Next Friday, Le Monde Est A Nous will open its sixth exhibition titled ‘Pixelmunky in Gardensilly’, featuring works by Chia Aik Beng and eeshaun. Both illustrators teamed up to unite their worlds in a delightful collision of pop art, graphics and surrealism.

“The world is ours, but we’d like it to be yours too,” says eeshaun.

An art-director by day, Pixelmunky spends his time tripping and pushing the envelope creating dreamscapes and filling them with his imaginary surreal friends.

Eeshaun, a facilitator with the School of Technology for the Arts in Republic Polytechnic, is a self-taught illustrator who enjoys the immediacy of spontaneous and whimsical drawings. To date, eeshaun has been busy working on commissioned illustrations for Nike, onedotzero, Play Imaginative and Zouk among many others. He was also recently featured in 20/20, an exhibition celebrating 20 of Singapore’s most creative talents, under the Singapore Design Festival 2007.

“Often, I try to challenge logic and perspective in my artwork, as a response to the way society is largely shaped through systematic research and planning. It is the unexpected twists and surprises in the drawing and narratives within the illustration that brings on endless amusement for me.”

Pixelmunky in Gardensilly will be on display at Night & Day gallery from 23 February until 21 March.

THE ART

Pencils and watercolour typify Kristal Raelene Melson‘s work. Her illustration, ‘J’adore La Nuit’, is entirely done in digital colouring, but is equally beautiful to behold.

“The name of my drawing is “J’adore La Nuit”, meaning I adore the night … which i do. I wrote it in French to make it sound pretty and fancy schmancy and also because it is extra cool to speak French … but I don’t. I created this drawing after a lovely night out with some insane friends …. enjoyed rolling around in the grass, so I felt happy drawing this. A good way to remember good times.”

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Foon Foono‘s illustrations always send tingles up my spine. He really likes to draw clown noses and bunny ears. But just as well, since they’ve become a trademark feature of his work.

PHILOSOPHY

“Alone … no pretending, no hiding, the only moment that we are who we really are. I like to remember things or feelings my own way. How I remember things is more important than remembering the way things really happened. I portray my own reality into my art.”

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I love this colorful, semi-nonsense green monster with its gnashing teeth and its crooked eyes. It’s the work of Sonic Arts student, Hippo, whose illustrations will transport you into a mythical world.

“I have been doodling since 2005, took a one year break, then got back to business. I used to watch a lot of Sesame Street, Disney and Nick cartoons. My ‘iloveyoumonster’ is a hybrid of Oscar The Grouch -the monster in the trash can- and Mr. long-neck -the Loch Ness monster-, wearing an I Love New York style T-shirt.”

Fans of cute things will have fun looking trough the other illustrations on Hippo’s site.

Spotted! is a digest of fly work by fresh off creatives.

THE ART

With this illustration, Alan Leong creates some very interesting imagery that combines the strengths of traditional Asian brush strokes with vector art, photo imagery, and the imprint of his palm forming the sub composition of the art piece.

“I created this for Tiger Translate, to celebrate its 75th year anniversary. Pop art you can call it … it’s a perceived imagery of someone behind the wheel when he’s high on alcohol, a higher state of consciousness, the fusion of lights, colors and speed. But definitely not to promote drink driving here!”

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Banner: startdrawing in green website.

startdrawing in GREEN is a project initiated by startdrawing.org, a web resource portal for Asian artists, founded by Josef Lee and Sam Lay. The project kicked off in June last year and was initially named ‘startdrawing for LIVE EARTH’, inspired by the Live Earth concert. “We wanted to do our part in spreading the ‘green’ message and hence started this campaign to get artists -or even non-artists- to draw something in green. Our aim was to collect the most number of green drawings and set a world record,” says Josef.

The project was recently rebranded startdrawing in GREEN to disassociate it from Live Earth. “We are looking at injecting new life into the project,” Josef explains. “As of now, submissions are closed. However, we are looking at doing an exhibition or collecting the works into a publication. Once our new plans are finalized, we will definitely look into getting new submissions to increase our collection of ‘green’ drawings.”

A total of thirty four countries have participated in the project, rounding up nearly one hundred and fifty green artworks by more than one hundred artists, including a nice selection of Singaporean talents. All participating artists have their work featured on the startdrawing in GREEN site, so make sure to hop on down for the full run down.

We picked four entries from Singapore and found out what inspired the inspirational.

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THE ART

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kenfoo is best known for his comics, but he also has some fascinating artwork. His drawing titled ‘Innocence Lost’ is gloriously executed with brilliant expressions, and is a playful reflection of today’s societal anarchy.

“Innocence Lost is about today’s world, where countries strive for a better economic existence for its people. But it’s also about the degradation of the lower social class that struggles for its livelihood. The worst hit of all, are of course, the growing younger generation. Without moral support and guidance, with a poor environment that is sometimes made worse by war, most of these children will grow up having little or no education at all. Left to the dreary and sluggish lives of adults and parents who do not set the right example, and more often than not, give little care and affection to their children, the innocence of these youths will soon be corrupted as they turn to a life of wandering the streets and making do with what they can to survive its harshness and bitter reality.”

“I am trying to depict a period in time where the kids are just about to lose what’s left of their innocence. Soon sex, drugs and crime will open its doors to them. I see beauty in such plights … the way people struggle with what seems like a wretched existence. I feel ashamed at times of somewhat exploiting such misery even though this is a type of ‘beauty’ in life which I appreciate through compassion. I feel it is through ‘knowing’ and ‘identifying’ hardships that we are able to learn about life.”

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Kaiqun Chun is a young artist who attempts to expand an aesthetic consciousness based on joy, pleasure and phenomenological knowledge. He engages in various artforms and recently started his own Mail Art Project, titled Unfinished Adventures.

Kaiqun ‘briefly’ explains what his project is about …

“…. it’s about reviving the curiosity in people. As children we come into the world with curious eyes and see wonders in the most surprising places and the miraculous within the very mundane. Unfortunately this feeling gets conditioned out of us by culture, by experience and by conformity. There is a part in everyone that desires to get back to an instinctive approach in experiencing the world.”

“…. but it is also about the desire to make interesting or special objects for another person. There is a need for more intimate and creative communication amongst people. We are all using emails, text messages, etc. Sometimes this style of communicating feels passive and distanced. In the past, I collected many music posters from all over, the anticipation for it to travel halfway round the globe and the excitement when you finally have the artwork in your hands is something I enjoy a lot. So I think I can recreate this kind of experience or process through this project.”

“… but most of all, it’s about having fun. I don’t think one should expect to gain from submitting a work, sometimes it goes nowhere, depending on how committed I am. It can be amateurish, but it doesn’t matter. I mean the world is entirely utilitarian, everything is based on a cost-benefit analysis, it can be pleasurable to free yourself from this nature of sense-making sometimes.”

“…. oh, and on a personal note, I also take it as a motivation for me to keep making more artwork. For every artwork I receive, I respond with one of my artworks.”

There is no dateline for submissions … “maybe in six months. I really don’t know how it will grow …”, Kaiqun says. “I am planning to organize a small exhibition once I have gathered enough works and all entries will be documented on my website.”

Feel inspired? Head to Kaiqun’s website to check out the details.