Giant Robot San Diego: DOUBLE HAPPINESS: Chinese New Years Art Show!

[sugarboots]

Double Happiness: Chinese New Years Show

Curated and written by: Chako Suzuki

The new year ushers in the year of the monkey. By the Chinese calendar, based on observations of the movement of the sun, moon, and stars, the year is 4701. According to the Tayside Chinese Association, "Legend has it that the Lord Buddha summoned all the animals to come to him before he departed from earth. Only twelve came to bid him farewell and as a reward he named a year after each one in the order they arrived."

Cassius King and Giant Robot want to celebrate the New Year, and wish you the five traditional Chinese blessings of longevity, wealth, virtue, health, and natural ending. Come celebrate with us at the "Double Happiness Chinese New Year Show." The opening night party is on Friday, January 16 from 6:00 pm until midnight and is absolutely free! There will be a DJ line-up and artwork to buy. The show will run until February 8, 2004.

The show will have seven participating artists: Sean Dougall, Kaoru C. Kumano, Stella Lai, Ogi, Mike Park, Deth P. Sun, and Kelly Tunstall. Gather your funds because all artwork is for sale and not over-priced!

Giant Robot magazine has been covering all areas of Asian and Asian-American pop culture for nearly ten years. Launched with no budget by Eric Nakamura and Martin Wong in 1994, the magazine has grown from a stapled-together zine to having worldwide distribution. It is sited and praised by critics, academics and journalists alike, and its daring and unique articles have been copied by numerous publications. From cutting edge design and fashion to ethnic culinary delights to Asian movie stars, Giant Robot has stayed abreast of it all and brought it back to its eager readers.

The four founding members of the Cassius King Gallery created the gallery because, as active particpants in San Diego's burgeoning art community, they felt their city needed a place where both up-and-coming and established artists could show their work. The gallery provides an excellent space for showing and viewing art.

**Sean Dougall grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada. He graduated from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas with a B.F.A. in Ceramic Sculpture. He currently works as a set designer and ceramic sculptor in Los Angeles and has an uncanny love of porcelain elephants and space travel.

**Kaoru C. Kumano is a native of the bay area and studied painting in LA and San Francisco. She likes to involve herself in a variety of creative endeavors and hobbies, considering all of them to be intertwined artistic expressions. She lives, works, and bakes biscotti in Berkeley, California.

**Stella Lai was born in Hong Kong and currently teaches in the graphic design department at California College of the Arts in San Francisco. She has been exhibiting her artwork since 1999 in at the Lizabeth Oliveria Gallery, the Institute of Contemporary Art, and The Exploratorium, to name a few. In 2000, she won I.D. Magazine's Silver Interactive Design Award, has her own design studio called tree-axis, and participated in the Monster Drawing Rally at Southern Exposure, an San Francisco art non-profit, in 2002 and 2003. She lives, works, and chats with her cat, Pupi, in San Francisco, California.

**Ogi was born in Tokyo and has been in America for approximately seven years. He is a recent graduate in illustration at the California College of the Arts. He cites Mark Rothko, Evan Hecox, and Michael Lau among his list of favorite artists and loves to hear a good deep house set with a stiff drink. He currently resides in Oakland, California.

**Mike Park lives in Oakland, California and creates series of small-scale paintings about the size of a kitchen tile. He'd love to meet minimalist painter, Agnes Martin, through Friendster, but that might be a long shot. He's a big fan of Rocket from the Crypt and his mantra is, "Assemble, Disassemble, Reassemble, Repeat."

**Deth P Sun has been exhibiting his paintings around the US s