Bom.K talks about his latest solo show “Confusions” at Known Gallery

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With more than 15 years of putting up work in the streets of Paris, Bom.K had his first ever solo show about a year ago in Paris at Galerie Itinerrance. Recently, many have been excited over the opening of his second solo show Confusions at Known Gallery in Los Angeles. Fellow Da Mental Vaporz crew member Sowat described Bom.K in the run up to this show: “Haunted by the visions he sees while lurking the city, by the faces of those he bumps into at every street corner, on each train he rides, Bom.k has spent years completing an imaginary bestiary, full of the hellish creatures that surround him. Like Jerome Bosh, Chris Cunningham or Hans Ballmer, the human body and the deformation of the flesh are one of the major themes of his work.” I asked Bom.K a bit about Confusions and his work in general. Confusions opened on January 11th and closes today, January 25th.

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Caroline Caldwell: Much of the work in this show involves human disfiguration and almost nightmarish reconstructions of flesh. What inspired these pieces?

Bom.K: Most works made for the Known Gallery where produced in an instinctive manner and with the always present concept of shocking the viewer.

I am always amused by manipulating the human body. I love creating figures that can’t really exist nor be imagined. My works are nothing but the smallest fractions of images that goes through my mind everyday in full speed.

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Caldwell: What about Confusions are you most excited about? 

Bom.K: ‘Confusions’ was the perfect word to describe what was going through my creative process before starting to work on this show. I found myself forced to take a step back to see a wider picture of I wanted and what I had to do for this show to be really satisfied. First days of a new production are always doubtful or stressful but eventually confidence leads the way.

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Caldwell: Can you talk a little bit about your sculptures? How did you get started creating your work in 3D?

Bom.K: This is all a little bit new for me. I started working on an ‘Aerotik’ model for my show at Galerie Itinerrance (April 2013, Paris) which led to a second model we should be releasing quite soon. It’s a new direction that I’m very excited to explore and evolve.

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Caldwell: This is only your second solo show, though you’ve exhibited on the streets of Paris for years. How has working on your latest solo show felt in comparison to the previous one?

Bom.K: I consider myself very lucky to have had my shows with galleries that gave me total freedom of creation. I’m quite aware that gallerists takes risks with me as my works doesn’t exactly address the general public and this is something I appreciate and respect them for.

Just as the show in Paris, the one in LA confirmed for me that are many more art enthusiasts and collectors than I ever thought out there, that know my work very well. Talking and sharing ideas with these kind of passionate persons encourages me a lot.

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Photos by Gro Sly

Melbourne Monthly Madness – June 2013

June was another busy month in Melbourne. My round up for the month includes trains, walls, shows, a rad new publication and some other bits and pieces of goodness.. I’ll start with my favourite train for June. This one ran on June 6th – thanks to The best of Melbourne Graffiti for the pic. This guy has been killing it lately!

01 RUNZ - Photo via The Best of Melbourne Graffiti
RUNZ. Photo courtesy of The Best of Melbourne Graffiti.

Some shots from Burg’s show at the Vic below, more here. Burg’s street characters are some of my faves with twisted and expressive faces appearing all around Melbourne.

BURG - Photo by AllThoseShapes
BURG. Photo by AllThoseShapes.
BURG - Photo by AllThoseShapes
BURG. Photo by AllThoseShapes.
BURG - Photo by AllThoseShapes
BURG. Photo by AllThoseShapes.

Knock Knock Magazine released their latest issue, Issue 4 -The Travel Issue. Knock Knock is an online magazine focusing on talented creative people, this issue features articles on Ben Quilty, Mark Drew, Geoffrey Lillemon, Dave Cragg, Sobekcis, Sheryo & The Yok, Onur Gulfidan, Rosek, Haribow, Maaden, Beatrix Curran, Kate Florence Knowlden, Val Kelmer, Jess Howell, Robyn Aubrey, Arman Nobari, Embassy, Spoonty and DoubleTrouble. A great read and a well put together production. Check out these screen shots from Issue 4:

Screenshot from KnockKnock Issue 4
Screenshot from KnockKnock Issue 4
Screenshot from KnockKnock Issue 4
Screenshot from KnockKnock Issue 4
Screenshot from KnockKnock Issue 4
Screenshot from KnockKnock Issue 4

Continue reading “Melbourne Monthly Madness – June 2013”

The Walls Project in London

Chase

The Walls Project is a series of legal spots organized by the folks behind Global Street Art. To date, they’ve organized over fifty of spots in London for local and international artists to paint. A lot of the spots they find are the roll-down shutters for shops in East London. It’s great to know that there are a couple of friendly guys in London who are simply interested in helping artists find more spots to paint and making their daily commutes a bit more interesting. You can see more of the walls and a map here.

A side note: Global Street Art are currently working on releasing their first book through Unbound, a sort of Kickstarter for books.

Here are a few of my favorites shutter pieces from The Walls Project:

2Rise and Gris
Ador
Roma

Continue reading “The Walls Project in London”

Weekend link-o-rama

Ria Cruz
Rai Cruz

It’s time to read about the news I missed this week, if you missed it too.

Photo by Rai Cruz

Weekend link-o-rama

LNY in Baltimore

Caroline and I were in Baltimore this week checking out Open Walls Baltimore. If you have the chance, definitely make a trip over there. Full posts about Baltimore coming soon. Point is, between Baltimore and moving this weekend, I’ve been lax this week. Things should return to normal on Wednesday or Thursday, but in the mean time, here’s what I’ve been meaning to post about:

Photo by RJ Rushmore

Weekend link-o-rama

Elfo and BR1 (BR1 won the game)

Late link-o-rama this week. Troy Lovegates and Labrona are visiting to paint a mural at Haverford College, and it’s the week of all my final exams. Here’s what I’ve been reading to distract myself:

Photo by Elfo

Weekend link-o-rama

Snyder in Beijing

While I spend my day at my other job explaining to people how a skee-ball tournament is art (seriously), I hope you’ll enjoy these newsbites from the past two weeks:

Photo by Snyder

So many shows about to open

Bom.k and Sowat of Da Mental Vaporz

There are so many interesting shows opening in the next week or two that I thought I’d just throw them all together into one post. Here’s what I think looks worth checking out:

  • Yesterday, the Museum of Sex in New York opened a show that sounds absolutely awesome called F*ck Art. It’s on through June 10th and features artwork by Aiko, El Celso, Lush, Mode2, Cassius Fouler, Miss Van and many more.
  • Love & Hate is a group show opening at StolenSpace this week and runs through March 4th. D*face, Dan Witz, Ronzo, Word to Mother, Jeff Soto, Eine, Charles Krafft and others are included.
  • Chris Stain, Veng and Taka Sudo will be showing together at C.A.V.E. Gallery, beginning February 11th. Brooklyn Street Art has a preview of Chris’ work.
  • Zes and Retna are together at Known Gallery in LA. LA TACO has the info.
  • Nick Mann aka Doodles, Brett Flanigan, Craig Rodgers and Dan Bortz are collaborating with one another in Oakland, CA.
  • Another collaborative group show will be in Da Mental Vaporz‘ (Bom.k, Blo, Brusk, Dran, Gris1, ISO, Jaw, Kan, and Sowat) show at Melbourne. That show, Le Venin, will be at RTIST Gallery from February 16th through March 4th.
  • All Talk at Pandemic Gallery will include Aakash Nihalani, Cassius Fouler, Gabriel Specter, Jesus Saves, NohJColey and others and runs from February 17th through March 11th.

Photo courtesy of Da Mental Vaporz