Studio Nez - Fruits & Stars

Hi, I'm Nez. The artist behind the piece titled Fruits and Stars super serials. I'm an artist from Oak Park and owner of the Contemporary Street Art Gallery studio. Nez. You might have seen hints of my work before in connection to Elmhurst Art Museum if you attended one of their many wonderful workshops for Scent Rocks Museum solo exhibition. 

As you can imagine, and especially if you came to view his work, it's such a big undertaking to fill up a whole museum on your own. So as he was preparing large scale paintings, sculptures, and even murals for his solo show, he chose a couple of up and coming artists to help make his vision come to life. 

And so I was invited to create a series of illustrated coloring book pages for children's workshops used for the remainder of the exhibition and available for download online. Although these coloring book pages depicted Scent Rock's iconic Bird City saint character, these illustrations were made in my illustrative style, which was super fun to see come to life. 

Because I grew up seeing his artwork as a kid, these illustrations were described as more cutesy, more geared towards the youth, and of course, I was super happy to hear that they were a big hit with the kids. 

One of the things that made these illustrations distinctly my style were the eyes of the character, actually. And they're the same big, round eyes seen in this serial superhero piece. I'm so excited and honored to be a part of this collection of amazing local artists and talented youth groups as we bring new superheroes to life with larger than life standing murals. 

So before telling you a bit more about what went into creating this piece, I'm going to rewind back a bit to the origin story of these cereal box characters and how they came to be. If you grew up in Chicago or frequently visit, you might notice a big part of the art scene and culture steps out of their many art gallery walls and onto the streets. 

Street artists and mural artists stand out with their original characters. Lining the roads, brick walls, temporary walls, and more, leaving their mark with painted acrylic murals, spray paint, weed, pastings, stencils, stickers. 

The list really goes on. Over time, though, you start to recognize these original characters and connect them to the artist, and you begin to notice them everywhere you go. Growing up in the nearby suburb of Berwin, I distinctly remember every time my family I would go to Chicago over the weekend and I would beg to go, as I used to say, anywhere but the Loop. 

Of course, there wasn't nothing I particularly didn't love about the center of Chicago, but I wanted to go check up on old murals in communities like Pilson, Logan Square, and Ricker Park. Maybe I would find a new artist that day, or another mural by one of my favorites. 

Or sometimes, if I was lucky, I would run into an artist at work and get to talk with them for a bit. Nowadays, telling the story to any fellow artist friend seems outlandish, because the vast majority of them grew up in Chicago and were exposed to the art scene every day. 

But as I grew up with the growing interest of these character based murals, I eventually wanted to come up with my own. But what would it look like? I've been making art since high school middle school, really. 

Even at two years old, I already had a focus and love for art. But once again, I found myself staring at a blank page, not knowing where to begin. I was used to drawing landscapes, maybe a portrait, but coming up with an original character, one where I couldn't exactly rely on a reference picture. 

I drafted about 30 characters, maybe more, and none of them really stuck out to me. I told myself would know it when I found it, and I just kept drawing. I remember sketching breakfast foods, pancakes, a carton of milk, waffles, and cereal. 

I wish I had a bigger story to go with this, but I added the big character eyes, the same ones you see on the superhero mural. And I just knew I found something unique. So over the past couple of years, these cereal box characters have evolved from their original sketch, from nailing down the exact pantone colors to simplifying and refining the illustration. 

I noticed my artwork that featured these characters were the most well received at art markets, vendor shows, and on social media. And they are my favorites, too. So I decided to focus all my art going forward on perfecting this character and bringing it to life by playing around with its facial expressions, giving it accessories, honing down its movements, like how would it look like if they were running? 

Or maybe how would they look like if they were dancing? Essentially, before I create a new piece, I imagine my characters as inevitably becoming an animated character in a show. This helps me really focus on making sure my characters seem lively and in action and not just static on a page. 

Which is why this was the perfect project to explore this and capture some action. But first, I had to narrow something down. What superpower would my character have? I started with, admittedly, lots and lots of research.