HYPER REALITY DIMENSION XX
If seeing a pixelated ‘Press Start!’ flash across the screen has one thumb itching for a joystick and the other pinching Pac Man pellets then you need to get yourself along to Hyper Reality Dimension XX, a group exhibition masticating on the cult graphics of a bygone era. Artists Jodee Knowles, Houl, BOB, Ala Paredes, Chris Yee, Bafcat and more have ransacked the dusty basement of our collective cultural brains, littered with VHS, NES and other prehistoric acronyms and their offspring, and re-interpreted the results in a variety of mediums. In the lead up local illustrator Bryn Desmond-Jones of zine collective Beef Knuckles treats us to a sneak peek we’ll all recognise (Slimer, 2012) and finishes a few leading sentences …
Favourite video from the 80s … Akira (1988). Mind-blowing, more so when aged 13. After watching Transformers and Astro Boy growing up, Akira was next level.
Video game your mum most often banned you from playing … Probably Doom. “Please turn that awful sound down…”
The most striking graphic novel ever is … My Personal favorite is Ed the happy clown by Chester Brown. It’s probably not the most striking though. The most visually striking might be Skin Deep by Charles Burnes, Tekon Kinkreet byTaiyō Matsumoto or anything by Moebius (RIP).
Some inspiring Sydney illustrators are … Sam Hoh, Jin Lau, James Jirat Patradoon, Sam Thomas.
Best place to buy comics is … Paris, hands down. Kinokuniya [Galeries Victoria, Sydney] is great too.
If you weren’t illustrating you’d be … watching cartoons and eating cereal
Apr 19-22 (online catalogue available till the 30th), aMBUSH Gallery, 4a James St, Waterloo, 8399 0707, ambushgallery.com
