There was a resurgence of interest in UFOs and extraterrestrials in the 1970s after Swiss author Erich Von Daniken wrote “Chariots of The Gods.” Travis Louie (HF Vol. 32 cover artist) grew up in that environment, and once thought of aliens as the ultimate immigrants. For his new body of work, “Watch the Skies”, which debuts tonight at KP Projects/MKG in Los Angeles, Louie incorporates aliens into his cast of creature portraits. His monochromatic acrylic paintings have been likened to bizarre snapshots of monsters, to the effect of old-timey photographs from the Victorian and Edwardian periods. Though Louie has a longtime fascination with atomic-age science fiction, his aliens represent more than just a fantasy. “My work is a continuing conversation that started as a veiled commentary about the immigrant experience. Originally the paintings were portraits of mythical beings and curious characters who come from unusual circumstances,” he says. These include characters like “Clara”, who worries about wearing her antenna on straight, and “The Mysterious Harry Waxman”, a spidery visitor from another world who decided to live out his life on Earth. “No one knows for certain why [aliens] come here, and theorists have come up with all sorts of ideas that range from evil intentions to beneficial ones. I like to think they just come here to look around.”
This weekend, 
Guillermo del Toro is known as one of the most imaginative filmmakers working today. As the director of some of this generation's most inventive horror and monster genre films, from Hellboy (2004), Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), Pacific Rim (2013), and Crimson Peak (2015), it should come as no surprise that del Toro loves monsters- and he has a creepy art collection to match. His treasured collection has been a work in progress since he was a child in Guadalajara, Mexico, and given its significant impact on del Toro's work and process, is now being brought to the public, courtesy of LACMA.