cartoons and books. Some standout books that still find their way into his art are Watership Down by Richard Adams, The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis and The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster.

Simkins’ art continued to progress to the age of 18, when he started doing graffiti under the name “CRAOLA”. Graffiti art became his impetus for creating and gave him the confidence to paint large works. In addition it taught him perspective, color theory and further developed his artistic skills, which later translated into his work with acrylics.

It is his careful weaving of pop culture, the old masters, nature, carnival kitsch, and his warped imagination, that makes Greg Simkins a sought-after surrealist painter today. Simkins’ artwork has appeared in museums and galleries throughout the world.

Watch this video by Trekell Art Supplies:


CODY HUDSON

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(1971, Wisconsin, US)

Cody Hudson works as a multimedia artist, but is often considered a painter and a graphic designer. His use of graphic line work and a palette of bright colors have coalesced to create a body of paintings that reference his narrative of longing and hopefulness while also finding context within contemporary abstract painting. 

The artist is interested in the elemental use of shape as signifier, but he has gone further by allowing the forms that take place in his paintings to be direct extensions of the poetic content of the painting itself. He has also focused on sculpture and text, introducing found and constructed wood forms, color and graphic images to his totemic structures. Ranging from tabletop constructions to large freestanding pieces, his three dimensional work has become a major focal point of his process as a whole.

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CHRISTOPHER DUNCAN

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(1974, New Jersey, US)

Chris Duncan is an Oakland-based artist who employs repetition and accumulation as a basis for experiments in visual and sound based media. Often in flux between maximal and minimal, Duncan's work is a constant balancing act of positive or negative, loud or quite, solitary or participatory and tends to lead towards questions regarding perception, experience and transcendence. 

Outside of his studio practice he organizes events and runs a small artist book press and record label called LAND AND SEA with his wife. Duncan earned his BFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts and his Masters Degree in Art Practice from Stanford University.

CHE JEN

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(South Korea)

Che Jen is a Brooklyn-based painter from South Korea, who was raised in Brooklyn. Che Jen has shown around the world in Milan, London, Tokyo and all over the United States, and has been featured in various publications. Growing up in Brooklyn and the Lower East Side in the 1970s "defined the visual abstractions that are incorporated into my being and permeates my personality and my work." 

CHARLES GLAUBITZ

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(Tijuana, Mexico)

Glaubitz's work could be described as mythical, pictorial, illustrative, cosmological, and relating to sequential art and comics. It combines elements of myth, religion, and spirituality with comics, hermetic ideas, alchemy and science. He works in painting, drawing, watercolor, sculpture, installations, animation and comics.

"There have been two very important changes in my work. In the beginning of 2001 the work was influenced by the surrounding environment of Tijuana and characters from Tijuana and Mexican folklore, myth and pop culture. I call this work the “old world”— El Viejo Mundo— which is about our relationships to the exterior, whether it be relationships that are more indicative of a clashing against ideas of the border, or are more parallel to what the physical border means in real life.

In 2007 a change occurred in my work when “the old world” ceased to exist and I created two archetypes to confront each other in a final battle, the Capitalist King and the Gardener. In battle they ended up being more complementary and less oppositional and together they created a small big bang, and this big bang gave birth to the new world. This new world in my work is a realm of the “starseed” children and illuminati secret society.

My newer work addresses the idea of borders/limits within oneself, one’s own limits internally. I’m interested now less in physical borders and more in the borders that exist between imagination, abstraction, myth and fantasy; the internal conflicts as opposed to the external."

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CES

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Ces began hitting trains in 1983, staying on the showcase lines of the IRTs. As the wall movement began, Ces became a strong writer for the legendary FX crew. Through the crew he had entered the European scene and took full advantage of it, he continues to paint around the world and is co-owner of Tuff City in the Bronx.


BYRON O’NEILL

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(1970, Detroit, US)

Byron O'Neill is an artist, as well as a design director at Jager DiPaola Kemp Design. O'Neill has gained much recognition in the past decade for his work on Burton Snowboards.

O'Neill has had both solo art shows, as well as group shows, all across the United States, most recently Geographically Speaking in San Francisco. He is also a member of the Iskraprint Collective.

BIGFOOT

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(New Jersey, US)

Bigfoot is a California based nature loving artist and has been a influence in the skateboard industry for more than a decade. Originally from New Jersey, young Bigfoot fled to California to be closer to big trees and the Grateful Dead. 

Disassociated from art school and human society, in 1994 he started writing “Bigfoot” in the streets of San Francisco with relentless fury. Working often with house paint and wooden panels, his work depicts the conflict between the respect for nature held by the artist’s cast of Bigfoot characters and the destructive agenda of mankind. 

Despite his reclusive nature, Bigfoot has managed to stay active in society, designing skateboard graphics and footwear, showing in galleries in America and Japan, the release of his vinyl figure with Strangeco in 2004, and more recently his collaborations with The North Face and Hurley. His eponymous character and his love of heavy metal and especially the masked rock group KISS, play a major role in his studio work as well as his highly recognized art.

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And here:

BEN TOUR

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(1977, Canada)

Ben Tour channels a dark, often haunting sense of humanism in his work. His observations deftly inform his paintings, enabling him to capture the essence of a character, then distort that view any way he desires. 

Frenetic lines, swaths of color, and intimate angles all convey a sense that Tour may not only be drawing inspiration from the lives of strangers he observes, but manifesting his own personal experiences as well. The emotional content in each portrait is palpable as this perceived notion of creation and catharsis is paired well with the immediate voyeuristic allure of his characters. 

Tour has exhibited in galleries from Los Angeles to Miami, Hamburg to New York. His work has been featured in publications including BLK/MRKT One and Two, Juxtapoz, and Playboy. He has worked with clients such as BMW, Absolut, Nike and Burton Snowboards.

Watch the Stickboy "Monster Murals" project by vancouveropera: 


BASCO VAZKO

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(1983, Santiago, Chile)

Basco Vazko currently lives and works in Santiago. He has been painting all of his life and will paint as much as he can for the rest of his days. He says he's not an artist or a graffiti writer or a street artist; he's a painter. Besides a painter he's a collector. He collects rocks, old magazines, stamps, old books, small cactuses, and other people's drawings. He tries to keep most of what he paints to himself. 

He has been contributing his unique street art and graffiti to public canvases all over South America from a very young age and in recent years has had a series of successful gallery appearances around the world.

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BARRON STOREY

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(1940, Dallas, US)

Barron is an American illustrator, graphic novelist, and educator. He is known for his accomplishments as an illustrator and fine artist, as well as for his career as a teacher. Storey has taught illustration since the 1970s and currently is on the faculty of California College of the Arts in San Francisco. He has also taught at San Jose State University and Pixar Studios. 

He has been a commercial illustrator since the 1960s, and his clients have included major magazines such as Boys' Life, Reader's Digest, and National Geographic. His cover portraits for Time of Howard Hughes and Yitzhak Rabin hang in the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery. His giant painting of the South American rain forest hangs in New York's American Museum of Natural History, and a 1979 rendering of the space shuttle commissioned by NASA, the first official painting ever done of it, hangs in the Air and Space Museum on the National Mall.

As a book illustrator he as done cover illustrations for the Franklin Library classics, War and Peace, The Good Earth and Stories by Sinclair Lewis; as well as the covers of Fahrenheit 451 for Del Rey / Ballantine; and, most famously, the 1980 reissue of Lord of the Flies.

David Choe wrote of Barron in his book, Slow Jams (1999): “Nobody draws better than Barron. Not you, not your little sister, your architect dad, not your rebellious ex-boyfriend who draws with his own blood, not the most talented kid at your art school. Not your favorite artist in the whole world; I've seen the work with my own eyes. Nobody draws better than The Barron.”

Watch Life After Black - The Visual Journals of Barron Storey by magpiejst: