www.ltrhds.com
Half a lifetime of 16-Bit video games, anime, fantasy art and prog rock, these are the elements that sit on the surface of James Greenaways work, but so much more lies just underneath and it’s this that has developed Jagi’s cult following over the last decade.

James Greenaway first came to notice through the surreal promotional material he created for the his underground breakbeat and jungle parties, in the successive years he has developed into one of Melbourne’s most sophisticated emerging artists.

For more information check www.jagiart.com

Jagi’s artwork is based on the letter Q.

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Your intricate landscapes remind me a little of old platform computer games. What sort of influence has gaming had over your work?

An enormous influence I would say. I spent most of my childhood sitting in front of the television playing Sega consoles. When Sonic the Hedgehog arrived in the early nineties, I remember how hypnotized I was by the blurring intricate landscapes as I watched the demo in numerous shop windows run though the first few levels.

Later I would come to understand the true sophistication of the design of the early Sonic games and how influenced by art deco design they were.

Having said that, when I look through old drawings I made when I was under the age of ten, the majority of them are landscapes from fictional video games I would imagine.

My first friend at school had a Commodore Amiga and I believe it triggered something in my imagination at a very early age. Even to this day I have a profound adoration of all imagery that came from the early decades of video gaming, everything from inappropriate box designs to extremely low-res and low-colour pixel art.

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I’ll bet your Amiga friend had a copy of Shadow of the Beast.

Hmmm, I can’t remember… I do know that I soon got my own Amiga and I had a copy of Shadow of the Beast II, which was similar to the first installment, but had a darker, stronger atmosphere and more consistent graphics.

But yes, I’m familiar with the Shadow of the Beast series and their fantastic style and production values..

Incredible sound tracks too by David Whittaker and Tim Wright.

The worlds you create are ruled by fantastic feudal warriors and overlords. Do you flesh out each character’s full personality and background story in your head? Is there a mythic Jagi master narrative that envelops your creative terrain?

Interesting question. I wouldn’t say I flesh out ‘each’ characters full personality, or even at all.

When I design a character I want him/her to remind me of classic archetypes from old school manga and video games, such as the unwilling young hero, the nomadic bad-ass lone wolf character, the wise old mentor who is always touching up girls, the evil villain’s right hand man who near the climax of the story realizes the error of his ways and turns on the evil master, the evil master, the adorable flying furry turtle who turns out to be the last survivor of an ancient race of omnipotent god breeders…

Yeah anyway..

So basically the ideas attached to any given character are loose but are profoundly awesome. I have come up with several ideas for story lines that could be good for films or video games, but that is usually a separate creative process to drawing and making art.

And yes there is a mythic Jagi master in this world. He is a shape-shifter and appears in different forms from picture to picture.

You can never be one hundred percent certain who he is, but generally he is depicted with some kind of godly power of creation over the landscape and creatures in the illustration.

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Jagi-Land seems like quite a hedonistic realm. Is it an escape from the uptight anxieties that govern life on the real world? Or are there darker currents running through your work?

Yes I’d say it is an escape. Not just from anxieties of the real world but also from boredom with it.

I often day dream while I’m out and about and wonder why things cant be more interesting then they are. I’ve lived a very sheltered life and felt very out of place throughout most of it, so these landscapes are just depictions of the way I wish people and places could really be.

I don’t think there’s anything too dark in my artwork.. Sex and violence sure, but those aren’t enough to truly disturb people anymore.

You strike me as the sort of guy who just drew endlessly as a kid…Your penmanship is remarkably fine and precise. Have you given much thought to exploring other mediums? Can you imagine your characters somehow leaping out beyond the gallery frame?

Hehehe thanks. Yeah I’ve given thought to some other mediums.. Would love to do sculptures and figurines one day, but my main priority at the moment is in developing video games.

Although it involves the same techniques that I usually use for art (digital illustration), I think it’s a medium for storytelling and entertainment that is more powerful than film, music, or art, for the reason that it can incorporate all of the above into an experience like no other.

At the moment I have a storm of game ideas thundering around inside my head and I’m working towards making those dreams a reality and starting my own video game studio.

With any luck I will have a playable demo of a video game on display at my next exhibition.

Every the craftsman, ever the visionary. Japanese born Melbourne artist TwoOne is presenting a new exhibition at Gorker Gallery this Thursday. The show will comprise a series of limited edition lino cut prints.

Launching 6pm this Thursday at Gorker, details below.

Amano’s first exhibition in the states for over a decade, ‘Deva Loka’ named for the ancient American Indian land of God at LeBasse Projects shows a clear reflection on the pop illustrations of his formative years, a contrast the the lush and intricate Art Nouveau of his later works.

An understandable stylistic direction considering that he’s using this excursion to the states to present a tribute to his childhood love of American comics, culture and automobiles. Painted in automotive and metallic paints this show would be truly amazing to view in person.

Amano is widely acclaimed for his work in animation and video games. He is renowned for designing the characters for the hit video game, Final Fantasy, as well as for anime films including Vampire Hunter D, Guin Saga, and Front Mission.

During his youth Amano worked on character design for Gatchaman (Battle of the Planets, Gforce) and Tekkaman the styling of which is very much present in this stunning and sentimental show.

“Between the late 60’s and the 70’s, and during my early years in the art world, I was greatly influenced by American comic books and pop culture. I’d like to show my gratitude for the inspiration America gave me with this exhibit. With the theme of DEVA LOKA, all of my concepts and influences are able to come together, centered in one place. I hope everyone enjoys my show.”

If i wasn’t on the other side of the world i’d be there right now, I recommend checking it out if you can.

February 20th through March 13th
Opening Reception: Saturday, Ferbuary 20th, 7 to 10pm

At LeBasse Projects
6023 Washington Blvd
Culver City, CA

Found object sculpture by Sayaka Kajita Ganz.

Emergence

Dive

Stream

The mexican artist  Saner is showing his canvases at POW Gallery in London, as it says on the Juxtapoz Magazine’s website.

He usually paints skulls, blooded figures, dark scenes that’s related to death which is  very much part of the mexican culture.

But is not just on canvas that he express himself and his native culture, he paints on walls too and is an amazing graffiti artist.

Painting in Valencia (Spain).

He´s  also into the toy art and made some very cool ones!

Check more of his works at his flickr.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MPgaX7-F_A[/youtube]

Michael Johansson

Here’s the Jago interview.

for the rest check. www.ltrhds.com/blog

Bristol Based Mr Jago, a pioneer of the doodle, founder member of Scrawl Collective and a veteran in the street art movement and much respected among his peers.

Growing up in a small town, Jagos interests in art and design with influences from classic Marvel comics, graffiti and hip-hop culture have help forge his unique freehand style and distinct colour palette.

Jago has worked with some of the biggest international brands such as Nike, Puma, Xbox, Yohji Yamamoto & Boxfresh to name a few.

Mr. Jago joins the LTRHDS exhibition with his reinterpretation of the letter J
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You’ve mentioned how your new works feature latent characters battling against the landscape that subsumes them. What does this struggle for definition represent? Is there a reason why your figures so overwhelmed and obscured by their surrounds?

The figures are meant to represent us and our doings. I imagine our cities, pipes and power lines sprawling into the landscape like a giant alien parasite in a science fiction movie.

A synthetic entity gorging itself and expanding, with no Godzilla to slap it and tell it to bugger off back to its own planet. The battle in my recent pieces is me playing with the conflict between man and nature… looming figures scour their way across the landscape like storm clouds leaving destruction & noxious gases in their path.

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Your fantastic landscapes look like giant gassy nebula clouds… even though you have moved away from your anime-inspired art, tell us about the way that science fiction continues to inform your abstract style.

It seems that in the space of my short lifespan a lot of what was science fiction has already become science fact.

We are constantly bombarded with the evidence of our impact on the environment, so the worlds I imagine in my work could be our own. A common landscape in science fiction (old and new) is a planet sapped of all its resources, a toxic and hostile environment in which mankind is left to scratch out an existence.

The clouds in my paintings are the imagined fallout from the damage done but like oil and fossils the clouds could also be us.

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You seem to be working a lot with triptychs lately – why this choice? Has the sprawling nature of your work been a gradual development or did you make a conscious choice to start painting on a larger scale?

The triptychs came about simply from me switching from canvas to paper. After several frustrating attempts at fitting my marks within the dimensions of a single sheet I chose to adopt the same attitude

I would when approaching a wall piece: simply by spreading out and adding more paper, I gave myself more space to work within, and this ended up leading to a slightly more panoramic look to my landscapes.

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Working in a call center did you ever think you weren’t going to make it as an artist? How close did you come to throwing it all in, and what kept you going?

I think if anything it was the call centers that lead to me having a career. The longer I spent in them the more it became apparent that I would lose my soul (and my marbles) if I stayed in that line of work.

There was no time to talk to your fellow ‘slaves’ and not much fun to be had either, so the only tactic to stay sane was to draw. I worked with my friend Will Barras, and we would pass doodles back and forth to try and make each other laugh, often ending calls prematurely!

This went on for a while until Will made the leap and got out to pursue his career in illustration.

Before long I took Will’s lead and used my evenings to scan drawings onto my Mac at home and then colour them up; and after shopping them around to record labels and magazines with little success, my big break came when Ric Blackshaw saw some flyers I’d been doing for club nights in Bristol.

He included some of these designs in the first Scrawl book. Before long Ric was getting enquiries about my work from some pretty big clients. It was the confidence boost I needed to leave the ‘battery farm’ vowing never to return. When things are tight the memory of my time in the call centers helps to keep things in perspective.

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Was Rolf Harris really one of your earliest artistic influences?

I grew up with Rolf’s happiness on the TV. It was his large scale speed paintings that I admired the most.

At school I was told I was good at art but like most children wasn’t very confident with someone looking over my shoulder as I worked. Rolf just got on with it. I loved the way he would bang on the colour not once appearing to worry that his painting could go wrong. He was the king!

The indi game scene is probably the most exciting new creative field, with gems like this emerging as the solo project and small team projects pick up from where story driven classic such as Flashback left off.  Boryukundan Rue by Joshua Nuernberger is just such an example.

Boryokudan Rue is a tale of science-fiction mixed with film-noir, following two separate, while interweaving stories. First, you play as Azriel Odin, a regretful cop en route to planet Barracus to meet and extract a mysterious defector trying to escape from the notorious crime group, the Boryokudan. Second, you play as Delta-Six, an amnesiac patient in a sterilized facility, who must survive and escape in order to find out why he is there.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh2YYDcfT1Y[/youtube]

Reminds me of Flashback.

Michael Steele’s mixed media pop surrealist cluster paintings convey personal and culturally based themes. These themes are explored by sourcing and combining visual icons from the artist’s generation, referencing the development of computer game culture, the internet phenomenon, the evolution of a multicultural consumer society, advertising and the emergence of graffiti art.
By fusing recognizable visual elements together in random composition, the works engage the viewer to respond to each combination. The works are rich in communication, obvious and hidden messages lie within each explosion of visual stimulus to interpret.