Kozyndan

Nakano in Spring (中野の春)

pencil, digital
2009

This panoramic is set outside the train station at Nakano in Tokyo. It describes a mysterious magical occurrence one fateful spring day, as a mysterious sakura tree erupts in the middle of the bus depot! As with many of our panoramics we are always tickled by odd and magical occurrences going mostly unnoticed by city dwellers. Some of them almost think they see something, a flash at the corner of their peripheral vision, a weird momentary wash of color in the sky, but then its gone again...

The work debuted as a 10 foot wide print at the Giant Robot Biennale at the Japanese American National Museum in downtown Los Angeles on October 24th, 2009.

Click HERE to view the panoramic as a QTVR!

A limited signed and numbered edition poster is available in our webshop.

Spirit Animal Collective

24 x 36” unframed, 30 x 42” framed
Graphite on paper. 2009

The largest drawing kozy has done in the "Unknown Portraits" style to date. Little did we know that cameras, at least in early incarnations before the invention of modern film, did in fact capture a piece of one's soulwith each picture. Here is a class photo where all the students spirit animals have emerged to pose with their "bodies".

The artwork will appear in our upcoming exhibition at Magic Pony's Narwhal Art Projects in Toronto opening tomorrow, October 1st, 2009.

Even viewing LARGE doesn't really do it justice...

The Ladies of the Lockes

graphite on paper
2.5 x 3.75 in
2009

Part of kozy's "The Unknown Portraits" series. The artwork will appear in our upcoming exhibition at Magic Pony's Narwhal Art Projects in Toronto opening October 1st, 2009.

It will also be in the new hardcover book that will come out in conjunction with the exhibition with the same name.

I knew Magic Once

graphite on paper
2.5 x 3.75 in
2009

Part of kozy's "The Unknown Portraits" series. The artwork will appear in our upcoming exhibition at Magic Pony's Narwhal Art Projects in Toronto opening October 1st, 2009.

It will also be in the new hardcover book that will come out in conjunction with the exhibition with the same name.

Just Another Uniform (aka - Timeline of an Aimless Japanese Girl)

ink and color pencil on illustration board
2009

Kozy made this piece for a show at Gallery Nuceleus called "Sweet Streets: Art Inspired by Japanese Street Fashion".

Kozy and I have no interest in, or love of Japanese Street fashion and tend to think of the young Japanese who are so slavishly devoted to the various styles to be vapid and conformist and not expressing unique personal style at all, but rather just trying to fit in. The theme of conforming is a huge part of Japanese culture and the Japanese street fashion culture is just another prime example.

Kozy's piece is not so much a celebration of Japanese street fashion as it is a critique of the people who love it.

Click on the thumbnails above right to read the piece.

The Flooding of the Prinsengracht

pencil, digital
2007

The first part of the PUMA x kozyndan line was based around a modified version of an old panoramic of ours. The rest of the line (including the Clydes released early in the year) was built around a panoramic we created entirely new. I would say we created it "for the project", but really they let us just do our thing for the most part aside from asking us to add some shoe related details (When we release this image as a print in the future we will probably take most out except for the "puma attacking the goddess Nike" characters, which seem to fit well of their own accord).

"The flooding of the Prinsengracht" is set in Amsterdam obviously and touches on a number of things we thought about while in Amsterdam last time - global warming, drug tourism, the various great artists that have come out of the Netherlands, the horrors of the 24 hour news cycle, and the wonder of Vla!

Also of note: We actually completed this panoramic in November of 2007 while in New Zealand. We have kept the piece under wraps for a year and a half due to the long cycle of getting a clothing line to market !