-Sandra
David Choe, born April 21, 1976, is a Korean-American artist who is known for his paintings, murals, graphic novels, and his graffiti work. He calls characterizes his work as "dirty style" and depicts themes of desire, degradation, and exaltation in his work. His signature in the graffiti world is that of a bucktoothed whale.
His identification in the graffiti world.
His work appears in a wide range of contexts, from urban scenes to entertainment scenes.
He's provided works for:
He's provided works for:
- Jay-Z and Linkin Park's multi-platinum album "Collision Course"
- Artwork for sets to "Juno" and "The Glass House"
- Murals in Facebook's Silicon Valley office for Sean Parker and other office for Mark Zuckerberg
- Portrait of Barack Obama (who was senator at the time), now displayed in the White House
He is a high school and college dropout. His life revolved around hitchhiking and stealing for a while after he dropped out of school. He has spent time in jail for his graffiti work. But eventually started working for magazines "Hustler", "Ray Gun" and "Vice" as an illustrator and writer. He also started his relationship with the magazine "Giant Robot."
He tried showing his work in galleries, but nobody was really interested at the time. He then hung his work in an ice cream shop in Melrose Avenue in defiance, and his work was an hit.
Choe's dream of becoming a comic book creator also started to rise after his creation of the graphic novel "Slow Jams." The minimal amounts of printed copies of this graphic novel have the prices soaring to hundreds of dollars in the present day.
It was then that Harry Kim, a friend of Choe's began documenting Choe's life and created a documentary on Choe called "Dirty Hands: The Art and Crimes of David Choe."
He had an incident in 2003, when he traveled to Japan, where he punched an undercover security guard due to a language barrier misunderstanding and was sentenced to three months in jail. While there he suffered from not having the proper materials to work on his art and used the one pen his cell was allowed, soy sauce, tea, blood, and urine for mediums.
Upon his return to California, he was commissioned for murals by the founders of Facebook and Hollywood star Heidi Fleiss, to name a couple. He was offered a solo exhibit at the Santa Rosa Museum of Contemporary Art in 2005, after having several shows of his own in California.
He is continuing his work with a web series called "Thumbs Up!" with Harry Kim which revolves around their traveling by hitch-hiking. He is currently hosting a podcast show called "DVDASA" with adult film star Asa Akira.
Recently, in April of 2014, he had a rape scandal, after telling a supposed "story about his art", which consisted some adult themes of his "rape-ish" behavior towards a masseuse, that he claims were not reality. There still seems to be no news as to the result of the investigation on this matter, however.
He tried showing his work in galleries, but nobody was really interested at the time. He then hung his work in an ice cream shop in Melrose Avenue in defiance, and his work was an hit.
Choe's dream of becoming a comic book creator also started to rise after his creation of the graphic novel "Slow Jams." The minimal amounts of printed copies of this graphic novel have the prices soaring to hundreds of dollars in the present day.
It was then that Harry Kim, a friend of Choe's began documenting Choe's life and created a documentary on Choe called "Dirty Hands: The Art and Crimes of David Choe."
He had an incident in 2003, when he traveled to Japan, where he punched an undercover security guard due to a language barrier misunderstanding and was sentenced to three months in jail. While there he suffered from not having the proper materials to work on his art and used the one pen his cell was allowed, soy sauce, tea, blood, and urine for mediums.
Upon his return to California, he was commissioned for murals by the founders of Facebook and Hollywood star Heidi Fleiss, to name a couple. He was offered a solo exhibit at the Santa Rosa Museum of Contemporary Art in 2005, after having several shows of his own in California.
He is continuing his work with a web series called "Thumbs Up!" with Harry Kim which revolves around their traveling by hitch-hiking. He is currently hosting a podcast show called "DVDASA" with adult film star Asa Akira.
Recently, in April of 2014, he had a rape scandal, after telling a supposed "story about his art", which consisted some adult themes of his "rape-ish" behavior towards a masseuse, that he claims were not reality. There still seems to be no news as to the result of the investigation on this matter, however.