bocs

Paul “Otaking” Johnson creates his own brand of anime illustrations and animations. His work is vibrant, eclectic, obsessively detailed and is largely influenced by Japanese and Korean artists, most notably Masamune Shirow, Ryūsuke Mita, Satoshi Urushihara and Hyung-tae Kim.

Paul slaves away over a hot computer to produce all of the artwork and animation for indie games company, Studio Trophis, as well as producing his own extensive body of work.

He also loves to court controversy, garnering the ire of many when he released his documentary on “The Rise and Fall of Anime Fansubs“. He certainly doesn’t shy away from the fire when it comes to his strongly held views.

Somehow, he manages to do all this whilst still doing his job as a professional Japanese-English video games translator.

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Poked Studio is Jonathan Ball, an illustrator and graphic designer living in South Wales, “inspired by lo-brow art forms such as cartoons, retro video games, urban art and cute monsters, creating fantasy worlds and characters.”

When I first discovered Poked Studio’s work they instantly made me smile, and in the case of his “murdered fruit” they made me laugh out loud. His cute, quirky and sometimes macabre illustrations appealed to my visual senses as well as my sense of fun and I began to notice his work in all sorts of places. Poked Studio has an impressive list of clients including the BBC, MTV, Sony Playstation and the National Library of Wales. His work also features as the desktop wallpaper on another bocs member’s computer.

Discovering that he was Welsh and a native of Cardiff was a pleasant surprise. I believe that Poked Studio is a prime example of high-calibre Welsh art with true international appeal.

Poked Studio is Sally Kwong’s choice for the christmas bocs nadolig exhibition.

From the Wilds of Eastern Tennessee and nurtured in the Big Easy, comes Simeon Coxe the Third. An innovator of Electronic Music and avant garde performance art . His two releases on the Kapp label under the guise of Silver Apples utilized a maelstrom of home made electronic gadgetry, was heralded by the New York Post as “Simple weird magic. It’s pop from outer space”. Yet his influence in the shaping of electronic and Techno forms of music are unquestionable. Not to mention the musical output being a prime example of Performance art and Pop music effortlessly merging together.

Although it may be the Velvet Underground or Elephant Memory that were given the task of entertaining New York’s creative elite in the Factory, Simeon collabortaed with the purveyor of Pop Art in his hey day. So much so Andy Warhol made a print of Simeon, that adorned the cover of one of his later releases.

Simeon Coxe a creative force of inovation via limitation

Simeon Coxe is Rhys Lloyd Jones’ choice for the christmas bocs nadolig exhibition