White Tiger

11 colors
Printed on coventry rag 290gsm
Deckled edges
Edition of 48

"I have been drawing in my sketchbooks and making up stories since I've have memories. I do not consider making those drawings in sketchbooks as art, to me, it’s my entertainment and it is the only chance that I can enjoy being free completely. I do not have to worry about being judged nor to have any pressure of making a “good drawing”. I just let myself go as wild as I can; also these drawings are not intended to impress anybody.

For these two images I made with Serio Press, I used my favorite method of image making, ballpoint pens on paper to create a set of two made-up folk tales based on the already well-known mythical creatures of Asian subculture. Besides that, I also recalled some elements from several traumatic experiences in my early childhood.

For White Tiger, that is another traumatized experience from my not-so-well-monitored childhood days.

My grandmother was from Sichuan China and was very into cinemas, especially horror movies and erotic stories. And yes, fortunately, I was raised by her. She always let me watch whatever she was watching on those beta video tapes without filtering the contents of the movies she rented from the movie rental store. And of course, in 80s Asia, no one gives a dang of what images are appropriate or not for a minor’s earlier mental development. She liked to keep telling me the Chinese folk tale of the Old Tiger Demon who was in the form of a nice old lady, but she ate children alive while babysitting them. As a cinema lover, my grandmother does have some talent for storytelling, especially for those graphic gruesome details, she can make It sound like she was there and witnessed the entire scene even in these days of her old age. Of course, just around the same time when I discovered the talent of Magritte, I was also bathed with the image of the child eating tiger-demon-lady through my grandmother’s oral tradition. As you can see today, all the images I made in my career are already formed in my head from back then, and this drawing is not an exception."

From the studio:

Serio Press is proud to welcome Brooklyn based Mu Pan into our studio to produce a pair of serigraph editions, and the artist's first screen prints. While discussing ways of adapting Pan's work to serigraphy, we sought inspiration from his sketchbooks and the ballpoint pen illustrations that fill them.

Artist Bio:

Mu Pan was born in Taichung City, Taiwan, and initially opted for art school as a means of escaping a career in the military. He moved to the USA in 1997, obtaining his BFA and MFA at the School of Visual Arts, New York, where he now teaches illustration.

Growing up, Mu Pan was drawn to Manga, although folk art, particularly Chinese scroll paintings and Japanese prints, had a profound influence on his work. He researches Japanese, Chinese and American history, blending past events with imagined beings and occurrences to create spectacular paintings and drawings, expressions of anger, portrayals of a brutal, unforgiving world.

Mu Pan Website      |     Mu Pan Instagram