What's your idea of happiness? Artists near and far give their answers…

What's your idea of happiness?
Artists near and far give their answers at `Bliss Express'

by Alex Chun
Oct 5, 2006


ASK a group of young artists from across the globe to respond to a simple question -- "What is
happiness?" -- and not surprisingly their answers, as they appear on canvas and digital prints, are
as varied as they are personal.

Take commercial illustrator Yuko Shimizu and her retro- futuristic rendition of an astronaut
holding a radio to her ear. "Growing up in New York, I was fascinated by the macho guys
carrying boomboxes, and I was obsessed by space travel," the Tokyo-born Shimizu says from
her Manhattan studio. "Looking back at those happy childhood memories, the astronaut image is
how I imagined space travel in the 21st century would be."

Then crossing over to the other side of the Atlantic there's another commercial artist, Paris-based
Stephane Tartelin, whose response to the question resulted in a portrait of alcohol-guzzling
anthropomorphic animals. He refers to the piece as an "ode to beer" and notes with a touch of
humor that this particular interpretation of happiness, which features the words "oh yea"
scrawled in the background, requires little explanation.

Tartelin and Shimizu's images are just two of about 70 illustrations of happiness that make up the
"Bliss Experience" group show opening Saturday night at Alhambra's Gallery Nucleus.

The show, which also marks the release of a 280-page book of the same name, features a
combination of emerging and more established international artists from as far away as Japan,
China and Korea. It is also the brainchild of 21-year-old University of Alberta student Althea
Chia, who published her first book, "IO: Art of the Wired," two years ago.

"I love art books, but I don't like reading a year of an artist's life and I don't like reading abstract
philosophy," Chia says. "While putting 'Bliss Experience' together, I was gunning for something
less lofty, something innovative in its simplicity and complexity, and I thought, what better than
happiness?"

Through the book and the show, Chia, who was born in Singapore, hopes to show that the U.S.,
and more specifically Los Angeles, doesn't have the monopoly on the young artist scene. "When
you go to the bookstore, there's not a lot of Asian pop culture being covered there, so I'm hoping
to bring some attention to the genre," she says.

For "Bliss Experience," Chia canvassed the globe via the Internet and through referrals looking
for "evocative Asian artists who had very individual styles." In short, she was looking for 21
interpretations of the phenomenon of happiness, and she found them in California, New York,
Paris and across Asia.
Of those artists, the most recognizable name belongs to Seonna Hong, 32, who has had numerous
gallery shows and won an Emmy Award in 2004 for her background animation work on "My
Life as a Teenage Robot" for Nickelodeon.

Hong, who lives in La Canada Flintridge, says she was drawn to the project by both the lineup of
artists involved as well as the thoughtfulness of the theme. "You know the saying, 'Ignorance is
bliss'?" she says, offering up her interpretation of "Bliss Experience." "I've understood it in
different ways as I've gotten older and gained different experiences. I now see it as
multidimensional: sad, understandable, frustrating and comforting."

Those sentiments come through strongly in her works, which frequently portray idyllic images of
small children and animals juxtaposed with the bleakness and dangers of the real world. For the
show, Hong has contributed an image titled "Blindside," which features a young girl bent over
and poking at a railroad tie, oblivious as a black train rushes toward her.

Though the remaining artists are far from household names, many are known within the graphic
arts communities for their commercial or graphic novel work. Paris-based artist Bengal, for
example, has garnered a following for his color illustrations posted on Internet artist boards and
for his collaboration with writer Jean-David Morvan on the French graphic novel series "Meka."

Here in the U.S., images by Brooklyn's Marcos Chin (who shares a studio with Shimizu) are hard
to miss if you live anywhere near New York City: He's largely responsible for the ubiquitous
Lavalife dating service posters plastered throughout the subways.

For the show, Chin contributed five pieces, including one featuring a quartet of young girls
sporting antlers and decked out in Marc Jacobs gear. "That was a fun, happy piece I enjoyed
doing at the moment," says Chin, who is quick to note that the image was not done for the
clothing designer. "I enjoyed the opportunity of not having to put the clothes on a model, which
can get mundane.

"It was a way I could break away from the norm and do things on my own terms. That for me is
what happiness is all about."



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