I’m excited/sick to my stomach to announce that my next solo show, H8FOREVER, will open on June 7 at the Secret Headquarters in LA. MORE GLARES, MORE BLOOD, MORE BROODING
Come to the opening reception and douse me in canned beer and tears
H8FOREVER
Works by Hellen Jo
Opens June 7, 2013
7 o’clock in the evening
At the Secret Headquarters
3817 W Sunset Blvd, LA, CA 90026
Just hours ago, I completed this painting for the James Bond tribute show that opened at QPOP forty-seven minutes ago. FIST PUMP
In this piece, Pussy Galore judo-throws James Bond while her Flying Circus pilots yawn on. Cuz Bond was such a dick in “Goldfinger”!
PUSSY & JAMES
8×10″
click img to view larger
Hello, my little vikings. I’ve done a painting for the iam8bit show celebrating the Nickelodeon shows of our youth, It’s the shizNICK, which opens tomorrow.
This painting is inspired by the “What I Did On My Summer Vacation” half-hour special of The Adventures of Pete & Pete. Mr. Tastee’s inability to form relationships haunted me throughout my teens, and he still lurks in my peripheral vision to this day.
HAVE YOU SEEN ME, 11×14″
click to view real big
GUH I’m still having a hard time keeping this blog updated; the oversharing enthusiasm of my youth was long ago replaced by my stingy, overthinking, anxiety-fueled adulthood. ANYWAY, here are all of the small girl gang paintings I did for Giant Robot’s SEASONAL CHANGES group show last month. Thanks to those who attended the opening, or went to see it while it was up, and an especial gracias to those who purchased (or tried to purchase!) pieces. I love you
LES PONYTAILS
click image to view larger
SHIT TWINS
쌍칼소녀파 (ssang kal soh nyeo pah; DOUBLE KNIFE GIRL MOB)
BIG SISTER CHO
LIL SISTER CHO
1/2 SISTER CHO
SCALPS
LIPS
EAR
MID-CITY MELEE
Here in LA, it’s already summer, and I’m sweatin’ to finish my teeny tiny paintings for SEASONAL CHANGES, a group show opening this Saturday, March 16, at GR2, with Deth P. Sun, Jen Corace, and Gosha Levochkin (flyer at the bottom of this post!). Here’s a sneak peek at one of the paintings, SHIT TWINS:
SEASONAL CHANGES
Exhibition by Hellen Jo, Deth P. Sun,
Jen Corace, and Gosha Levochkin
March 16 - April 3, 2013
Opens Saturday March 16, 6:30 - 10PM
At Giant Robot 2
2062 Sawtelle Blvd
LA, CA 90025
Can’t wait to see all you Angeleno losers there!
In other news, I signed up for an instagram account @helllllenjjjjjo, where I’ve been posting some progress shots and random photos of stupid shit, for your perusal (click to view larger):
So follow me, friends:
Aaaaaaand here’s that flyer:
NO SLEEP TIL SATURDAY, DIX
I really neglected this hovel of a blog in 2012 (and a bit more in 2011), and I want to keep better track of my shit on here in 2013, but I gotta sweep away all the hairballs first and post all the odds and ends I never published properly. Let’s take a look back, in reverse order, shall we?
(WARNING: I know we live in an age of tumblr- and twitter-style brevity but this is a really long, livejournal-style post, so if yer just in it for the pretty pictures, just keep scrollin’ scrollin’ scrollin’. Also, there’s some NSFW shit near the bottom, so clutch your stupid pearls hard, you prudes)
DECEMBER 2012
“Sailor Scouts”, 2012
click image to view larger
I drew this Sailor Moon spread for forthcoming fanzine, MOON POWER. The Sailor Scouts battle Teen P.E. Queen Beryl after school, while their pigtailed ringleader gets a ride on Tuxedo Mask’s bosozoku bike.
NOVEMBER 2012
Calvin and I went to New York for the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Fest, and it ruled. I experienced frigid snow conditions, learned about the incredible style of pizza known as the SALAD SLICE, and fit in a quick modeling sesh, (HAHA HA HAAAA):
…
Now let’s never speak of it again.
OCTOBER 2012
We skipped APE this year and instead joined our friends on a working retreat in a geodesic dome,
in the desert, where we
communed with indigenous fauna, and
worked on our various comics and shit, and
formed a cult/Barbizon-style modeling agency.
All photos by the saucy Jenn! AND DOME FEST FOREVER AND EVER
SEPTEMBER 2012
Calvin and I flew to Bethesda, MD, for SPX, where Calvin’s great comic RAMBLE ON #2 was nominated for an Ignatz Award! I made a new tiny mini comic zine, LAST LETTER, which you gotta rip open in order to read the secret comic inside:
Buy it now. Or never!
A nice dude named Michael CK also interviewed me while I was tabling, and you can view my rambling oral spew here:
Hellen Jo at SPX’12 from Michael C K.
Before SPX, we returned to beautiful San Francisco for the San Francisco Zine Fest. The show was low-key but very enjoyable. Calvin and I also saw the AMAZING David Shrigley show, BRAIN ACTIVITY, at the YBCA. If you did not see this show, YOU ARE A FUCKING LOSER
JULY 2012
click img to view larger
My lucky ass got to go back to Germany for my first ever solo show, DEEP CUT, hosted by the incomparable Michael Meier, Lisa Röper, and Rita Fürstenau of ROTOPOL in Kassel. Here I am, posting a cut-out betch I constructed for the Rotopol store window (fotos by Michael!)
I also completed two new paintings for the show, which I never got a chance to post online before:
“So Now What” 2012
click to view larger
“Wir Reisen Zusammen” 2012
click to view larger
The show opening was totally rad; I drank hella beers (sorry, viel Bier) and ate so many hot dogs with American sauce (???) and laughed and laughed and laughed. I even sold some shit! Michael kindly took a lot of photographs of the show, of me painting, and of all of us preparing, all of which you can peruse here.
That same weekend I also toured the amazing and rare arts festival documenta with cool dude cartoonist, Thomas Wellman. It was a fucking bonanza of awe-inspiring site-specific installations.
I went to Berlin for a few days afterwards, had a grand fucking time, and returned to the US shortly thereafter, my Deutsch language skills not at all improved.
JUNE 2012
C-dub and I went to Chicago for CAKE, which RULED. While there, we ate shitloads of Chicago dogs, excellent Vietnamese food with my sister’s long lost middle school friend, and saw a crazy kunstkammer-style exhibit of death-themed art objects at the Chicago Cultural Center.
MAY 2012
Calvin and I tabled at our first festival of the year at TCAF in Toronto. I put out the naked lady zine, DEEP CUT and bought a shitload of comics. Afterwards, I oozed my way through a haze of flu hallucinations during a solo week of vacation in Montreal, which, in spite of the ooze, was really lovely.
JANUARY 2012
I illustrated my first book cover, for Mimi Thi Nguyen’s The Gift of Freedom: War, Debt, and Other Refugee Passages. I continue to be SO HONORED!!!! See the original painting and post here
NOVEMBER 2011
I did this painting for the Rotopol group show, Villain, and I neglected to post it!
Totem, 2011
click to view larger
Totem, detail
SEPTEMBER 2011
If you read VICE, you might have seen these already, either in print or on the internet, but I never bothered to post them properly to this site. As you’ll see, this shit is *NSFW* and *NOT APPROPRIATE FOR KIDS*. So get the fuck outta here, kids.
The rest of you, leer on; I did four spot illustrations for a brief guide to female masturbation (click each to enlarge, you dirty old man):
The header!
An illustration of how one might achieve the O, hands-free and on the subway:
Passing out when it takes too long:
No comment:
———
So there you are; a little more than a year of back-logged shit, finally spilled out on to the concrete for all to see. I’ve got some old-ass short comics to post too, but that’ll have to wait. Thanks for sticking it out, and see you again soon!
Fram damn it, there’s a new episode of Regular Show tonight! You’ll laugh, you’ll mope, you’ll shudder in disgust. I made a flyer; spread it like a disease!
OH NO, BRO! Tonight at 8PM, Cartoon Network will be broadcasting PIE CONTEST, a new Regular Show episode storyboarded by Sarah Oleksyk and me! It’s our first, so tune in, I BEGAYEW
LOOK, I EVEN MADE YOU A PRETTY PICTURE
Been watching Fox and His Friends (Faustrecht der Freiheit) at work; Rainer Werner Fassbinder wears an oversized velvet bowtie and I pity/love him:
BOAH!
1. I finally posted some shit for sale online, inc. DEEP CUT, the 2nd printing of Jin & Jam #1, some prints, and that danged wallet: helllllen.bigcartel.com
2. Meanwhile, there are some even fancier exclusive giclee prints available at that sweetest of spots, Rotopol
3. And finally, I uploaded a Mac version of that tired old game, HELLEN & CALVIN’S BOGUS JOURNEY (ported ages ago by mysterious Australian, Leon Arnott. Thank you, Leon)
got some shit done cuz who needs sleep anyway
UNGLAUBLICH, MAN. I’m leaving soon for my first solo show, DEEP CUT, this Friday the 13th, at the lovely ROTOPOL in Kassel, Germany. There will be a selection of prints of my favorite illustrations of the last few years, as well as a couple new paintings. I’ll be at the opening, trying to pass off drunken mumbling as “Gespräch auf Deutsch”. OH SHIT
DEEP CUT
14.07 - 15.08.2012
Eröffnung Freitag 13.07 / 21 Uhr
bei ROTOPOL
Friedrich-Ebert Str. 95
34119 Kassel
DEUTSCHLAND
Calvin and I are gonna be at TCAF this weekend, sellin’ shit at table 115. 116? Who knows. I got a zine reprint of Jin & Jam #1, fancy big ol’ giclee prints, and I made me a shit new mini, Deep Cut:
In more exciting news, Calvin’s got an excellent new comic, Ramble On #2!!!!!
OH SHIT! First illustration of the new year! I painted this in gouache for the cover of Mimi Thi Nguyen’s upcoming book, The Gift of Freedom, to be published this July by Duke University Press. Click to view larger:
Ascended Master
Gouache on craft paper
6×9″
As an added bonus, here is the test palette on which I daubed me paints:
I was so incredibly honored when Mimi asked me to illustrate her book cover. I read her Punk Planet columns back in my young poseur days, and I was lucky enough to take a really great Gender and Science course for which she was the Graduate Student Instructor. The day we swapped zines (her most incredible Race Riot, which I still have and cherish, for my incredibly bad autobio sub-manga mini-comic) was the day I vowed to continue to make zines and stay XupXtheXpunX forever
Methinks you are my glass, and not my brother:
I see by you I am a sweet-faced youth.
Twin Sister
6×6″
Brush pen & gouache on four Post-Its
for Post-It Show 7, opening at GR2 on Saturday night:
A preview of the last illustration I’ll do in 2011. Pencil on computer paper:
Good night
Schlaf gut
어서 꺼져
