CUPCO IS GOD
Exhibition dates: 5th December to 22nd December 2007
View the artworks
Luke Temby, along with wife Mayumi Temby, has created his own universe called Cupco!
Cupco! is borne of skateboarding, stickers and love. Amongst the creative weaponry are skills such as doll-making, character design, illustration and big game hunting.
Temby painstakingly cuts, assembles, sews, screen-prints and stuffs each doll, making each one unique and imbued with its own character. Some favourite characters include: suicide bombers, bikers, vampires, terrorists, vikings, zombies, gods and devils. Each doll has a removable head, fastened by a button, which can be swapped for those of other dolls. This creates potential bizarre hybrids and mutations: zombie vampires, angelic suicide girls, skater Vikings.
Temby’s work is informed by Japanese street culture and the textile craft tradition, and has appeared in numerous Australian and international group shows, most notably the Pimp My Doll exhibition in France and Italy and In Plush We Trust in Chicago in 2005. His commercial clients include MTV, Saatchi & Saatchi, Converse and Adidas. His first Australian solo show was in June 2006, at the Damien Minton Gallery, Redfern.
His current show at the Damien Minton Gallery is called ‘CUPCO IS GOD’. This time around, each doll represents a different incarnation of god: from Jesus Christ to Hanuman the monkey god to Queen Elizabeth II to L. Ron Hubbard. Each doll is made lovingly in felt, with immaculate attention to detail.
Fellow artist and long time friend Leo Robba writes “The almost childlike nature of his work relate to our memories of earlier experiences of dolls and toys, their humour and novelty drag
you into their orbit but with time and close observation their subversive, political qualities gradually take hold.”
CUPCO IS GOD runs from 5th December to 22nd December 2007.
