Sky Burchard
Continuing my quests to get artist I like to be a part of I am 8-bit. I interviewed a man of many words and similar interests, his name is Sky Burchard, a local artist who's work really invokes my love and nostalgia for games. Before I tell you of the man below let's have a flashback to the LA Downtown artwalk (which I've been to busy to review but it's cool check it out). On the artwalk when I passed some gallery of naked women art (and it was a bit weird because the curator was definitely one of the models) I found The Magazine. It had a Gary Baseman piece as the cover and was of some sort of horrible bear like creature with I guess had milk coming out of it's stomach. The magazine held this fascinating article which made me wish I had a Iphone.
I found this article.
I found this article.
Later I found out from Sky's site http://www.skyburchard.com/index.html that he lived in LA and I thought why not interview him and tell him about I am 8-bit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_am_8-bit
Sky invited me over on a Saturday morning and we discussed quite a lot. Sadly my video camera captured only about thirty minutes of stuff and the quality is so bad there's no reason to post it.
Sky and I discussed I wide view of topics on his front porch after he had invited me in and offered me a drink. We started by talking about I am 8-bit and any progress he had made with contacting Jon, he still seemed in the beginning process of that. Than we discussed video games and how much fun they are to simply play. Sky explained his thoughts on how games are like their own worlds. He brought up how much time and effort could be put in developing a game as a new place to explore because many Japanese companies will go to extreme lengths to define that world, even publishing books on the different races and rules and back stories of made up places. Sky used Disagea as a good example or just Final Fantasy. Later on we moved into Sky's room where he showed of his great collection video game art books. These books are filled with great character art and sometimes entire made-up histories of game worlds.
But, before we went in one of Sky's neighbors, a little old lady, came by to discuss something about not getting her mail and that someone was--murdered --near by. I was not that unhinged by that because we do live in LA ( thats not a good thing). Even stranger was that a male drag prostitute told her. What was more bizarre was that she seemed to know the prostitute like a background character on a sitcom.
We talked about living in LA after this point and Sky said it didn't scare himto live where he lives. He felt the chances of him getting hurt were not high enough for him to move. In my opinion I would move.
He told me some tales of when he worked for one of his professor's , oh and that he got to study under Takashi Murakami who created the idea of Superflat. http://www.moca.org/murakami/Murakami tries to make his art to be profitable, maybe not so much for the sake of art. Still his work is world wide famous and he has deals with
Louis Vuitton .
Back to one of his tales in a far off Japan. He and the professor he worked for went deep down into some underground caves. They had to go with special rock climbers to get them down safely. It was a long arduous way down. There was little to no light. Finally, after a long time they reached the bottom. There at the bottom of some underground cave the drew some art. Yes, the started doing art at a bottom of a cave. They had climed down cave in the near dark to draw some art. My first thought was that it was hilarious and my second was who the Hell funds these things.
After some more fascinating stories, we enter Sky's house he showed me how he did his work using styrofoam and very oddly a Hello Kitty Program from Japan that prints on special paper so you cant print out complex shapes. He also showed me his exhaustive collection of Japanese fashion magazines. He also had a great piece of art from one of his friend of a brontosaur near a rainbow next to in American flag in front of a colorful background.
This isn't it, this is one of his works obviously
He showed me his work space which was roughly all over his house, which I thought looked very cool. When his room-mate of his dropped by and offered him a big empty box for his work I realized I found his ingenuity to create art out simple objects very impressive. I love the idea of art being created from just some simple cardboard like an arts and crafts project.
We ended our on the economy or something, oh no maybe about meeting at the Anime Expo.
Here's some of his imaginative work that can be definetly be considered for getting him into 8-bit
Sadnes Isn't Nescessary when it can just be deleted
It's Dangerous to Go Alone
Then I Shave Myself and Maturbated
Here's some items his currently working on that will be items from Zelda, that 'll be a part of his next show
Remember that Hello Kitty Program and special paper,this is what it looks like when it's used. These parts will come together to form Sky's new piece My Imaginary Girlfriend, which I cant wait to see fully assembled
Hand
Torso
Leg
His site
http://www.skyburchard.com/index.html
Here's Circus Gallery's exhibit of Sky's work.
http://www.circus-gallery.com/artists/burchard/
Sky's next show will be at Wignall Museum, at Chaffey Collage in Rancho Cucamonga. The show opens on the 24th and the reception is September 9th. It closes the end of September. It's titled
"It's Dangerous to Go Alone"
Can't wait!
