STARDATE1108.18 - TAKASHI MURAKAMI TRIBUTE

STARDATE1108.18 - TAKASHI MURAKAMI TRIBUTE

Whether or not you've been paying attention to the fashion and art worlds lately, you've still probably heard of Takashi Murakami, or at the very least have seen his artwork. He makes huge colorful murals and sculptures, but his designs can also be found on designer handbags, t-shirts, shoes, and even tattoos. He is a 56 year old Japanese contemporary artist who likes to blur the lines between high and low art and in doing so, has made a major impact on the current state of pop-culture.

When my studio mate Matt (aka @ElboGlass) approached me with this project. He was already in the process of creating a very small body of work inspired by the fashion designs of Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Goyard, and Murakami; he was creating one-off functional pieces to be collected alongside the matching designer bags with the same patterns to be released at his pop-up show on Melrose Ave in Los Angeles, California in October of 2018. The show was a success by all metrics, and the pieces were well received by patrons. Just days after the pop-up show, Matt and I attended Takashi Murakami and Virgil Abloh's "America Too" exhibit at the Gagosian in LA and gifted him some of our murrine slices (pics below). 

From a technical standpoint, these images were just the right mix of challenge and fun, although I grossly underestimated the amount of problem-solving these images would require to make them absolutely perfect. We spent well over a solid month making the components, pulling the cane down, and polishing the coins, even with some occasional hired help to keep things moving smoothly (shout-out to Pat Taylor and Cooper). The master lesson here: if we knew how to do everything, we wouldn't have learned anything! I learned so much from this project moving forward, and have already found ways to incorporate what I've learned to my next murrine series of 8-bit characters, but I'll save that for another blog

*Additional shout outs to CalM, Kinda, JoeP, and a few others who were around to make technical suggestions and/or bounce ideas off. Thanks guys!

Murakami Raptor by Elbo Glass and Nathan (N8) Miers, 2018. 
Photographed by Boro.Vision



Murakami Raptor and Dino-Lock characters, 2018. 
Photographed by @THC_Samuel. 


Elbo x Punty x N8, Murakami Mini Tube, 2018.
Photographed by Boro.Vision


Here's a pic of Elbo gifting Takashi Murakami some of our murrine at the Gagosian.



And finally some process shots...



Thanks for reading!! <3 
-N8-


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