Interview With JRYU for Arcane Divination: The Lost Cards
In anticipation of the world-wide launch of Arcane Divination : The Lost Cards minifigure series by Kidrobot (on June 21st to retailers worldwide), I had the chance to wwwspeak with curator of the series; Jesse Yu AKA "J*RYU". Also featured in this interview are images of the revealed Dunnys so far, with more to be found on his Insta @jryuart leading to launch day,
TOYSREVIL: First off, congratulations on the Custom of the Year award in the 2019 DTAs! A well deserved win! How does it feel now, after the weekend hoopla has settled a bit?
JRYU: Thank you so much, that's very kind of you. I wasn't able to attend and Travis from UVD actually texted me to let me know that I had won. It may sound cliche but it really is very humbling to be recognized for your work, especially when at the time you are working on it, it's the last thing that you are considering when you are creating the piece. I know that I am not alone when I say that the process of creating one's art is a very singular, isolated experience - long nights, studio mishaps, fruitful sessions, all-nighters, etc.
When all is said and done and the piece is finally finished, you just hope that it will naturally find it's audience and that you did your best in trying to execute a vision. When the DTA nominations are announced, the time and effort spent on the piece either come rushing back or you have to recall what the process was like. To be recognized or win the award, especially with the panel voted awards, are kind of similar in that people are publicly acknowledging the piece in a celebratory manner, and it's very motivating to receive that recognition,
JRYU: That said, I'd like to thank the DTA panel for the honor of Custom of the Year. Having your peers acknowledge your work, the same people who go through very similar processes or have a deep understanding of the industry is immeasurably humbling, considering the sheer amount of strong work that is presented throughout the year. Big thanks also to all of the collectors or appreciators of my work. It's always so much easier to create when you know you have people rooting for you along the way.
TOYSREVIL: We don't see a whole lot of works from you in recent times ("Dauntless" with JPK in 2017, and of course your production Dunny releases with Kidrobot), and I've read you had a vision scare in 2018 - Can you share with us more about that? How has that coloured / influenced you in your works? (Current and Future). How are you at now?
JRYU: I had a really bad viral infection when I got bit by a mosquito while overseas in the Spring of 2018 that took me out of commission for quite awhile. When I was recovering, I lost most of my vision due to a flood of white blood cells into my eyes, thus obscuring my field of view quite extensively. They tested me for all sorts of viruses, ailments etc and at one point the specialists thought that I might have lymphoma, which was eventually ruled out. It was quite frightening and art honestly, was the last thing on my mind.
Eventually though, my eyesight started to improve a little by little, and although they still don't know what definitively caused all of this, my health is back to "normal" except for my eyesight, which is still not 100%.
JRYU: The recovery process was quite slow and during that time, it was recommended to me that I take a break from many activities, including my work. As a visual artist, that was a very uncertain time for me as I didn't know if or when I would get my vision back to an acceptable state. Luckily, it was much easier to work on the Arcane Divination : The Lost Cards project since I was primarily using my computer to design/manage the process - the screen brightness could be adjusted brighter, text could be zoomed larger, etc. Traditional sculpting and painting were out of the question because I literally could not see detail well enough to be confident in my work.
It was late Fall of 2018 when I attempted to try my first major piece again, and that was "War of Kings", my King Korpse custom. It took me about 3 times the amount of time and effort to complete but I was pleased with the results. During that process, I was much MUCH slower but in a way, I appreciated the pace. I was more deliberate and really took my time to ensure that every small bit of progress was fully committed and well thought out. I had no choice really. But it definitely taught me patience and perseverance. These days I'm back to about 80-85% unobstructed field of vision and have a much more positive outlook for what's to come.
TOYSREVIL: What can you tell me about this series? And what is the difference between this and the first series?
JRYU: Arcane Divination : The Lost Cards is the followup minifigure series to Arcane Divination, which was released in 2017 and based on the world of Tarot, specifically the Major Arcana. TLC includes the "cards" that were not featured in the original series along with five new cards created by each of the artists as brand-new additions to the Major Arcana. In the first series we had Camilla d'Errico (@camilladerrico), Godmachine (@godmachine), Jon-Paul Kaiser (@jonpaulkaiser), Tokyo Jesus Sayu (@tokyo_jesus) and myself (@jryuart) contributing designs. In series 2, the same artists are back except we have the illustrious Doctor A (@doktor_a) contributing designs in lieu of Godmachine, whom I would jump up to work with again in the future.
TOYSREVIL: With "Arcane Divination : The Lost Cards" addressing/interpreting the remaining cards from the Major Arcana tarot deck, how much of the theme/direction / process / mission statement / goal has evolved since the first series? Or had it been all part of the plan since its inception?
JRYU: Arcane Divination series 1 was designed solely as its own project, as it was the first time I had ever had the responsibility of creative directing and curating a full series for Kidrobot. There was obviously criteria that had to be met, both from a financial and a creative standpoint, from series 1 to gauge its success but a second series was never discussed during the development of that project. After the critical and commercial success of all of the AD related pieces, Frank Kozik kindly offered me a chance to do a follow-up series, which resulted in Arcane Divination : The Lost Cards.
JRYU: In regards to the process, the second time around was much easier since I could use the knowledge and experience that I gleaned from doing the first series. Jon-Paul Kaiser was instrumental in helping me in so many facets of both projects and the series would not be the same had he not been around. Huge props also to the Kidrobot design teams who executed our concepts so faithfully. Regardless of if you are a fan or not of Kidrobot, each of their departments try their hardest to ensure that each project that they do are to the best of their ability. I feel extremely fortunate that my interactions with them have been stellar and they had my back from the beginning to the end.
TOYSREVIL: As curator of this series, how did you choose your artists? What were you looking for? And how did the final list came about
JRYU: My personal work is a bit darker and gothic, but not grotesque. Arcane Divination was originally going to be a series of just my work, but we decided that it having a smaller group of artists might be more interesting to the collectors and cover more styles of work, but still with an overarching tone that was similar to mine. After this was decided, I scoured my personal list of artists that I felt could take on the project who could put aside their own signature character or style as the main feature, and focus primarily on the concept of each *card*.
This list of artists were all those who I personally admire and luckily, of all that I asked, I was only given one (very kind) rejection. It was extremely important to me that the series have a very cohesive feel when seen all together, but have each individual piece be able to stand on its own. I believe that the artists achieved this with both series.
TOYSREVIL: Great to see Doktor A included in the artists list this round! And how did the final list came about?
JRYU: I wanted to ensure that all of the artists that were in the first series be given the chance to finish out the project with the followup. However, Godmachine's schedule wasn't able to accommodate the inclusion of new pieces for the sequel so I decided to ask Doktor A, whose work I have long admired. In fact, Doktor A was one of the artists within the scene that inspired me to start creating customs about a decade ago and to have him agree to this project was an incredible moment. I always feel like I have so much more to learn and his work and concepts still resonate with me today.
TOYSREVIL: What can you tell us about your designs? The process to how you reached your final sculpt.
JRYU: Series 2 was essentially a continuation of the standards and practices that we established for series 1. I think that it was still fresh in everyone's minds and since TLC was greenlit very soon after series 1 was released, it was easy to get back into the mindset of the process and how to get our ideas from concept to finished product. This time however, we wanted to up the game as much as we could by pushing the dunny form even further.
JRYU: That said, it's not necessarily about how much more sculpting we could get away with, we still wanted to do an appropriate amount of sculpting in order to convey the concept. So in addition to more refined sculpting, we had the opportunity to work with different types of materials like clear ABS and PVC to fully realize the designs.
JRYU: One design in particular, "The Star", had to be engineered so that it could have a moving part that was instrumental in conveying the concept more faithfully. Another design, The Ghost, need to have a new clear Dunny form created so that it could fully accommodate the concept as purely as possible, As an aside, it was amazing to have KR be so receptive to pushing themselves as well in order to facilitate our ideas; ideas that they had to invest in but did so willingly because they believed in the project so much,
TOYSREVIL: You've always been a story-teller, and it is evident in all of your works, and personally it is one of the joys to witness, beyond just "aesthetics", where one gets to be immersed into a fictional world of sights, stories ... we are only missing "sounds"! What would be the soundtrack to your designs?
JRYU: That's super kind of you to say, as I really try to put the narrative first in my pieces, whether or not it's through context, scenes or kinetic motion. One of my personal criteria that I use to gauge whether or not the concept of a piece is sound, is if I can imagine a soundtrack to each of pieces. If I can immediately envision the context or accompanying music, then I know I'm on the right path. Each piece has a specific song or ambience that I imagine to go with them but instead of me explicitly referencing them, I hope that the collectors who see these pieces will come up with their version on their own. I'd like to think that I give just enough clues through the visuals, and then the audience fills in the rest on their own. To create that connection is a very pleasant thing for me to think about.
ARTIST BIO: "Jesse Yu aka J★RYU, is a west coast-based sculptor/artist focused on exploring the themes of life and death in his signature ghostly and eerie Forest of Sorrows narrative. J★RYU has garnered an avid following of fans who eagerly look forward to seeing how each subsequent new piece adds to the ongoing story of the ghost girl who haunts his works."
