Kawaii Catalogue

kawaii

kawaii

MADDOX GALLERY, 9 MADDOX ST, W1

Maddox Gallery is delighted to present Kawaii , a curated group exhibition featuring works by Javier Calleja, Cheng Zhe, Jo Gyuhun, Toachi, Wahyu ‘Adin’ Wiedyardini, Javier Gonzalez Burgos, Cheong Yoon, Bibi Lei, Hana, Wakaru, Brad Donovan, SPIME and STIK.

Kawaii is a sentiment that reveals through its historical roots, the complex energy of Japanese culture, and a breakaway from tradition. The term directly translates to ‘cute’, but should not be mistaken for childlike innocence. Although simplistic in aesthetic, it is packed with symbolic meaning. The range of Kawaii expands from the nostalgic reimagining’s of childhood fantasy to the subconscious. It has created a form of escapism from everyday life, while at the same time serving as a stance against social pressures, and the overwhelming growth of today’s hyper consumeristic environment. It is a form of resistance to mature social responsibilities, creating an embrace of performative purity.

The kaleidoscopic and pastel colours, coupled with nostalgic fantasies and the adorable characters, namely children, evoke a sense of sympathy verging on pity in the viewer. Often infectious angelic features are subtly embedded with tones of mischief and mayhem, referencing the darker undercurrents of emotion within the genre. These characters are the embodiment of a lost innocence.

Kawaii at Maddox Gallery explores this pioneering genre and the many ways that it has inspired a generation of contemporary art from all over the world, fusing popular culture from the East and West with each artists own signature aesthetic.

JAVIER CALLEJA

Javier Calleja was born in 1971 in Malaga where he lives and works.

Over the years Calleja worked with drawings, installations, sculptures, and paintings, often playing with the scale and perspective in his presentations. Working both in minuscule and large scale his installations were regularly focusing on beguiling the viewer as a significant part of the work.

After showing around Spain and the rest of Europe, it was his debut with Aisho Nanzuka in Hong Kong that for the first time debuted on his big-eyed boy characters. Originally imagined as visual representations of the artist’s own feelings and experiences, they became his unmistakable signature. Over the years the characters evolved from drawings, over paintings, into sculptures and objects, almost exclusively depicting a boy in the transitional age between the childhood and adolescence. With oversized, watery eyes, and subtle addition of red blush, Calleja’s characters are little heroes who just overcame something painful and are about to smile again after crying.

GO!,

CHENG ZHE

Cheng Zhe (b. 1985 in Heilongjiang Province, China) is an artist based in Qingdao, Shandong, China.

He conducted his studies and mastered oil painting at Xu Beihong’s Studio of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2004. Many of his notable works, including “Red Rise”, “Memory of 19XX” and “Born after the 80s” are highly sought after, and widely collected by international, domestic art institutions, and private collectors alike.

Cheng Zhe is greatly influenced by his surroundings. His early paintings reflect a relatively nostalgic and pessimistic matter in a traditional, academic style. His recent works are inspired by his joyful, kind young daughter who motivated him to overcome the hardships of the 2019 Pandemic. The artist newly adopted a motif of a “little girl” as an emblem of great love, kindness, and mercy he wishes to share with the world.

He is illustrated in various expressions, filled with joy, sadness, playfulness, and more, using rich but simple, gentle colours that embody her innocence and love.

DARE TO SHARE, 2022

Cheng Zhe

Acrylic

JO GYUHUN

Jo Gyuhun was born in Incheon, Korea, in 1982 and graduated from Hanseo University, majoring in animation. Jo is based in Incheon and his works have been showcased at prestigious Korean art fairs such as the Busan International Art Fair and Seoul Art Show. He began to paint these “Children Hiding Their Faces” as he was inspired by a significant scene of a film that he has fortuitously come across, in which a girl in a white shirt is crying with her hands covering her face. This scene left a strong impression on him and later encouraged him to paint with children as his subject.

As he explained his concept, he mentions that he can feel these different feelings and expressions of children hidden behind their hands, and he also hopes the audiences can enjoy the moment when they are imagining the facial expressions behind these hands.

YOU LIKE APPLE?, 2022

Gyuhun

LOVE, 2022

Jo Gyuhun

on Canvas

YOU LIKE BANANA?,

Gyuhun

FUCK THE WORLD, 2022

Jo Gyuhun

on Canvas

YOU LIKE DOUGHNUT,

BIRD, 2022

Gyuhun

TOACHI

Born in 1986, Toachi currently resides in Korea and continues working as an artist. She first worked as an illustrator and began expanding her own world of art works. Since then, she was influenced by artists like Park Seo-bo, Kim Whanki, Lee Donggi, Yoshitomo Nara, and added more depth to her world of art inspired by various subcultures.

The artist Toachi recalls the childhood of her kids and that of herself while raising two children and depicts a world that’s strange and full of fantasy.

She also attracts the hearts of audience by capturing such sentimental and oriental sensibilities in her works, using various colors and delicate brush strokes.

The white bear BB with curious and playful eyes, and POPO, the cute little brother blue bunny, are the characterized versions of her two children who often appear in her art works. And the honey bear symbolizes her husband.

Her works go beyond just cute and beautiful character paintings. She tried to breathe in the worries, conflicts, and growing pains she had as a child to her characters as well.

And in her works, she portrayed the reality and the fantasy of utopia which she had hard time embracing as a child, through the contrasting personalities of BB, POPO, and honey bear.

WAHYU ‘ADIN’ WIEDYARDINI

Born in March 26, 1984, Wahyu Wiedyardini aka Adin grew up in a small, quiet and peaceful Wonosobo Regency in Central Java, Indonesia. Wonosobo is located in Dieng Plateu lies between two mountains, Mount Sumbing and Mount Sindoro. The word “Wonosobo” is derived from Javanese Wonosobo, which in turn came from Sanskrit Vanasabhā. It literally means “the gathering place in the forest”.

Since she was young, Adin loved to draw and decided to pursue her study in fine art in one of the prestigious Art Schools in Yogyakarta known as Indonesian Institute of the Art, major in Faculty of Visual Arts. She graduated in 2009 and since then actively participated in art exhibitions and workshops in Indonesia.

Most of her artworks gets inspired by nature because it reminds her of her childhood where she grew up in cool, fresh air small town surrounding by Mountains with blue sky and rice fields. Living in harmony with nature and other creatures becomes the main theme of her paintings. This is something that missing while she is living a life in city full of tall buildings.

Adin expressed her works as her reminder to stay in balance and live in harmony with nature and also other creature for a better future.

JAVIER GONZALEZ BURGOS

Javi Burgos was born in Rosario in 1974 and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He now lives in Málaga, Costa Del Sol, Spain.

After he graduated as a Graphic Designer and Audiovisual producer, Javier started doing collaborations with Disney Asia in exhibitions such as “Disney 23 Mickey Brand Halo” and “Monster University Lecture” both held at Times Square and Langham Place, Hong Kong. He has lately also collaborated with Nickelodeon Asia for the “Bob Sponge 20 years celebration” in Beijing and Shenyang.

During Christmas 2013 his mall decoration obtained a record of 160,000 people per day in Hong Kong. His exhibition “Adventures in Forest” held in Beijing in 2014 was the first of its kind in the capital city, a Latin-style landscape that was unprecedented in Asia.

In Christmas 2020, CPN Thailand launched his biggest campaign – ‘The Dazzling Celebration’, a wonderful atmosphere for yearend celebrations and shopping to celebrate season of happiness at CentralWorld, Central Plaza and Central Festival nationwide. A national campaign including 32 shopping malls along Thailand with more than 400 designs being designed by Javier.

LEAVES, NO FEED,

CHEONG YOON

Her soft and sweet artworks aim to create the charming world where cuteness and calmness co-exist.

Most of her works are inspired from the comic books and animations that she used to love when she was young. Wavy and soft line in her painting is, however, inspired by great artists in the past.

Yoon’s artworks are founded from drawings, which can help her express herself in the most natural, authentic way, as well as helping to establish the worlds and characters in her paintings.

Shining children, warm nature and animals presented in the paintings try to provide comfort and solace in this contemporary society with emotional metaphor contained in the object of the beautiful moment that shows the lights and eyes reflecting the darkness of this society.

Yoon tries to harmonize the culture of a young generation and great artists in the past. Also through imagination and humour she attempts to provide new vision of our daily life.

CAKE,

CHERRY,

BIBI LEI

Born in Macao, Bibi Lei is a Portuguese Chinese artist based in Tokyo. She enjoys painting and caring for her 4-year-old daughter, describing herself as a child-like soul that never grows old.

Painting primarily with her fingers to express free will and pureness, her works feature the common element of an original character who acts more like a little super girl - being brave and exploring the unknown world of fantasies in the world Lei has created for her.

Dreamy, Colorful, Child-like, Love, Hope, and Joy are the words to describe the art of Bibi Lei. Her art focuses on expressing colours as they exist within her mesmerising art universeintuitively seeing a colourful world full of good purity & wonders.

HANA

Hana Kwon (B. 1990), after graduating in Illustration Design from the Art Center College of Design, has been lively introducing her unique works to the Art scene, sharing thoughts and memories from the deepest and most intimate parts of herself. Visualizing fragments of her memories from the past into thoughts and feelings that are hard to express in words - a process that can be seen as meeting her other self - is the method she adapts to manage her emotions.

Among Hana Kwon’s works, many depict a stylized character interacting with food. The sense of taste that is vividly brought to the audience through the expressions of the characters and the representation of the food itself, takes the viewers - with the help of emotional experiences associated with senses - back to their special moments in life. In this sense, food itself is a particular narrative, and through its representations she shares the feelings that she has captured in specific instants. Painting, for Hana Kwon, is like taking a journey to find peace in her inner world.

ROSY, 2022

ICE CREAM GIRL, 2022

WAKARU

Wakaru was born in 1991. She is an illustrator and artist. Her illustrations are characterized by smiling faces drawn with simple lines. She has a simple aesthetic, but her treatment of colour and costume is powerful and expresses a kind of figuration. She creates her work for the purpose of “communication”. It is me and you, me and the work, the work and you. She wants people to feel happy and joyful through her works and these works to be part of a fun day for everyone who comes to her exhibitions, sees them on social networking sites and other online sites, and buys them. That is why she incorporates “smiles” as a major theme of her works.

Characters are a very familiar part of our communication. For example, the messaging applications, LINE and KakaoTalk. They are an indispensable part of our communication. When people see animals having fun, they feel happy. That is why she includes animal characters in her works.

Her books include “I want to go home early today” (KADOKAWA) and “A book to praise when you are tired” (Poplar Publishing Co., Ltd.). In recent years, she has been actively presenting her work, holding exhibitions in the UK, Spain, and South Korea.

BRAD DONOVAN

New Zealand-based artist Brad Donovan began his artistic career earlier than most, selling his drawings to other children in the primary school playground. Today, his vibrant, super-flat style and playful humour is capturing the attention of dealers, collectors, and galleries worldwide. Donovan draws inspiration from cartoons and book illustrations, but equally, the works of the old masters, resulting in a juxtaposition of traditional themes and compositions with contemporary imagery. His precisely rendered two-dimensional forms of his signature acrylic style inspire a sense of nostalgia for 1990s cartoons in viewers, providing instant and wide appeal. However, it is a closer examination of all his careful, deliberate details that reveal the artistic vision and finesse that has landed Donovan’s work in private collections and on gallery walls in recent years.

DAYS AT HOME, 2022

Donovan

AND GOES,

Brad Donovan

SPIME

To delve into the fantastical world of Spime, born in 1992 in Montreal, Canada, was raised in Hong Kong, means to encounter an ever evolving family of figures. These figures are bold, narrative, and strange, illuminated by bright colours that display a childlike appearance of glorified innocence and serene scenes of everyday escape.

She is interested in exploring what it means to be in multiple cultures at once, the ways our identities are shaped and molded by multiplicity, consumed and fantasized, and how this reveals our inner psyche’s desires and anxieties.

Each work begins with the main characters Bam and Boo, often accompanied by their companions like Banana. Together they create a world that hasn’t been documented, a world that is symbolic to our growing multifaceted identities. She has showcased her work in London, New York, Montreal, Toronto, and recently Seoul and Hong Kong.

STIK

STIK is an anonymous British graffiti artist renowned for his iconic stick figures. Rendered in a pared back palette of black and white and accompanied by block colours, STIK’s designs are as simple as they are striking, made up of four lines, one circle, one square and two dots. Although minimal in design, STIK’s work is incredibly emotive with love and the community being at the core of all of his work. The artist spends a large amount of time scouting out the locations for his murals, choosing each site with precise intent and favouring the permission of locals over that of the authorities. STIK’s artwork is created for the people and his philanthropic efforts echoes this sentiment. As an artist that only authorises the sale of his primary market work in auction on the condition that all proceeds go to charity, STIK has raised thousands of pounds for several charitable organisations. Most notably, STIK works towards aiding and preventing homelessness as he himself spent many years living in shelters or on the street.