The Art of Luke Chueh: Bearing the Unbearable Review

The cover of the book, featuring Bear in Mind - 2006

Today's review marks the third 'Art of' book that I have reviewed in the past week, following on from The Art of Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted and The Art of Brave, but this is an entirely different kettle of fish to those two books. The former two are books that accompany the latest animated releases of Pixar and DreamWorks, The Art of Luke Chueh: Bearing the Unbearable is a standalone specimen, a compilation of the artwork up until now of Philadelphia born "lowbrow" artist, Luke Chueh. So, obviously this is not animation related, but, as I explained the other day, I feel it is explicitly linked - after all, looking at the gorgeous animation related 'Art of' books, it's evident that the people in employment at Pixar, at DreamWorks, etc., are indeed very talented and capable artists. Also, I feel it's important to challenge yourself, so I wanted to push, slightly, the boundaries of this blog, expanding our outlook somewhat.

So, this won't be a traditional review, I just wanted to offer up some quick thoughts on the book and the artwork it contains.

The Art of Luke Chueh

The focus of this blog is animation. Animation is an artform. So, tangential to animation is art - particularly when reading 'Art of' books. I've had a keen interest in art (although admittedly not on the scale of my sheer adoration of animation) for many years, and recently the artwork of one particular artist - and indeed one particular type of art - has been brought to my attention: Luke Chueh, pop surrealist artist.

Pop surrealism, also known as "lowbrow" art, definitely doesn't sound like something that would normally appeal to me - I never have, and likely never will, understand or like modern art - but it turns out that I love it. It mashes up, creatively and brilliantly, items from pop culture with everyday; and I love it.

Luke Chueh is one such artist. His work juxtaposes the cute and the cuddly, with some fairly macabre and bizarre images. Some of his work can be seen scattered about here, but for more be sure to visit his website, which features more or less all of them. Another place where you can see Luke's work is in his upcoming book, The Art of Luke Chueh: Bearing the Unbearable.

Much to my surprise as well, although you can definitely see it when you look at it, Chueh also designed the very well known Fall Out Boy album, Folie à Deux (above).

The book is released tomorrow by Titan Books, and look out for a review of it and an interview with Luke here in the coming weeks!