Shing Khor

Designer Con 2013

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DCon_Kaiju_2013Circus Posterus returns to Designer Con for the third year in a row, and this time, we are going bigger and better!

Now with an additional day, DCON is twice as awesome, and this means we have to bring twice the amount of excitement. Don’t worry, we got your back.

In the upcoming weeks, we will bring you all kinds of information regarding what you can expect from the Circus Posterus team. The crew is busy finalizing releases and exclusives, but we can tell you some of the artists slated to be on hand for the fun and games are: Brandt Peters, Kathie Olivas, Shing Yin Khor, Chris Ryniak, DrilOne, Travis Louie, and Amanda Louise Spayd. If that isn’t enough to whet your appetite, we hear there may be a return of “random goodness”.

If you want to learn more on Designer Con or get tickets go here.

If you want to talk about Circus Posterus and DCON, join our forum here.
(trust us, it has advantages to be active)

 

BUGS!

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By the looks of her recent submissions to Bewitching III, I think Shing Yin Khor has been watching a proper amount of little sloths in onesies on youtube!
skhor_snugbugThis Snug Bug looks like a tiny Cthulhu swaddled in a wee sweater. Six arms and four antennae don’t hold a candle to that pudgy belly! Made of resin, epoxy resin, wool, acrylic, and wood, Shing has made her own version of the classic Weird Tales story line.
skhor_mutantrockbugShing also dives into the X world with her Mutant Rock Bug. This poor duder has many bad things going for him. I don’t think this guy is hanging out with the morlocks, but is more about doing belly flops into a pool of toxic waste. Tentacles growing out odd parts of rock, weird crusty things appearing all over, and more eyes than Blinky the Simpsons fish are what make him so darn cute! Leave it to Shing to bring cute into mutant bugs! Gotta love it.

You can adopt these bugs when Bewitching III opens at Stranger Factory October 11.

Watery Gravebeasts in “A Nervous Harbour”

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khor_s_waterygravebeastdioramabox2Shing Yin Khor keeps pushing herself and thus making amazing displays for her beastly creations. For “A Nervous Harbour“, Shing  has even more shadow boxes filled with the replica natural habitats of her ill-fated wonderous creatures.

This time around, we have the “Watery Gravebeast“! Stranger Factory gets two specimens surrounded by their natural and colorful coral, and these expression filled, tentacle wrapped gill breathers look quite comfy in their new home. Complete with a vintage taxonomy tag straight out of a 1950’s Bio class, Shing creates a perfect faux study of amazing animals.
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Shing Yin Khor’s “A Nervous Harbour” opens September 6th at Stranger Factory Gallery. Shing will be present to talk about all her creations and their fun lives.

 

Shing Yin Khor’s Fabulous Boxes

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khor_s_kelpyfrilledfattybugboxShing Yin Khor is most definitely living up to her pseudonym “Sawdust Bear” with her show “A Nervous Harbour” at Stranger Factory this September. Straight out of zoology class, Shing has cut, constructed, and stained several shadow boxes for diorama displays containing her lovable and yet sometimes grumpy creatures and bugs.

Shing takes her post-mortem creatures back to their natural settings with her fabulous displays. You might find a “Kelpy Frilled Fattybug” nestled among its natural kelp and driftwood (above) or a snailbit in a coral study (below).

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Shing also takes her work a step further down the museum path with a shadow box detailing the life cycle of the kelpy frilled fattybug. Three stages of cute and wonder, but are these polyp, ephyra, and medua stages? If you are as curious as we are on her creations, you can ask Shing herself at the opening September 6th, because she will be on hand to talk all about her delightful sculptures.
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Clown Jellies spotted in “A Nervous Harbour”

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helmetedclownjelly_detailClown Jellies have been spotted at Shing Yin Khor’s  “A Nervous Harbour” . Shing has done what many oceanographers have only attempted, she has cataloged the infamous Clown Jelly for her show at Stranger Factory.

As she explains –

“Clown Jellies are invertebrates that are only visible in the water that is between 24 to 25 meters deep, no more, no less. If seen, Clown Jellies are easily distinguished by their vibrant colour. While colour wavelengths are absorbed by water, leaving much of the ocean a dullish blue tint to the human eye, Clown Jellies will always appear brightly coloured to divers, even if that is theoretically a scientific impossibility.”

Early reports say Shing has a couple different species of Clown Jelly specimens ready for the public, but right now only one has been spotted.

Above, we have one of the infamous Helmeted Clown Jellies. To keep the species true to form, Shing has created wood boxes with articles from the sea to simulate their home environment, but she also lets them stand alone in all their glory. Now, the Helmeted Clown Jellies are easily distinguishable from similar species by the helmet-like structure atop of their heads that sort of resembles a cap worn by the famous Steve Zissou crew members. We will have to find out from Shing’s research what this added structure means to the jellies, but we do know it adds a wonderous array of colors to this wonderful creature.
khor_s_helmetedclownjelly21You will find Shing’s Clown Jellies at “A Nervous Harbour” from September 6th – 29th, with an opening reception on Friday, September 6th from 6 – 9 PM. Shing will be present, and wishing Brad was there so she can crack new jokes.

Shing Yin Khor’s tiny paintings for “A Nervous Harbour”

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khor_s_scaleybugfig1Just like some of her bugs, Shing Yin Khor (Sawdust Bear) is going tiny for her exhibit “A Nervous Harbour” at Stranger Factory this September.

Shing transforms her amazing little creatures from a mounted study to a rendering Darwin himself would have cataloged if he had found these wayward beasts. With these 3″x3″ paintings, Shing has created the perfect accompaniment to her sculptures in size and cuteness. They will all come framed with an estimated price of $55-65, but we can tell you, these won’t last long because biologists love their animal studies.

What kind of painting do you need in your Sawdust Bear collection, a Clown Jelly or a Scaleybug?
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“A Nervous Harbour” runs September 6th – 29th, with an opening reception on Friday, September 6th from 6 – 9 PM. Shing will be present, most likely right next to the reception doughnuts.

Shing Yin Khor sets sail for “A Nervous Harbour”

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shingprogress4One of Circus Posterus’ newest artists Shing Yin Khor, aka Sawdust Bear is hard at work for her solo show “A Nervous Harbour” at Stranger Factory.

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Shing isn’t holding back at all with her show in the gallery’s Project Room because she is putting more dead things in more boxes than we have ever seen before. Of course, we all know these are not real dead things but they are real boxes she made herself. Her workbench is overflowing with pieces and parts all around, amazingly sculpted otherworld specimens waiting for their displays, driftwood longing for Albuquerque sun, and even a drill for headaches after long hours. Hurry up Shing, and quit slacking.

“A Nervous Harbour” runs September 6th – 29th, with an opening reception on Friday, September 6th from 6 – 9 PM.

 

 

 

Travis Louie / Turf One / Shing Yin Khor – September at Stranger Factory

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September 2013 brings two new exhibits to Stranger Factory; a dual exhibit by world renowned artists Travis Louie and Jean Labourdette a.k.a. Turf One, as well as a solo exhibit in the Project Room by Shing Yin Khor, a.k.a. Sawdust Bear.

Both exhibits run September 6th – 29th, with an opening reception on Friday, September 6th from 6 – 9 PM.

In the Main Gallery, we feature Travis Louie and Turf One‘s “Tiny Theater of the Absurd”, an exhibit of new work from these two artists showcasing their marvelous oddities; people and creatures that live in the grey area between dream and waking.

Turf One’s paintings are truly modern surrealism, and at times seem to be the fuzzy, morning-after recollections of fever dreams with their strange symbolism. Travis Louie’s remarkable “parlour portraits” of fantastic beasts and human oddities bring humor and humanity to the monsters that live on the fringes of our imagination. Together, these remarkable artists breathe new life into modern art with style and wit.

In the Project Room will be “A Nervous Harbour,” a new solo exhibit by Sawdust Bear.

This exhibit is a collection of handmade, barnacle-encrusted beasties seeking sanctuary from rough seas and aquatic predators. Each sculpture and painting brings to life another black-eyed and bewildered little nugget of improbable evolution, washed up on beaches and harbours, then stuffed, mounted and classified for your collecting pleasure. If cryptozoology had a marine biology exhibit, this would be it!

Stranger Factory
109 Carlisle Blvd NE
Albuquerque, NM 87106
505-508-3049

Shing Talks a Lot.

One of the new additions to the Circus Posterus artist roster, Shing Yin Khor or Sawdust Bear, has a show opening this weekend at Leanna Lin’s Wonderland, and we(Kathie and Brandt) took the opportunity to throw some questions at her.

We’ve seen her hungry, we’ve seen her drunk, and now we all get to see her talk a lot!

(editor’s note: Shing also edits the Circus Posterus blog; all self deprecating comments are her own. er, this is Shing’s own note. Ugh, third person.)

CP: Please tell us about your educational background and creative journey. Did your parents talk you into getting a real job or were you smart enough at a young age to figure out how to best fund your creative alter ego?

Shing: Well, it’s… diverse. My degrees are in Technical Theatre and English, where I focused on scenic design and medieval literature. Then I went to grad school for scenic design, which I quit halfway through in a blaze of “artistic differences.” I learned how to sculpt, paint, draft, build, weld, mold, cast in theatre; I can fabricate all sorts of weird things, but the hard part was getting things together cohesively enough to have any sort of an artist’s statement. That part came organically, as I started to pursue a varied slate of interests and went through a quarter-life crisis state of trying to figure out who I was. Basically, I just didn’t have anything to say, until I did, and now I won’t shut up.

My parents – they’re very supportive. They just wanted me to be good at something, even though they have never hesitated to tell me when my work sucks. If I had been a lousy artist, I am certain they would have insisted I go into computer engineering. We compromised on the English major, which was an “at least you can teach high school” option. They are both artists too (Mom’s always been, she works with clay and bronze. Dad took up painting and woodworking in retirement). I very clearly get my love of experimenting from them. My mom randomly texts me things like “I built a gas kiln in the backyard today!” Fortunately, they’re a bit more competent and safer than I tend to be; I haven’t gotten a message like “your mom blew up the garden with her gas kiln” yet.

CP: Did the Center for Otherworld Science come to you in a dream or were you in a sweat lodge? For the unintoxicated collectors out there, can you explain this concept?

Shing: The Center for Otherworld Science has been evolving in different forms and into different names since I was…10? When it first started, it was a straight rip off of Brian Froud’s Lady Cottington’s Pressed Fairy Book and Wil Hugyen and Rien Poortvliet’s Gnomes (so much of my work still owes a debt to those books, I think). When I was 14, it expanded to being a research institution that investigated mermaids, fairies, gargoyles, other mythical creatures. There were a lot more fantasy tropes mixed in there when it first started out, because y’know…I was a huge nerd. Well, I still am.

I’ve always loved monsters, so it was logical to bring them under the Center for Otherworld Science umbrella when I started sculpting them. They were meant to be props, basically just the work product of the Center. I started filling out the narrative around it a few years ago, with the intention of working it into a novel, but the response to the artwork was more than I had anticipated. Now, I just try and write bits of it when I find time.

Basically, the Center for Otherworld Science is the “heart” of most of my work, and encapsulates most of my themes. I don’t think my work is quite so much about weird little critters, than it is how they got to the point where they are preserved and displayed for all to see. It’s about what humans do to them, especially at the Center – we preserve them, we stuff them, we record possibly inaccurate things about them. So, it might sound like a cute idea, the Center for Otherworld Science, but there’s a lot of well intentioned, but very fallible, human beings behind it all, and they do bad things to these fairly hapless critters. The unseen people of the Center for Otherworld Science are sinister because they’re kind of clueless about the whole new world they’ve stumbled upon – they’re the bumbling backbone of my world. God, humans are assholes!

To see the rest of the awesome interview, click more.
Read More »Shing Talks a Lot.