ToyCyte: Toy Culture Collected

Here’s someone and something who is new to me, but has been around for years: Ayako Takagi’s Uamou. Ayako grew up in Japan, but moved to London to study art. Some of her influences include Archer Prewitt, Jim Woodring, Sigeru Mizuki and Doraemon. She also collects James Jarvis, Frank Kozik, Kaws, Gary Baseman, Tim Biskup and Kaz.  She creates comics, toys and jewelry  using her characters Uamou, Katz and Beer. Uamou is based on the pronunciation of the Chinese word for “devil.” Katz and Beer are the German words for cat and bear. Ayako’s most popular character is Uamou, whom she describes as in a 2006 Le Toy interview as:

Uamou is cute little alien who explores the galaxy and befriends a ghost. The comic is no words, it’s all about telling a story through pictures alone. I want people imagine their own imagination and create their own world.

I stumbled upon Uamou on Ayako’s Flickr photostream, where she’d just posted new photos of crystal clear Uamou figures and plush Uamou with Kaws eyes (below).

The newest toy to hit her online shop (easy PayPal checkout) is the Bottled Uamou, a 10cm (3.9″). resin/glass mini Uamou (above) designed to be submerged in a water bottle for 1,500 Yen ($14 USD). The 12cm. (4.7″) bronze, gold and silver polystone Buuts Buuts Uamou figures (at the top of the post) are available in her shop in limited editions of 100, 100 and 50 respectively and sell for 7,900 Yen ($73 USD). There’s a lot of great stuff in the store, including plushes, badges, stickers and t-shirts against global warming. I like the diversity of her pieces. One of my favorites is this G.I.D. Buuts Buuts Uamou (below), who was available at Tokyocube, but is unfortunately sold out. Keep an eye on this artist for coolness incarnate.