Luke Chueh

 Luke Chueh is considered a pop surrealist painter. He uses a range of animal characters, mainly a white bear, as his subjects. He studied Graphic Design at California Polytechnic State University. As he was going to school he worked for Ernie Ball, the guitar manufacturing company as an illustrator and designer, which how amazing is that? Working at Ernie Ball while in college? Chueh pulled a lot of inspiration for his work from his experiances from childhood. Chueh grew up in Fresno, where he came across intolerance to his heritage being Chinese-American. This, being part of his inspiration, inspired the unique combination of his pieces. The cuteness of a style like Hello Kitty, with the seedy macabre. The juxtaposition screams at you, but in a fluffy, heart string pulling kind of way. Big squishy looking teddy bear, pulling out his eyes and driving screws into empty eye sockets. Ya know, it's like the femme fatal, kinda, but Fluffy Fatal instead.

 Although a lot of Chueh's work does have joking undertones, a lot of his pieces have a seriousness to them which considering the style he is known for, and subject matter, strikes strong emotion in the viewer. I'm in love with the way Chueh can pull off this combination of 'deep' and still maintain the style of a children's cartoon or coloring book, yet it has more depth to it then that. I find it a bit hard to just label Chueh as anything but brilliant. I could honestly just talk about the amazing way he paints, and combines styles for about 15 pages. But I won't bore you with my half-educated art mutterings.  His style is remarkable, and each painting done in a color background, with the subject center stage, simplicity and complicated line work, each work is this style. I still love every one of his pieces! WHO can do that?! Luke Chueh, that's who.

 I can't help but make up my own narrative about his work. Each painting begs for a story to be told about it. Most of his works can have quite a bold statement, but in my own little art world, I like making up my own backgrounds about his characters. It makes me wonder if the guys who created 'Happy Tree Friends' were inspired by Chueh.

I just can't get over Chueh's style.

It makes me incredibly happy that artists like him make it in the art world. He has had ten, TEN solo shows in California alone. He also has vinyl toys made of his works, produced my Munky King.  Which I highly suggest looking through their website, vinyl toys are pretty much my favorite form of sculpture, and yes, I classify them as sculpture.

 SO my fellow art lovers. I am going to leave you to a few of Chueh's pieces with out my highly caffeinated words flowing around the edges of each of his works. So you may look at their amazing combination of cute, cuddly, disgusting, fluffy, bloody, disturbing, awakening, self-inflicting, adorable work of Luke Chueh! Enjoy!!

 Hey wait a moment, before you go, you can find Luke Chueh's website here, an interesting little tid-bit about him here, provided by GelaSkins. Also here is an interview Chueh did with LAWEEKLY here, and an interview he did with Daily DuJour here. All of which I suggest you take a gander at. Thanks for stoppin' by!