Slap-Happy

MindStyle is a renowned art toy producer and design company known for producing high-quality designer toys and limited edition collectibles. Founded in 2004, MindStyle has become a key player in the designer toy and art toy scene, collaborating with a wide range of artists, illustrators, and designers to create unique, collectible vinyl figures and toys. The company has a strong reputation for its innovative designs and its ability to work with both established and emerging talent in the art toy community. Having grown up on the West Coast most of my life and coming from a family of uber ‘antique’ collectors and artists, my eclectic upbringing was filled with a wide range of ’Pop’ ephemera. Many of those inspirations now show up in my work and stem from the backdrop of my childhood. The Subject of my paintings is a world of side-show icons, deviant Animalia, and ‘masked’ glorified cartoon alter egos. I utilize these icons and character cultures as antithetical counterparts to what we are lead to believe as being innocent and socially acceptable. Although misfits on the surface, a sense of relation is understood, secret from the public - we are all misfits; hiding behind animated personas, odd and beautifully unusual. Who is it that we relate to? The lonely little boy hiding in a bear suite, the evil lustful pool-hall wolf, the sexualized little girl who secretly wants more. The environment and its limited population are meant to conjure these questions, the viewers are confronted with fi