My hero, slave to the deep gash: Maruo Suehiro!!!

For Suehiro Maruo, forward progress is deep, gorgeously sensual drive towards eros and thanatos: sex and death. And he, rare among the plethora of gorgeous and talented horror artists out there, is able to penetrate the absurdity of outrageous obscenity and snap us into something deeper. His beautiful paintings and comics, jarring in the contrast of their retro-feminine gorgeousness and their gut-wrenching grotesquery, tap beautifully into the spirit of desperate, energetic, celebratory confusion that grips us as we face the modern world. A consummate collector and historically-attuned artist, his nostalgia is gripping but not positive. His past is that of wartime and especially post-war Japan; to my fellow Americans, it will feel at once vaguely familiar and deeply foreign. Though by no means a Japanese nationalist, Uncle Maruo (as he is known) can't help but see that period from a uniquely Japanese perspective. His landscape is one of schoolboys in vintage uniforms, young girls in fluttering skirts and hats with bows, men in bowler hats, soldiers, women in kimono, traditional Japanese demons - but not only that. The influence of the West looms large, and freak shows, circuses, and German Expressionist silent films such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Nosferatu cast their shadow over much of his work; Uncle Maruo is also a big fan of Eraserhead director David Lynch. And traditional Japanese and "fine" artists are major influences, as well: a panel of one of his manga uses a Rene Magritte image of floating men in bowler hats with apple faces for absurd humorous juxtaposition, and he collaborated with another artist to do a series of interpretations of the gory ukiyo-e prints of Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, my personal favorite Japanese print master.

Suehiro Maruo's artistic net has been cast quite wide; though highly stylistically consistent, his work ranges from more traditional horror manga to film interpretations (Dr. Caligari), surreal post-war Japanese memory montages reflecting on love and loss, political parody (as in Planet of the Jap, in which Japan wins the war and, well, everything goes to shit right quick), and even album covers: he did widely acclaimed album art for legendary experimental composer John Zorn's grindcore-jazz band, Naked City.

Why am I typing so much and providing so many images for this particular artist?

Well, this man is my hero, and perhaps I just find myself a bit insufficient at the task of explaining exactly why. I have presented him to friends before and found him treated as a mere shock-and-horror artist, seen his subtext glossed over, the constructed meaning of his sexuality and goriness obscured, ignored, unseen. And since the guy -is- my hero, that frankly hurts.
So please, even if I haven't convinced you, try to read a little more into his stories of mutilated lovers (though you may have to gaze at the beauty in the original Japanese, as very little has been translated). They are more than simply reveling in sexuality and gore. There is a greater cathartic instinct in Japanese culture - very healthy, I think - that has manifested itself over time in the form of the eroguro, or erotic-grotesque, artistic movement: portraying the emotional conflict and absurdity of modern life through sex and gore, and above all, "nonsense" that is not really nonsense at all.

There is absurdity in Uncle Maruo's work, but no nonsense. A bold statement to make, but I think it's true.

Be warned before setting out to read his comics: some of them contain liberal amounts of content that mixes extreme fetishism and sexuality with extreme gore and political humor, and that can be VERY DISTURBING for many readers. It is also unequivocally NOT SAFE FOR WORK, of course.

Artist: Maruo Suehiro
Type of art: Eroguro nansensu (erotic-grotesque nonsense), undeground manga, illustration
Media: Pen and ink, acrylic paint
Time period: Contemporary
Country of origin: Japan
Motifs: Mutilated young lovers, freak shows, negative nostalgia, postwar Japan, propriety and impropriety, war, sex, death

The Man Himself's official Website!
Commentary on and fan-translations of Maruo Suehiro at Same Hat!
Suehiro Maruo scanalations available at GuroFan!
A great little Uncle Maruo gallery
On Wikipediaaaaaa
Ghod, I love this guy. Surely one of my Very Favorite Artists Of All Time.

Artist as abominable snowman: an in-depth interview with Brandi Milne!

I recently featured artist Brandi Milne, and when I did, I said I might ask her about some of the questions that were bugging me in regards to her work. Well, guess what? I did! Here follows an in-depth interview with the lady herself, who turned out to be as sweet, as charming, and as thoroughly interesting as her work. I made a number of presumptions and judgments about her work when I first encountered it; some were right, while others were very, very wrong. I hope you enjoy reading this interview as much as I enjoyed conducting it!

On her creative style and the content of her work:

"I'm more of an emotional painter, and want people to FEEL from my work. I want people to feel happy, nostalgic, sad, funny, silly, awkward, ridiculous. I like my work to look good, be well-balanced and interesting."

"I want everyone to feel wanted and included in my work!"

"I paint/draw the girls because that's how I narrate personally... since I'm a girl. And... memories of childhood - the feelings I had growing up are basically what I draw from now - my inspirations and emotions are directly linked to all that. Candy and sweets too, growing up I was OBSSESSED with candy. Like a fiend. Always sneaking around the candy dish at Christmas, it hasn't left me."

Sweetness, to me - in this world filled with hate and horrors - is everything.

"The candies, cupcakes and sweets were easily incorporated into my work - not only because I loved 'em growing up, but also because of what they can represent universally for the viewers. I want people to feel peaceful, happy and nostalgic when they come across my work, my world, and I feel those sweet images help me do that. Sweetness, to me - in this world filled with hate and horrors - is everything. I feel like I had such a wonderful upbringing, innocence and silliness, I want to get that back for me, and I want others to feel it too. Does that make sense?"

"Maybe [I would want to live in the world I conjure up in my images]. Maybe I already do, somehow. It all comes from my feelings, what's inside, so maybe I already live there. I'm okay with that."



On her childhood and influences:

"I just released my own 'children's' book called So Good For Little Bunnies in '08 with Baby Tattoo books. I love children's books and I love all those old fairy tales and stories like 'Alice In Wonderland', 'Pinocchio', 'Frog and Toad', little Golden Books, all those old stories and books!"

"I guess I could say my mom was the biggest influence - she taught me how to see, think & feel. Sesame Street, Land of the Lost, The Muppets, The Wizard Of Oz, Alice In Wonderland, Pinocchio, Peter Pan, coloring books, children's books, Farrah Fawcett, Garfield, Peanuts, Christmas & Halloween decorations and nostagia [were all formative influences]...the '70s."

I just released my own "children's'' book called So Good For Little Bunnies... I love children's books and I love all those old fairy tales and stories...

"I wasn't really a comics kinda girl. My exposure to those classic characters like Spidey, Superman, Wonder Woman and the Hulk came from TV in the 70's & 80's. I loved the Electric Company when Spiderman came on, Superman from the original TV series, Linda Carter in the TV series and Lou Ferrigno in The Incredible Hulk. I almost DIED when I got to meet Lou Ferrigno at Comicon last summer...almost died."

"It's weird... I wasn't exposed to anything mythological growing up - my mom thought it was evil - so because I didn't know anything about it, when I would see images or hear bits of stories about that kinda thing, my mind would go nuts trying to guess or you know, fill in the blanks? Sometimes it's better when your own mind can come up with ideas or stories only knowing a little bit, than being told the entire thing. "

"Music is my inspiration 90% of the time. It makes me FEEL. Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Ween, America, Elton John, Tom Jones - classic rock & ridiculousness."

"My biggest influences right now are Camille Rose Garcia, Travis Lampe, Ryan Heshka, Gary Taxali, Femke Heimstra, Daniel Peacock, Dave Cooper, and Cat Dancers."

"Alphonse Mucha's work is huge for me. I think he was up there in the top 5 artists of all time, definitely."

On her creative process:

"I feel everything when I'm working/painting. I feel a hell of a lot of sadness & loneliness, depending on the subject of the piece. Some pieces I only want to feel happiness and joy, but most of my paintings have a mixture of happiness and sadness in them. Painting itself makes me feel like... an abominable snowman... powerful, peaceful, happy, complete."

"When I'm doing works for a gallery show, all those pieces are part of a specific idea/story/feel. They all go together or split up nicely, and they all have their part in conveying how I feel at the time."

"I use acrylic paint and india ink with Rapidiograph pens. I prefer the acrylics because they're what's comfortable for me right now. I've been working with acrylics for about 2 years now; before, it was all watercolors and pencils."

Painting itself makes me feel like... an abominable snowman... powerful, peaceful, happy, complete.

"I've been painting for about 2 years now. I don't really consider what I did with watercolors to be 'painting,' because I used them like pencils."

"I like to start with just a thumbnail - no real studies or detailed sketches. If the idea starts to get old for me because I've drawn it several times, I lose the initial feel for it, and it becomes 'work' to finish the piece. After the thumbnail where I work out the balance and placement, I draw it on the panel (after I've painted a background). I do sloppy glazes that I let pool up - some thin, others thicker. As far as the size [of the piece], it's just whatever I'm feeling for the wall space."

On being part of the Los Angeles gallery scene:

I think [lowbrow/pop surrealism is] important & neccessary in the world today - it's inspirational and honest and hopefully it's a connecting point for each of us.

"It's been unbelievable being involved with this scene. I'm so blessed to be a part of it all, I love all the galleries I've been involved with - Corey Helford Gallery, Thinkspace Gallery, Gallery 1988, Copro Nason - they've all been unique to my career and my enjoyment. My memorable experiences have been meeting the people I've met by doing this. So many people's support and enthusiasm have really encouraged me to keep creating and made me feel like I've accomplished something bigger than I'd have ever imagined."

"I think [lowbrow/pop surrealism is] important & necessary in the world today - it's inspirational and honest and hopefully it's a connecting point for each of us."


"From here, I have my next solo show in April '09 at Thinkspace Gallery which I'm working on now. I have another solo show at Corey Helford Gallery in November '09. I'm looking to break out with some toys in the future and possibly another book - this time a story book with wild imaginings... I want to do everything I can while I can. Meanwhile, you can see what I'm up to at my website - brandimilne.com ."

Thank you, Brandi, for such a wonderful interview, and Awkward Emporium's first! It was a real treat.

A bit of Ye Philo-Sophie! Forgetting To Construct A Meaning.

After posting Brandi Milne's artwork and thinking a bit about her claim to be going only for beauty in her works, I ended up ruminating on meaning in art, and what it is that tends to annoy me about lowbrow and "hip" art. Because quite frankly, it does. I like it, but much of it annoys me, and what confuses me is that I don't want it to annoy me. I want it to come off as authentic and beautiful and pleasurable to me, but it doesn't, it comes off as exceedingly beautiful but sneering and fake. There's that wisecracking irony that is endemic to hipsterism, the holier-than thou assertion that really, the art is totally meaningless, and you're stupid and primitive for trying to find meaning in it, and so on and so forth. And it doesn't just annoy me - it kind of scares me. Why?

It scares me because it reflects an attitude that I see in myself.
As one of those Hoity-Toity Postmodern Types, I do believe that the world has no absolute, or built-in, meaning. Any number of meanings can be extracted from any number of things, based on one's knowledge, situation, and so on - but there is a vast web of shared meanings and deeper feelings held in some part (never in whole) by everyone; they're part of us as humans. Are they Absolutes? Are they coded into the fabric of reality? Well, lacking any evidence that anything is really coded into the "fabric" of reality, I think it's good enough that we're more or less stuck with them as a result of the human condition. Be it how our brains are constructed or the limitations of human societal structures, these shared meanings ain't goin' away. In previous times, we've referred to these things as Absolute Truths, or dictates from God; nowadays, we mayn't permit ourselves to be so bold.

And it's well and good to allow that these things aren't Truths so much as shared meanings; but there's a significant total-nihilst tendency in Progressive Urban Society that takes things a step further, straight into the territory of denying that any true meaning can exist at all, constructed or otherwise, that meaning is a hallucination of sorts, a limitation of the human mind, and that things that are Real must be meaningless.

A fetishization of meaninglessness and no-holds-barred, completely decontextualized cultural pastiche ensues. And critical to this is that there doesn't seem to be any real effort, in many cases not even any desire, to recontextualize! It's not, "hey, let's make a cool new cultural construct," it's "cultural constructs are for pussies." Straight up. I do it. Lots of us do it. It's a major impulse in contemporary artistic and philosophically-inclined youth. We wear decontextualized cultural attributes like cheap bracelets. It makes for fake, sneering identity, fake, sneering art, fake, sneering culture. It's called Hipsterism, and IT SUCKS. I'm going to go out on a limb and quote V For Vendetta here:

"This is not Anarchy, Eve. This is Chaos."

Now, don't get me wrong - Surrealist automatism is good. Pulling stuff up out of the inner recesses isn't just excellent; it's essential, really. But consciously throwing random crap together WITHOUT recontextualizing it within the framework of your automatism punctures the dream. In searching for a better structure, it's important to remember that we need a structure. Just throwing away the structure, eschewing the dream logic of our art entirely and just adding some random shit together, doesn't get us a new, better type of art. It gets us a steaming pile of fake, sneering, ironic crap.

So, Postmodern Gentlepersons, I suggest you go to your local independent, worker-owned hardware store, buy a big can of nontoxic, environmentally friendly house paint in your color of choice and a vegan, animal-free brush, dip that eco-brush in that eco-paint, and scrawl on your wall in large, clear letters:

REMEMBER TO CONSTRUCT A MEANING.

And for the sake of everything beautiful, follow that advice. Postmodern values such as Tolerance are wonderful and should be held dear, but that doesn't negate the need to hold a coherent internal logic in your life. It can be open to change, but trying your best not to have one will only lead you to kill yourself. And remember, meanings are just meanings. Hold them lightly; they're not absolute. Rich and contradictory meanings are part of the spice of life, and they're much, much, much better than the bland flatness that is no meaning at all.

Brandi Milne, and a note on my avoidance of "trendy" art

Since the beginning of this blog, I have admittedly been largely avoding "trendy" lowbrow/pop surrealist artwork. It's not that I don't like it - I do! Some can be overly saccharine or smooth, but that's a far better thing than the careless, thoughtless, emotionally sterile slop dished out by most "postmodern" artistes. I think it's more that I didn't want to be just like everyone else in the "alternative" art world, another indie hipster, another Juxtapoz Magazine clone. And guess what? This art blog has not by any means been a Generic Hipster Art Blog; I think it's fair to say that Awkward Emporium is not at any significant risk of becoming a GHAB in the near future.

So in light of the fact that this blog is supposed to reflect more or less the full range of my artistic tastes, albeit with an especial focus on Japanese underground/"indie" art, it's time I start including some lowbrow/pop surrealist artists. It's only one of the many categories I'm interested in, so I needn't be too concerned that my blog will all of a sudden become horribly hip and fashionable. :3 And really, what's so awful about popularity? The love of art is partly about the thrill of finding a wonderful, little-known artist for me, it's true, but a good, popular artist is a good artist nonetheless.

Now, then! On that note, this here is Brandi Milne. She's been in the Los Angeles lowbrow/alternative art scene for the last four years, and in that time she's infiltrated major galleries such as Gallery 1988, La Luz de Jesus and Thinkspace with her visions of a cherry-flavored, sugar-coated alternate universe. Surrounded by giant flora and swirling grasses, her introverted, elastic figures clutch cupcakes, cherries or giant slices of meat, bent over in wafish and posessive thought. The effect is schizophrenic in a manner akin to that of a Junko Mizuno cute-grotesque illustration, but while Mizuno contrasts cute and soft with icky and slimy, Milne contrasts toy-like, cheery and edible with depressed and introverted. In Brandi Milne's paintings, it's the lollipops that're smiling, not the humans. What exactly that says is difficult to pinpoint, but it's significant and worth considering. I can say for myself that I live in a beautiful area full of wealthy people, and many of them don't seem any happier for it. According to her profile on the 686/Faction Website, though, Mme. Milne is simply in it for the beauty. So perhaps I'm reading too much into her work. Perhaps I shall ask?

Artist: Brandi Milne
Type of art: Lowbrow/pop surrealism, illustration, design
Medium: Acrylic paint, ink
Time period: Contemporary
Country of origin: USA
Motifs: Lowbrow feel, elastic cartoon figures, fairytale accoutrement, candy, fruit and sweets, cartoon animals

Madame Milne's Website
Her page at 686/Faction
Her blog

Surreal Life: the picture books of Shaun Tan

Finally, a new discovery! For a while now, all the artists I've been covering have been ones I was previously familiar with; I keep a Soopar Sekrit List in my underground lair, and no, you can't see it. But this guy? No, this guy I just discovered today, using the wonderful tool that is vi.sualize.us .

It might be tempting at first blush to label Shaun Tan as a "fantasy" artist, but upon further inspection, that doesn't seem to really be accurate. His picture books focus on expressing the inner reality of people like you and I through surrealism. The world is expressed through his drawings not how it literally is, but how it feels, and is interpreted through a very substantial imagination. Take, for example, the two black & white images above, from The Arrival, a wordless picture book telling the quintessential immigrant's story. The lower image, with its ramshackle buildings and tentacles, is an image of the Old Country, while the upper image, with its freeways and splendor, is the new city. That's not literally what the Old Country (the one my family came from, or any other) looks like, or what first-world cities look like - but that's how they -feel-, certainly, to an immigrant. And isn't it captured just so vividly?

So it's not just his expansive imagination that makes Tan such a good visual storyteller. It's his strategy - using that imagination to channel the feeling of the real through images of the surreal. And it's a strategy that works well at an instinctive level, especially for children, the traditional audience of picture books (though an adult can have a plenty rich experience with his work as well). Jim Woodring's Frank universe, for example, strikes immediately as a surreal inner world, conveying all the feelings and experiences of the "real" world but in a different way.

So if you have a child, or simply a hankering for good storytelling art, pick up Shaun Tan's books. He's apparently working with Pixar on character design, so look for a bit of the Tan touch on upcoming films, as well.

As an additional note on his compatibility with his "traditional" audience, I'd encourage you, dear reader, to check out this wonderful essay of his on the assumption that picture books are or should be for children. It runs along much the same lines as the arguments for comics as a medium for highbrow and lowbrow material for all ages, not just for kids or teens. He's clearly not just imaginative, but quite smart.

Artist: Shaun Tan
Type of art: Surreal picture book illustration, surreal/experimental painting
Media: Pencil, oil, acrylic, charcoal, collage, enamel, crayon, plaster, et cetera
Time period: Contemporary
Country of origin: Australia
Motifs: surreal images that depict the feel of real life, monsters, children, juxtaposition of realistic and cartoony forms, multimedia painting, graceful and emotive curves, energetic lines

Website! Checkit ouuuut!
Also check out this essay of his about originality and creativity.
Wikitypikitypedia entry
Interview with The Comics Journal

Rest in peace, Bettie Page!

A true artist among us has died.

Bettie Page, who has inspired generations of women to self-empowerment and caused myriad admirers to reconsider the "shameful" nature of nudity, who lit up the world around her with her honest, lovely smile, who has been an icon to all who realize that kinky, wild, unfettered sexuality isn't such a bad thing after all, passed away in a coma after suffering a heart attack nine days previous. The statement from her official Website:

"With deep personal sadness I must announce that my dear friend and client Bettie Page passed away at 6:41pm PST this evening in a Los Angles hospital. She died peacefully but had never regained consciousness after suffering a heart attack nine days ago. She captured the imagination of a generation of men and women with her free spirit and unabashed sensuality. She is the embodiment of beauty.
Statement by Mark Roesler, business agent for Bettie Page"

What more is there to say? Rest in peace.

Artist: Betty Mae Page
Type of art: Pin-up modeling

Media: Modeling for photography

Time period: 1900s

Country of origin: USA

Motifs: Cute little bathing suits, bright red lipstick, that winning smile, those sexy shoes, that long wavy black hair with perfectly coiffed bangs

Still-living history: Jan Theodor Toorop

Jan Toorop was a Javanese-born Dutch painter and illustrator who produced in a wide range of styles; the pieces above are primarily from the 1890s and from his later years in the 1910s-'30s, and reflect my personal taste. As well as being a respected symbolist and art nouveau artist, he produced a large body of work in the impressionist style, and was a capable realist. All of his works, however, retain a distinctly Tooropian sensibility, not unlike underground manga artist Furuya Usumaru or the much better-known (but not necessarily better) Pablo Picasso.

It is his work in the symbolist-nouveau spectrum for which he is best known, and for which I like him. The world he creates, populated by mysteriously contorted women with long, slender hands, feels both wild and mythological in nature, and so it is not surprising that he ended up converting to Catholicism in his middle age, with its own decadent pantheon of flavorful mythological characters with which he could now concern himself. His lines in the symbolist-nouveau style become bolder and more geometric in later years, and his religious works reflect a wonderful balance between boldness and delicacy while retaining the dark and smoky and altogeter mysterious flavor of his earlier works.

Some influence from traditional Javanese art, too, is apparent in his works; a face, a pose or an ornament here or there will remind me of the traditional Southeast Asian puppets, or of Hindu miniatures.

Apart from being a great artist in his own right with plenty of craft and plenty of imagination, Toorop is valuable because of the historical sweep of his works. Here, in one painter, we can see multiple major eras of Western art - and it is without doubt that he has influenced many other major artists. Famous painter-illustrator Yoshitaka Amano, who shows obvious influences from Klimt and other nouveau artists in his work, may also be influenced by Toorop - particularly in his long, slanting, beautiful manner of drawing eyes. Amano deserves an entry or ten of his own, which he will get in time, but for now let it suffice to say that he did concept design for the earlier half of the Final Fantasy series of video games, created the iconic illustrations of Vampire Hunter D that provided his unique and iconic look in the animations, old and new, of the successful Japanese novels by Hideyuki Kikuchi. So, yeah. Amano is awesome. Toorop is awesome. Have a nice Wednesday.

Artist: Jan Theodoor Toorop
Type of art: Symbolism, art nouveau, impressionism, post-impressionism, realism
Media: Paint, ink, pencil, etc.
Time period: 1800s and 1900s
Country of origin: Born in Java, lived most of his life in Holland
Motifs: Mysterious women, contorted figures, bold and graceful lines

On Wikitypickitypedia
Ooooh, a Research Center! Fancy!