ToyCyte: Toy Culture Collected

The Taksu Gallery in Kuala Lampur might be the very last place you’d expect to find art that focuses on action figures and their travails, but 33-year old artist Olan Ventura spent over six months tying up and sometimes destroying his DC Direct, Marvel Legends and Justice League Unlimited action figures so that he could transform them into life-sized oil paintings. And I’ll be damned if I can’t instantly identify the exact series that each desecrated figure comes from.

While Olan seems reluctant to explain the bondage and injury themes that are prevalent in his works, I think that we’ve all taken a compound bow to an old Warriors of Virtue figure in the back yard while the family was on vacation. Just three years ago. Haven’t we?

While some of these works are a lot more successfully ‘realistic’ than others, I think that we can all appreciate the intentional magnification of something designed to be small and controllable, still being cruelly controlled by an unseen hand that we’ve all used once or twice. Like when my college roommate would position Doc Ock in a loving, prison-themed man-embrace with Spider-Man whenever I left the room. Nothing is more cruel than uninvited octoped lust.

If you’re in Kuala Lampur, check it out – and since I doubt you are, scope out the online gallery and keep an eye on this guy.