Menu
The New Contemporary Art Magazine

The Unsettling Illustrations, Murals of Nemo’s

Nemo's crafts illustrations and murals with vague, sometimes grotesque characters often shown in reflection or anguish. When the viewer looks past the unsettling circumstances of these drawings and paintings, they may find something relatable in the emotions evoked in each piece. Just like the name of the artist, the works serve multiple functions.

Nemo’s crafts illustrations and murals with vague, sometimes grotesque characters often shown in reflection or anguish. When the viewer looks past the unsettling circumstances of these drawings and paintings, they may find something relatable in the emotions evoked in each piece. Just like the name of the artist, the works serve multiple functions.

“When I began drawing on walls in the streets I needed to find a name for myself … ,” the artist says. “I decided that name would be Nemo. Nemo like the captain from (“20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”), who fought battles against the war, the injustices in the world and the silences of the sea. Nemo like the main character from one of Winsor McKay’s first comic strips, in which he narrates the nightmares this boy has every night about amazing adventures in a fantastic kingdom called Slumberland. Last but not least Nemo like the latin word for ‘no one.’ I have always liked the idea of calling myself with a name that means ‘no one,’ that makes my work even more mysterious. I added “’s”, the possessive case, because it refers to my art, so the translation goes from ‘no one’ to ‘no one’s” and this completes the paradox of this way to identify myself.”

See more work by the artist below.

Meta
Share
Facebook
Reddit
Pinterest
Email
Related Articles
(A collaboration with Celeste Byers) Aaron Glasson’s murals, though surreal and vibrant in an otherworldly sense, are firmly grounded in reality, often depicting real people and their personal journeys. The artist, born in New Zealand and living in the U.S., crafts murals across the world, in addition to work in illustration and gallery paintings. He cites his themes as “relationship to the natural environment, community empowerment and education, indigenous knowledge, the subconscious, and the unseen.” Several of his recent murals are collaborations with artist Celeste Byers.
Max Guther, a 25-year-old illustrator living in Germany, Guther creates “digital collages by transforming photographic material, textures and self-constructed objects.” The artist uses a top-down perspective reminiscent of computer games of yesterday, offering both a voyeuristic and broad point of view. In a series of illustrations titled "The Goodlife," Guther explores the balance of relaxation, work, and "social environment."
San Francisco based artist Lindsay Stripling usually works in watercolor to create her playful illustrations of dreamscapes dotted with simplistic human characters, animals, and objects. But for her new series, exhibiting this week at Flatcolor Gallery in Seattle, Stripling found herself painting in oils after an 8 year break from the medium. "It's my first real adventure with oils in 8 years and it was fun for sure," Stripling says, "trying to carry my looseness from my watercolors into these oil paintings."
With Nick Napoletano’s new interactive mural “Parallel,” the painting comes alive using live interactive projections. Napoletano worked with 3D artist Peter Godshall on the project, in which real-time user input technology allows viewers to affect what’s happening on the painted, two-sided visage and “experience augmented reality without the need for an external viewing device,” the artist says. (Napoletano was last featured on HiFructose.com here.)

Subscribe to the Hi-Fructose Mailing List