#kozyndan
Our new exhibition, “The Exodus”, opens TONIGHT, 12-13-2019 in Portland!
If you are in Portland, OR please come by Nucleus Portland tonight 6-9pm and say hi and check out our new show of kozy’s ceramic sculptures, and paintings by us as well! We are presenting almost 130 new “bunny primitive” sculptures, most of whom have been on a long journey from the traditional wood kilns in the Japanese countryside, to Los Angeles, to Portland to share with all of you! We also made 7 new paintings to accompany the sculptures.
As always, each sculpture is a one-of-a-kind, hand built ceramic sculpture, and each comes with a card with their picture, name, and story, stamped and signed by kozy.
The show runs December 13, 2019 - January 15, 2020 at Nucleus Portland. 1445 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Portland, OR. 97214 ph: (503) 231-2702
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“The Bunnies Fall”
Digital, 2006
The autumn image in our “Seasons of the Rabbit” series. Dan turned falling autumn leaves into bunnies drifting down over a rushing river. Print available in our web shop. Like “Bunny Blossoms” it is not based on a specific ukiyo-e masterpiece, but captures the feel of a genre of landscape in those Japanese woodblock prints.
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Boroboro
Drawings of dilapidated buildings in the Japanese countryside Kozy made for our $70 patrons on our Patreon for June 2019. If you subscribe at the $70 level you get some original artwork in the mail every month. Sometimes its just a little sketch or quick painting, other times something more time intensive like these beautiful renderings. Dan wrote about the subject of the old buildings in our blog for $5 and up subscribers. Consider joining us in our Patreon to follow along as we renovate kozy’s 130 year old farmhouse in the Japanese countryside and get something from us in the mail each month!
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Title: “A Super Day In California!“
Size: 16x20 inches
Medium: acrylic on board
SOLD
We did this little painting for the massive Hello Kitty 45th Anniversary Exhibition that opened last week here in Los Angeles, CA at COREY HELFORD GALLERY. We were thinking about the experience of seeing this past spring’s wildflower super bloom paired with a once in a decade mass migration of millions of painted lady butterflies. I think we spend far too little time appreciating the miracles that nature creates, and far too much time contributing to its destruction. Many would argue that by viewing, or making known the existence of these remaining pockets of natural beauty/ ephemeral wildlife events, we contribute to their ultimate destruction. On the other hand, sharing these things may make people appreciate them more and want to care for their continued existence on the Earth.
Its hard to know how to walk this fine line, especially in this age of social media, where people can flock to any place you/event you give a name or location to. Still, we do want to share it with people we know would appreciate and respect these natural events - if Hello Kitty came to visit us in California, I think we would entrust her with this experience as she would probably be in the moment and appreciate its beauty deeply, rather than just scrambling for a selfie.
Anyhow - the opening for the exhibition was a massive event - TV news coverage, line around the block all night to get in to see it, people decked out in costume, with Hello Kitty herself on hand to take photos with, not to mention a massive collection of amazing interpretations of Hello Kitty by 100 international artists ( Caro Buermann did an amazing job curating this huge show).
The show is on view till August 3rd, 2019, so if you are in LA and love Hello Kitty, do go check it out!
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“Super Bloom 2017″
12 x 9 inches
Nihonga painting on board
Kozy’s first painted depiction of one of California’s tremendous wildflower “Super bloom” events, based on one of our visits to a spot that happened to exploding particularly magnificently in 2017. We felt like we were in some dreamy psychedelic fantasy movie. I just didn’t seem real. It was an ideal subject for a painting for our exhibition “The Golden State” at Gregorio Escalante Gallery.
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“Instant Bliss”
18 x 24 inches
Nihonga painting on board
2017
One of the paintings kozy made for our 2017 exhibition “The Golden State” at Greg Escalante’s Gregorio Escalante Gallery in Los Angeles. kozy was exploring the use of traditional Japanese painting medium and techniques for this series of paintings about our Los Angeles life. “Instant Bliss” touches on things we turn to for a quick outlet for relief - from stress, from pain, or whatever else - personified by a baby goat (due to kozy’s obsession with watching goat videos) and opium poppies from our garden (due to, well, opiates of course).
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“RIP Puffin”
18 x 24 inches
Nihonga painting on board
2017
Created for our 2017 exhibition at the late Greg Escalante’s Los Angeles Gallery for our double exhibition “The Golden State”. Purchased by one of our favorite collectors, Eric Ayzenberg.
Kozy made this painting of some of our friends’ chickens from their homestead in Santa Cruz, CA. Unfortunately the hen on the left, Puffin, was later eaten by a coyote. Rest in peace, Puffin! We recently went to visit them again and they currently have 3 ducks, 7 turkeys, and 29 chickens!!!
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“Bunny Blossom”
digital, 2005
The second image in our “Seasons of the Rabbit” series. This image popped into Dan’s head as a follow up to “Uprisings” once it was apparent that people really liked that image. Unlike “Uprisings” which a very direct homage to a specific work by a specific artist, “Bunny Blossom” was more just evocative of a classic type of Japanese image common in woodblock print, featuring some flowering branches in an interesting composition (often the ukiyo-e masters would include birds on the branches, but Dan decided not do so in this piece). Dan continued the theme of turning one natural element (this time the cherry blossoms) into rabbits.
One thing of note is that this piece was originally made longer for the long sold out archival limited edition print, but in order to make the poster a similar spect ratio to the “Uprisings” poster we cropped the bottom off the image for the poster release (which can be purchased HERE).
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“A Matter of PRIDE: The Battle on the River-Tyne (Ootside! Yeandme!)”
pencil, digital. 2006.
Ahh Newcastle - Stag party capital of the great North East! We sure did have blast there, as burdened as are minds were with thoughts of chosen wars and trumped up fear and masses blinded by cuteness. We got to witness the great battle for dominance of a river that divides two towns (Newcastle and river rival Gateshead), and at the same time unites them. All without a drop of blood spilled.
We created this panoramic in 2006 for the exhibition “Spank the Monkey” at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, UK.
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https://shop.kozyndan.com/…/year-of-the-pig-limited-edition…
Kozy: I finally finished painting!! It took me 2 months to paint 138 cats! Cats and kittens are absolutely my favorite thing on this planet, but towards the end I was crying. Like when is this gonna end??!! I completed listening to all seasons of multiple podcasts. Even though the painting is finished, I’m still crying so I might be pmsing! I need a bowl of vegetarian pho for my reward (Let’s me know if you want togo eat pho, I’m leaving on the 17th!). I tried to fit as many cats as I could, but I could not keep track of all the cat photos you generously sent, or which cats belong to whom, and I missed a quite few cats! I’m so sorry I could not fit all of your cats! Also I accidentally drew a couple of cats twice!
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“Year of the Pig”
The archival giclée prints will be printed on Somerset Watercolor paper, hand signed and numbered, 18 x 24 inches including white borders (actual image area is 15 x 22 inches/ 38 x 56 cm).
Do you know the legend of why the cat is NOT in the Chinese astrology at all? Supposedly the Cat and the Rat were the best of friends and the smartest of all the animals. When the Jade Emperor announced the race amongst all the animals to cross the river to decide which 12 animals would be in the Chinese Zodiac, the Rat tricked the strong Ox into helping him across the river, only to leap forward at the last moment to claim first place. Even more deviously though, the Rat told his best friend the Cat the WRONG DAY for the race! The Cat showed up to find the race had already been run! The Cat would certainly have been in the Zodiac instead of the Pig (who came in last place as he got hungry during the race and stopped for a big snack and then got sleep and took a nap). Supposedly this is why cats chase rats to this very day (and how I justify painting 138 cats to celebrate the Year of the Pig - looking closely though and you will also find the pig and the devious rat!). Available in our web shop now!
The prints are now available for pre-sale till the end of this month as a timed-release edition (the number of orders will determines the edition size). As you might know, Iwe are currently renovating a house in the countryside of japan. It will be open as sort of artist residency/ creative retreat. The profit from this new print will go into the renovation of the kitchen in the house and building out the second floor studio (if you are interested, follow along with our art process and the renovation of the farmhouse www.patreon.com/kozyndan and help support this project!).
We will make a poster version of this print in the beginning of April, and we will donate posters to shelters and kitten foster care organizations, so if you know any good shelters with store, please let me know! Please go check out the image online, and spread the word.
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Hey Folks!! We just released a new, very limited (only 30 prints in this edition!), archival print.
“We’re All In This Together”
Maybe we are all losing our shit, but we really are all in this together. Don’t forget that with this hand signed and numbered limited edition of 30 archival gicleé prints on Somerset Watercolor paper. Image size 18 x 24 inches (457 x 610mm) + a white border around for total paper size of 22 x 28 inches.
The original image was an acrylic painting with gold leaf on board.
NOTE: From here on out, we will be pouring any profits from your purchases into restoring the 130 year old house in the Japanese countryside that kozy purchased to make a creative retreat for people to experience the other side of Japan beyond the big city life. So please consider buying a new kozyndan limited edition!
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Hand made by kozy, this one-of-a-kind ceramic sculpture was created for her 2018 exhibition “Growing Into Roots”, part of her ongoing series of “bunny primitive” sculptures, she made this piece while doing a residency at the prestigious Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park in Japan. The sculpture measures 8 x 7.5 x 5 inches and comes with a card with the its photo, name, and story, signed and stamped by kozy.
“Ando-san is a homebody. His good friends can sometimes get him to go out, but doesn’t like loud bars.”
“Keita”
Hand made by kozy, this one-of-a-kind ceramic sculpture was created for her 2018 exhibition “Growing Into Roots”, part of her ongoing series of “bunny primitive” sculptures, she made this piece while doing a residency at the prestigious Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park in Japan. The sculpture measures
6.5 x 3.25 x 5.25 inches and is also a noise-making rattle when shaken! Sculpture comes with a card with the its photo, name, and story, signed and stamped by kozy.
“Keita is a famous video game designer, but really he wants to build playgrounds.”
Quality Tested! One of the new hand-made ceramic cat pipes we have available now in our web store smoked really smooth according to our quality tester, Genesis.
“Puff Puff” cat pipe available now! GET IT HERE.
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38 of the 140+ new bunny primitive sculptures Kozy made for her solo show, “Growing Into Roots”, at Giant Robot. The exhibition runs September 8-26th, 2018. Remaining sculptures are available at Giant Robot’s Web Store now!
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Purchase available artworks HERE!
“Growing Into Roots” is the new exhibition by Kozy Kitchens at Giant Robot 2 - GR2 Gallery in Los Angeles, CA. The exhibition will be on viewSeptember 8th, 2018 through September 26th, 2018.
Giant Robot GR2 Gallery
2062 Sawtelle Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 20025
www.giantrobot.com
Kozy is presenting an installation of over 160 new ceramic sculptures, including 140+ new figures in her ongoing “Bunny Primitive” series, as well as glowing crystal sculptures, wind chimes, and sound objects.
From Kozy:
“This summer I had the honor of attending the prestigious residency program at the Shigaraki Ceramics Cultural Park in Shiga prefecture, Japan, to further my exploration of ceramics, a medium that I have developed a passion for in the last 6 years. It was a humbling experience to learn traditional techniques and to use the traditional wood fueled kilns, as well as discover that all the local clays and different techniques of glazing and firing employed in my home country for centuries. During my 3 month stay at the residency I chose to make learning about these techniques, about my own cultural heritage, my priority. I continued working with the same ” bunny primitive" forms I had been creating in the US, and found so much joy in discovering these parts of my culture I wasn’t aware of before.
It’s struck me that I had left Japan in 1997 as a teenager, wanting to escape what I thought of as a rigid, staid culture, for the relative excitement and artistic freedom of the USA. I have made a good life here in Los Angeles over the last two decades, and have been fortunate to make a living from my artistic practice, but I have missed my family and thought of this residency as a good excuse to see more of them while I continued to work. What I found, though, was a new appreciation for my own heritage. Maybe it is just a function of having been away so long, or the newly chaotic cultural climate in the US these last few years, or maybe I have just matured enough to appreciate Japanese culture (a culture that, unlike American culture, really reveres, and in many ways is geared toward, older people). Probably it is a combination of all these things, but whatever the case, attending the residency, and creating the works I am presenting in this exhibition, altered my direction in life, and gave me a new understanding of my identity. “
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(viahttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miCJK3fKJZE)
“Growing Into Roots” is the new exhibition by Kozy Kitchens opening Saturday, September 8th, 2018 at Giant Robot 2 - GR2 Gallery in Los Angeles, CA. The exhibition will be on view through September 26th, 2018.
Remaining sculptures are now available on Giant Robot’s web store! Click Here to view them.
Giant Robot GR2 Gallery
2062 Sawtelle Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 20025
www.giantrobot.com
(424) 246-7626
Kozy is presenting an installation of over 160 new ceramic sculptures, including 140+ new figures in her ongoing “Bunny Primitive” series.
From Kozy:
“This summer I had the honor of attending the prestigious residency program at the Shigaraki Ceramics Cultural Park in Shiga prefecture, Japan, to further my exploration of ceramics, a medium that I have developed a passion for in the last 6 years. It was a humbling experience to learn traditional techniques and to use the traditional wood fueled kilns, as well as discover that all the local clays and different techniques of glazing and firing employed in my home country for centuries. During my 3 month stay at the residency I chose to make learning about these techniques, about my own cultural heritage, my priority. I continued working with the same ” bunny primitive" forms I had been creating in the US, and found so much joy in discovering these parts of my culture I wasn’t aware of before.
It’s struck me that I had left Japan in 1997 as a teenager, wanting to escape what I thought of as a rigid, staid culture, for the relative excitement and artistic freedom of the USA. I have made a good life here in Los Angeles over the last two decades, and have been fortunate to make a living from my artistic practice, but I have missed my family and thought of this residency as a good excuse to see more of them while I continued to work. What I found, though, was a new appreciation for my own heritage. Maybe it is just a function of having been away so long, or the newly chaotic cultural climate in the US these last few years, or maybe I have just matured enough to appreciate Japanese culture (a culture that, unlike American culture, really reveres, and in many ways is geared toward, older people). Probably it is a combination of all these things, but whatever the case, attending the residency, and creating the works I am presenting in this exhibition, altered my direction in life, and gave me a new understanding of my identity. “
Our exhibition “Going Home” at Giant Robot’s GR2 Gallery is already about 77% sold after the opening weekend, but there are still gems to be had! Check out their website for all the available work (they have conveniently been moving the available pieces to the top of the 9 pages of listings to make it easier - thank you Giant Robot for everything!):
GR2: Going Home - kozyndan exhibition
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We are back in Los Angeles this month to finally finish moving out of our house here, and sending the rest of our stuff to our place in Japan. Its a hectic process to finish before the end of the year, but Eric Nakamura thought it would be fun to add to the hecticness by suggesting we move up our show scheduled at his Giant Robot GR2 Gallery from February to THIS WEEKEND! Being crazy, we opted to GO FOR IT, and are now having an opening this Saturday, DECEMBER 18th at GR2 in West LA! Reception 6-9PM December 18. We’ll be there! On view till January 11.
The show, entitled “Going Home”, is essentially two different shows - one part is a new collection of kozy’s “Bunny Primitive” ceramic sculptures that she made in wood fire kilns near our home in the Japanese countryside over the past year, and the second part will be an assortment of drawings and sketches we are pulling from our 20 year archives as we clear out our studio in Los Angeles. it should be an interesting look at our process over the years…
If you are in Los Angeles, please come to check out the exhibition!
On a related note, it has been about 19.5 years since Eric first suggested we have an art show at his little shop in West LA. he had never put on an art show, and we were still in college at the time. Two weeks after we graduated, in June of 2002, our little show opened in the OG Giant Robot Store on Sawtelle, the first ever show Giant Robot put on. It is fitting that this is where put on the the last show before we move out of Los Angeles (and the US)!
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5 “Schooling Bunnyfish” Paintings
12 in. x 12 in.
acrylic gouache on handmade Japanese paper
2020
Kozy made these paintings to help us raise funds for our big move to the countryside of Japan (just shipping our furniture, and some belongings will cost $7,000US!). Thankfully our fans responded and bought these up quickly! SO SO grateful for our fans after all these years. Its a reminder that this is a two way relationship - we could not live and make art without the support and appreciation of those people with whom our work resonates.
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A few of the many new “bunny primitive” sculptures kozy made for our show “The Exodus” that opened in December 2019 at Nucleus Portland. Some of these pieces are still available through their website, so check it out!
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“We Are Never Alone”
acrylic gouache and pencil on paper
12 x 9 inches
2019
One of the paintings kozy made for our exhibition “The Exodus” at Nucleus Portland. This was the first time we made some 2D dimensional art to pair with the “bunny primitives” sculptures series that kozy has been making the last 6 years. When filling pages sketching ideas for new sculptures forms, Dan always thought the results of the results looked like cave paintings of early man and decided to make a few paintings for the show like this. Kozy liked the concept and ran with it, experimenting by complexifying the technique to add color, In this painting, we had a dual intention of describing the peaceful intermingling of all the different shapes and colors of the creatures, but also, like in the "Shrine of the Ancestors" painting, we were thinking about the idea of ancestors still being present with us, guiding us, and helping us towards happiness.
The painting is on view and available now at Nucleus Portland!
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“Shrine of the Ancestors”
acrylic gouache and pencil on paper
12 x 9 inches
2019
One of the paintings kozy made for our exhibition “The Exodus” at Nucleus Portland. This was the first time we made some 2D dimensional art to pair with the “bunny primitives” sculptures series that kozy has been making the last 6 years. When filling pages sketching ideas for new sculptures forms, Dan always thought the results of the results looked like cave paintings of early man and decided to make a few paintings for the show like this. Kozy liked the concept and ran with it, experimenting by complexifying the technique to add color, gradients, or in this case, modeled shading. The results of this one reminded Dan of a sculpture garden and envisioned the society of these critters erecting sculptural totems of their ancestors that they could interact with, not just in some solemn remembrance, but to enjoy and interact with, get advice from, dance and laugh with, to keep their ancestors close their hearts and present in their lives.
The painting is on view and available now at Nucleus Portland!
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