Toy Art Gallery celebrated its fourth anniversary with last Saturday’s (9.14) opening of a special Pollen Kaiser exhibition. Featuring customs from 50+ invited artists, the show offers new visions of Paul Kaiju’s towering sofubi. The creator took the opportunity to create two hand-painted customs and a beautiful highlight piece featuring a transformed, seated Pollen Kaiser sprouting fungi. Here’s a look at the opening with shots of some of our favorite pieces as well Frank Schaefer’s awesome crowd pics.
As you might expect with a sofubi show, most artists focused on striking, novel paint applications on Paul Kaiju’s figure rather than modifying the shape. Standout hand-deco pieces include those by Blobpus, Shirihama, Siccaluna, Martin Ontiveros, Monstrehero, Skull Toys, Mecha Virus and more. As you can see in the photo gallery after the jump, both Mecha Virus and Skull Toys incorporated an exacting level of detail in their pieces through different means. Mecha Virus used spray masks to create subtle, yet intricate patterns on his colorful piece while Skull Toys hand drew skulls, patterns and more across the entire toy. While the focus was on airbrush paint styles, Carson Catlin’s reticulated, cut piece is strikingly impressive in part because of the precision of the cuts but more importantly the aesthetic decision to create new patterns while also celebrating key focal points of the original toy. Other stand-out transformations include Obscure’s wild, outside the box crab and Josh Mayhem’s futuristic kit bash utilizing custom sculpted elements to ensure a tight fit with the underlying Pollen Kaiser.
If you missed the opening, be sure to check out all the customs on TAG’s online store – many excellent pieces are still available. In addition to the army of original Pollen Kaiser customs, Toy Art Gallery also offered two special releases – their Anniversary Ed. Luftkaiser sofubi and the brand-new metal Mockbats in four finishes. The Luftkaiser is available online ($45), while TAG has sold out of its Metal Mockabts – expect a release direct from Paul Kaiju shortly.
Congratulations to Paul Kaiju on the seriously bad-ass Pollen Kaiser, to all the artists who brought us new visions of Paul’s work, and to Toy Art Gallery for four years of showcasing the excellence and tremendous variety that the art toy world has to offer.
