Mexican born artist Laura Lucía Ferrer Zamudio, better known as “Kikyz 1313”, takes grotesque and uncomfortable subjects and turns them into something exquisite. First featured on our blog here, Kikyz 1313’s macabre drawings often depict children in a state of decay and rot, where their bodies and faces are dissected to a disturbingly beautiful extreme. “Why do we ignore the very intimate contents of our own bodies?” It is a question that the artist consistently contemplates as she creates her art.
“I am always inspired by the need to find certain explanation about human’s condition great contradictions such as the irrepressible violent and visceral urge against the limitless and vain pursue of modern man’s fulfillment in life,” she explains. When the artist first began working on her upcoming solo at the project room of Thinkspace Gallery in Los Angeles, she knew that she wanted to express her feelings about the misunderstanding of nature in man that she sees everyday, and our repulsion against what is “abnormal.” However, when she recalled the nightmarish events surrounding Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, her vision became clear.
Kikyz 1313’s “Progeny of Chaos” as a whole illustrates her interpretation of the frailty and abhorrence of human nature: “with “The Progeny of Chaos” the composition stage was a lot more organic and emotional, there are some key elements that leads the way into the meaning of each piece, but the other elements inside where picked solely by instinct and what I felt it would fit in that little new world.”
Images such as exposed entrails and eyeballs take on a new symbolic meaning in her work as they represent death, and elements that equally spark our morbid curiosity and disgust. These are inherent and poetic contradictions of our own human nature that Kikyz 1313’s work continues to raise- and as a self described fan of horror movies and bizarre imagery, this includes the contradictions of her own personality. “This series of work is a lot more emotional and true to my self,” she says.
Comic artist, animator, and painter Lale S Westvind is known for her dynamic narratives and command of hues, recalling Jack Kirby and Golden Age greats such as Fletcher Hanks. Comic series like “GRIP” and "Hax" are showcases for Westvind’s particular talents for conveying the kinetic.
Working in the tradition of Italian Renaissance masters, the Milan-based artist 