Butcher Billy
Butcher Billy | |
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Born | Billy Mariano da Luz Curitiba, Brazil |
Education | Graphic Design PUCPR |
Known for | Pop Art |
Notable work | The Post-Punk / New Wave Super Friends Series
Tales From The Smith Comic Book Series Butcher Billy Changes Bowie Project |
Movement | Pop Art |
Butcher Billy (born Billy Mariano da Luz,[1] in Curitiba, March 14, 1978) is a Brazilian artist and graphic designer known for his art pieces and illustration series based on the contemporary pop art movement. His work has a strong vintage comic book and street art influence while also making use of pop cultural references in music, cinema, art, literature, games, history and politics. Often crossing reality and fiction, his projects promote creative concepts that reference fictional characters with real life personalities such as musicians, artists, historical figures and politicians.
His work started going viral on the internet in 2012 via social media and since then he has been getting attention online and offline from newspapers, books, magazines and vehicles such as The Guardian/Observer,[2] Rolling Stone,[3] The Huffington Post,[4] NME,[5] Wired,[6] Elle,[7] Maxim,[8] Vanity Fair,[9] Yahoo!,[10] and MTV.[11]
His body of work has since been leading to exhibitions in contemporary art galleries in cities like London,[12] San Francisco,[13] Chicago, Miami, Lisbon[14] and Dubai, and has attracted collaborations with companies such as ESPN,[15] Michael Jordan, Foot Locker,[16] E.Leclerc, British Gas, Billboard and Winsor & Newton.
Butcher Billy's artistic name derives from an Irish ancestor who earned the nickname "Butcher" for fighting in the Irish War of Independence brandishing a cleaver.[17]
Works[]
The Post-Punk/New Wave Super Friends Project[]
In 2013 he released "The Post-Punk/New Wave Super Friends" series which discussed what makes a pop culture icon. The concept was to cross post-punk artists from the early 1980s with vintage comics superheroes. The series was widely spread through social media gaining online and offline media coverage from main websites and blogs around the world; also published in the book Comics Feeeever! Uncover The Power of Comics in Art and Design released by Victionary. In 2015 the series had a follow-up called All-New Super-Powered Post-Punk Marvels. This series was featured in the Art and Design section of the British newspaper The Guardian,[18] and in the French art book collection ARTtitude, by publisher Plan9 Entertainment.
The Legion of Real Life Supervillains Project[]
In this series, released in 2014, Butcher Billy proposed an experiment where notorious dictators, psychopaths and murderers or even suspicious figures from real life are mashed up with comics supervillains - strangely related some way or the other with their counterparts. The project gained an article in the Arts & Culture section at The Huffington Post.[19] This series caused debates in many countries for the use of controversial figures such as Adolf Hitler, Charles Manson, Chairman Mao Zedong, Osama bin Laden and Mark Zuckerberg. Billy is quoted on the project: "Some might say all art is a reflection of the times we live in. If back in the day comics and movies were pretty naive and faced only as pure escapism, today's fiction has to evoke reality to create something truly meaningful... and frightening."
The Superhero Media Crossover Project[]
In this series from 2012 Butcher Billy interlaces cinematography with storyboard, replacing live action scenes from contemporary super-hero blockbuster movies with cuts from the 1960s and 1970s comic books they were born from. The concept aims to explore how thin is the line that separates modern from classic, and pixels from ink. A successful superhero live action movie is mostly dependent on how the filmmakers have captured the exact character found on its two-dimensional, spandex-clad origin. The classic look and style in comics combined with some modern aspects like slight changes in costumes and storyline is a common technique found in making movies today. The project makes us realize how often movie makers rely on the format of classic comic books and graphic novels, making them easy to translate them on the screen.
Batman: The Nolan vs Burton Experiment Project[]
A design experiment in which Butcher Billy mashed together Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman and Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy. By placing their differing elements in proximity, the images revealed the contrasts between the two similar yet disparate cinematic universes. By doing that the artist discussed the meaning of what is classic and timeless and the contemporary recycle of concepts in modern cinema.[11]
Butcher Billy's "Tales From The Smith" Comic Book Series[]
This time the artist has taken goth rock icon Robert Smith of the band The Cure, and given him his own series of illustrations he's named "Tales From the Smith". Butcher Billy has once again opted to use the comic book genre as a guide for his new project. However instead of the usual superhero genre, the musician is portrayed in a series of retro style horror comic covers, and as an ode to his band, each of the horror comics in this series are named after a particular song. In addition, some of the art in this series are represented with homages to past iconic horror movies, such as Friday the 13th and Evil Dead. Billy is quoted on the series: "This frightening series of strange tales is an homage to the goth legend who truly taught us love and darkness". The collection has been published at Adobe Create, the Adobe online platform that features curated projects from leading creatives on the internet.
Tales from the Black Mirror[]
Butcher Billy took inspiration from the episodes of Black Mirror and created covers akin to a comics anthology about each. Once series creator Charlie Brooker discovered the images through Twitter, Billy was eventually hired to do artwork featured in the episodes themselves.[17][20]
References[]
- ^ "Artista brasileiro é convidado a ilustrar nova temporada de "Black Mirror"". Revista Glamour (in Portuguese). 2017-01-05.
- ^ "Superheroes of rock'n'roll – in pictures". The Guardian.
- ^ "Butcher Billy: Post punk y súper héroes". Rolling Stone Colombia.
- ^ "And Here Are You Favorite Post-Punk Rock Stars As Marvel Superheroes". The Huffington Post.
- ^ "6 Rockstars Reimagined As Superheroes". NME.
- ^ "Butcher Billy, icone post-punk come supereroi - Wired". Wired (in Italian). Retrieved 2016-01-18.
- ^ "#PrêtàLiker : quand les rock stars deviennent des super-héros - Elle". www.elle.fr (in French). 2015-03-23. Retrieved 2016-01-18.
- ^ "17 INCREDIBLY COOL MASH-UPS OF COMIC BOOK SUPERHEROES AND ROCK GODS". MAXIM.
- ^ "Les légendes du rock des années 1980 revisitées façon super-héros Marvel". Vanity Fair. Retrieved 2016-01-18.
- ^ "Pitch-Perfect Parody of Banksy Appears on Brazil's Street: Why You Wascawwy Graffiti Artist!". www.yahoo.com. Retrieved 2016-01-18.
- ^ Jump up to: a b "When Nolan Met Burton: Two 'Batman' Franchises, One Mash-Up!". MTV.com.
- ^ "Winsor & Newton/AOI London Exhibition Opening 16 Nov 2015". www.theaoi.com. Retrieved 2016-01-18.
- ^ "Gauntlet Gallery Exhibit". gauntletgallery.com. Archived from the original on 2016-02-06. Retrieved 2016-01-18.
- ^ "Exposição: Charivari Vol. I – Antologia de Arte Digital e Cultura Pop (até 8 de novembro)". Charivari. Archived from the original on 2016-02-06. Retrieved 2016-01-18.
- ^ "ESPN Magazine | Natural Born Rivals by Butcher Billy". www.behance.net. Retrieved 2016-01-18.
- ^ "5 Illustrators Recreate the Magic of Michael Jordan's Most Legendary Moment". Complex UK. Retrieved 2016-01-18.
- ^ Jump up to: a b Artista curitibano faz ilustrações sobre a série Black Mirror para a Netflix, Folha de S. Paulo (in Portuguese)
- ^ Bromwich, Kathryn (2015-04-04). "Superheroes of rock'n'roll – in pictures". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2016-01-21.
- ^ Notifications, Desktop; Profile; Settings; Logout. "LOOK: Real-Life Supervillains Become Comic Characters". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 2016-01-21.
- ^ https://www.illustrationweb.fr/news/3422/the_art_of_black_mirror
External links[]
- 1978 births
- Living people
- People from Curitiba
- Brazilian people of Irish descent
- Brazilian speculative fiction artists
- Science fiction artists