Provoked by the ironies of the world, Malaysian artist Munkao’s approach to art combines elements of awkward fantasy and social commentary to depict his sardonic outlook on life in an oddball, humorous fashion.

Influenced more by pop culture than by fine art, Munkao has been drawing since he was a kid, influenced by his brother Billy Tan - now US-based comic artist. Born Tan Mung Kao, the 25yr old artist was educated in Singapore until returning to Kuala Lumpur to attend a local art college. In less than a year, he dropped out. “It made me hate drawing,” he says. Munkao has since returned to school, currently majoring in business studies. After stepping away from art as an academic subject, Munkao has rediscovered his passion for drawing and painting, creating work that better reflect his personality. Check out more about Munkao and his obsession with drawing penises on his frequently updated blog.

Munkao likes funny stuff. This is clearly evident in his latest exhibition of artworks - SuperNatural.
We almost died laughing.

[Link courtesy of Gary Gao]

Moira Hahn was born in Boston, MA, in 1956 and earned her BFA at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and participated in additional studies in animation at CalArts. After completing her graduate work in animation at CalArts, she studied traditional Japanese art in both Hawaii and Japan, and worked as a studio assistant for Masami Teraoka for five years.

Since these initial studies, Moira has continued to look east for inspiration. She has found it in Persian miniatures, Tibetan Thanka paintings, Japanese Ukiyo-e prints, Indian animal drawings and Chinese guardian figures. Her visual statements which often deal with social and policital issues, seamlessly converge traditional Asian art subjects and genres with iconography from contemporary popular culture including manga, anime and tattoo art.

Moira has exhibited her fine art throughout the US and Japan for two decades. Read more of Moira Hahn from these various interviews, and also take a closer look at her profile here.

Dragon is an illustrator / painter from Japan, whose works are deeply inspired by the black culture.

Dragon creates artworks for CD / record jackets, fliers and posters. He started his own brand of street wear Dragon76 in 2004. Dragon has held various exhibitions of his works and frequently does live painting where he creates large scale paintings using the same unique style. Check out photos of Dragon at his live painting events on his blog.

Hebei, China artist Zhang Lin Hai recently held his much anticipated 4th solo exhibition entitled “Purple and Reminiscence”.

Pre-eminent in his field, Zhang Lin Hai’s collection of new works shows how he is evolving stylistically as an artist as he further develops his scope of imagination, and his motif of bald young boys against a backdrop of a post-industrial arid wasteland. Zhang Lin Hai’s almost surrealist oil paintings explicitly articulating feelings such as sadness, fear, a need for escape, bemusement, and even more disconcerting, the vapid glare of shock or even possession.

See more of Zhang’s past works here.

[Information from Schoeni Art Gallery]

Takeshi’s Oil Painting Gallery is a collection of strangely beautiful oil paintings.

Takeshi Mukou doesn’t say much (almost no information about him can be found in the profile page) but his works speak volume. The paintings remind us of the artworks of Columbian artist Fernando Botero, albeit more surreal.