Many thanks to Anna of Gallery Hanahou, I was offered a chance to meet Sebastien Roux aka SUPERDEUX this past Thursday. Who in fact is SUPERDEUX? Read the below bio as provided by Gallery Hanahou. If you like what you read, make the leap for a quick recap of our chit chat and some pics.
About SUPERDEUX www.superdeux.com
SUPERDEUX, aka Sebastien Roux, was born and raised in the south of France, worked and studied in Paris, and currently resides in Lille, France.
With his distinctive brand of lifestyle art, SUPERDEUX has spent the past ten years hopping the gap between the art and commercial worlds, producing slick motion graphics, funky characters, and pop-tastic logos for major brands such as MTV and Sony, while at the same time developing his own popular series of vinyl toys and drawing crowds to gallery shows across Europe.
SUPERDEUX’s work has been featured in books and magazines in France, Germany, Hong Kong, Australia, the US, Canada, and he has worked in collaboration with talented forces including Phunk Studio, 123Klan, Stardust, Genevieve Gauckler, Bill Mc Mullen, Staple Design, Interspectacular and Pictoplasma to pursue his goal of exploring various mediums of communicating his particular urban sensibility.
Exhibits:
“ACID” solo show at Artoys (Lyon, 2007)
“Pop’n Flop’n” at La Condition Publique (Roubaix, 2006)
“Make feet beautiful” at the Artazart Gallery (Paris, 2005)
“Tag the System PARIS” Espace Beaurepaire (Paris, 2005)
“PAPERBAG” at the Madame Edgar Gallery (Montreal, 2005)
“Stickerthrow!” at the KCDC skate shop/gallery (NY, 2005)
“Tag the System NYC” at the Showroom (NY, 2005)Featured In:
Books: Mascotte 2 by Delicatessen (Happy Book, 2006), Vinyl Will Kill by Jeremyville (IDN, 2004), Logos Around Europe (Index Book Publishing, 2004), Pictoplasma Books 1 & 2 (DGV 2002, 2004)
Magazines: IDN Magazine, Computer Arts, MUSE, BUTTER, Playtimes, Territory Mag, and more
Image/text Source: Gallery Hanahou
So tell me about your brand, SUPERDEUX. How did the name come about?
Back in 1999, I was into grafitti. I was a grafitti artist and I was using the number 2 often. Deux in French means 2. Therefore SUPERDEUX.
How did you get started in urban vinyl? Was it through working with Tristan Eaton?
No, I was actually doing vinyl toys way before that. One day we were talking, Tristan was working with Kidrobot at the time. I contact him, we exchanged email and started from there.
With the Kidrobot Dunnys, I’ve noticed some artists have their work featured numerous times whether its a numeric series, a specialized themed series or an 8 inch. How does that work? Do you get invited by Kidrobot or do you propose an idea for the on-going work?
The client, Kidrobot, would invite me.
Your recent French series release is quite appealing. Actually, I’d like to point out a certain member on the Kidrobot forum, djkrush, is trying to amass an army of your SUPERDEUX dunnys. I believe he has 50 or so now. As an on/off collector myself, I notice this is a trend within each series. With yours being a fan favorite, would you be willing to do an 8 inch of the recent French release?
Yeah, I would like that. I will talk to Paul about that.
By the way, the 123Klan Dunny looks very similar to yours. Did you have any influence?
Yes, the 123Klan Dunny was a collaboration effort. (For those of you that attended the show, you could’ve met Klor. She’s one half of 123Klan).
I read music is a big influence on your artwork… is there a particular genre?
Yeah a lot. I’m more into electro music… Ed Banger Records. Artists such as Kavinsky.
Oh Kavinsky! I saw him at Coney Island along with SebastiAn and the Rapture opening up for Daft Punk. That was a such a great show. Do you see yourself doing a collaboration with Ed Banger Records anytime in the future?
I’m actually doing a collaboration with Arcade Mode. They are close with Ed Banger. But Pedro (Busy P of Ed Banger Records) has his own vision on toys and he is working with Medicom mostly. Therefore, a collaboration with Ed Banger Records is not possible.
Sebastien, my last question to you is do you have any advice for new and upcoming artists?
Develop a concept and really dig deep into it. Think of everything you can do with your character design. And if its a good toy, you can end up with a good t-shirt. From there it can become a pattern for a clothing line and so forth. The possibilities are endless once you have developed that concept.
Thank you very much for your time Sebastien.
March 16th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
Great site and useful content!