Coco Star Sims Has Been Extremely Busy

Over the past year, she has been extremely busy working on a variety of different projects across the world. She designed three collections, with LQQK Studio, Big Love Records and Perks and Mini. She released a zine with Commune Press with fellow tattoo artists Keegan Dakkar and Jackson Epstein from New York as a prequel to the group show ‘Songwheel’ they did together in January at Commune’s Gallery in Tokyo. This year is planned to be just as full on for her. As a fan of Coco and her work, I wanted to sit down with her and talk about her work and her projects before she moves to Tokyo next month.

I wanted to start by asking about tattooing which seems to be your main practice as of late. How did you get into tattooing and was it a natural transition going from drawing?

Drawing has always been my happy place and I think tattoos are just an extension of that. I got my first tattoo when I was fifteen. I wore an outfit that I thought looked really grown up and hoped they wouldn’t ask any questions, thankfully they didn’t. I really enjoyed the experience of getting a tattoo. I started doing terrible stick and pokes with my friends when I was in high school, we would get sewing needles and tape them to pencils and use pen ink. Then it grew and at parties’ people would ask me to do it. It got to the point when friends and friends of friends started asking if they could come over for me to give them a tattoo after school. When I was at art school people started asking me to do drawings for them to get tattooed. I was spending a lot of my time doing stick and pokes and doing drawings for others. I wasn’t thinking of it as a career, I just enjoyed doing it. People offered to pay but I thought that was ridiculous and refused for a long time. Then there was this one time when my friend who was visiting asked if I could give him and his friends these matching tattoos to commemorate their friendship, they’d buy me a six-pack of ciders and we'd light off fireworks [laughs]. That night I realised just how much I enjoyed tattooing. After that, that’s when I decided to commit to it. I bought a machine, made Flash, got a mentor, started practising on lemons and my friends, quit my job and that was it.

When did you quit your job and start tattooing full-time?

I think I was 20 or 21, so it’s been sixish years now. In 2020 and 2021 Melbourne was in lockdown for basically the whole time so I couldn’t really tattoo for most of those two years. Then I’ve also done some travelling before and after, so I haven’t been consistently tattooing the whole time. In the scheme of things, it hasn’t been very long.

Wow, I didn’t realise it’s been so long. When did you develop the style of tattoos that you are doing now?

I have always just made tattoos in the style that I would want to get myself and things from my other drawings that people asked for. When I started, they were more scribbly and doodly because I wanted ones like that and also because I wasn’t very good [laughs]. I would say during lockdown when I had a lot of time to sit, and draw my style shifted more to what it is now.

Your style is so unique. Where did the influence for it come from?

I have always been really interested in creatures, world-building and storytelling. I read a lot of sci-fi, I watch a lot of movies with special effects, I love trail running and get a lot of inspiration from nature especially Australian flora and fauna, space, my friends, and I really love puppets and animatronics. Those are all such big influences on my work.

Can we talk about your love of puppets?

Yeah, I used to spend a lot of time at this puppet shop/theatre called Hocus Pocus when I was a kid. I would have every birthday there. It got to the point where the owners would put out birthday signs on the month of my birthday because I spent so much time and all of my pocket money there [laughs]. It felt so big at the time, like I was stepping into another world. I have gone to visit where the shop once was since, in reality it’s just a small place, the store has changed into many other things over the years, but it still feels nice to go in.

A lot of your recent drawings have been centred around the theme of perception and shrimp vision, where did the influence for that come from?

I love theories of perception. I really like looking at how other creatures see things and make sense of them compared to humans. My favourite creature is the mantis shrimp, the mantis shrimp has the best vision of any creature in the entire world. Humans view the world through three channels of light and the mantis shrimp views through twelve and they can see UV. They see a whole spectrum of colour and light that is so beyond what we can even imagine. A big focus in my work is imagining how the mantis shrimp would experience the world. That is what the big focus of my recent show with Commune Gallery was, trying to play with colour that created a spectrum in the way I imagine they are morphing colours in a way we can’t perceive.

Do you think that’s where your use of coloured pencil comes from?

Yeah, definitely.

While you are out in nature are you taking photos of things that you’d take influence from?

Yes, or I take them home [laughs]. A lot of feathers, rocks, lost buttons and things. As I’ve been moving I’ve been getting rid of a lot of it, but I bring a lot of things home. A lot of what’s in my drawings is from something I’ve found or has some kind of story behind it.

Do you have an example of a bit of your work that has a story in it?

This little creature with robo-tentacles in this one part of this drawing. An old friend of mine is working on a project making birdhouses to help keep swift parrots safe from sugar gliders. I was thinking about how sugar gliders are so cute and it’s funny to think they are the villains in this situation. I saved some photos of sugar gliders when I was reading about the project. That same day I took a photo of a Spider-Man balloon to send to a friend of mine that loves Spider-Man. The two photos were next to each other in my camera roll. So, I drew a sugar glider with these big Dr Octagon arms to represent their villain-hood in this story.

That is so cool, it’s something that the viewer would never understand, but it means something to you. Is it something you think about when you’re drawing and putting in these little personal easter eggs?

I’m not trying to make it something people won’t understand on purpose. People can take what they want from it. I want looking at my drawings to be like cloud watching, where the viewer can get lost in it and constantly find new elements or make sense of different parts in different ways.

Where do your characters come from?

All of the things that I have been talking about. I also get a lot of inspiration from seeing images in things like droplets of water or in the pattern on a machine. I see a lot of things in droplets of water when I’m in the shower.

Your latest zine, ‘Sixteen Rollercoasters’ that you made with Stacks Bookstore in Tokyo focuses on some of those characters. Can we talk about the zine?

The infinity symbol looks like an eight, two eighths make sixteen, which in my mind is double infinity. As infinity is infinite, in theory it can’t be multiplied so I like the idea of multiplying the un-multipliable [laughs]. It is also a reference to a song by Rammellzee called ‘Seventeen Roller Coasters’. I like the idea that by “doubling infinity” it is still one behind Rammellzee. I made this zine to zoom in on specific characters within my larger drawings that are particularly special to me. It’s printed on this pearlescent paper that sparkles in the light.

You are doing so much at the moment and it goes across a wide variety of mediums, whether that be clothing, drawing, tattooing, food and design. How does it feel having that much creative freedom to be able to not be limited by the medium?

I have never actually thought of it like that. I like trying new things and making things with my friends and have always been excited by collaborating with others to make something neither of us could do alone. That is one of the big things with tattooing for me too. I see the characters as little friends of mine and when I tattoo them on someone, they become that person's own little friend.

Working with different mediums you can stretch your ideas so much further. Do you ever feel limited by drawing and tattooing?

I haven’t ever felt particularly limited by these things. I see drawing and tattooing as just part of what I do in the bigger scheme of things.

Are there any other mediums you could see yourself working in?

I would love to make more sculptural pieces and furniture at some point.

You’re also designing a donut, right?

Yeah, I’m designing a donut for Juanita Peaches which is a café owned by my friends. They are doing a series of different donuts throughout the year, and they reached out to me to design a donut.

How does designing the donut work?

So, I come to them with my flavour ideas and what I want to do with the design. Then I work with the pastry chef, and she takes the ideas I have and works out what is realistic and what can work.

What drives you to create?

I’m not sure, really. I think storytelling and connecting. It’s important to me to work with friends and people whose values align with mine. All the projects I’m working on at the moment are with people I feel very lucky to have in my life. That definitely helps drive me.

What’s next for you from here?

I am moving to Tokyo next month, so I am currently packing up my apartment. I am working on a new collection with Perks and Mini that will come out at the start of next year. I worked with them on designing some pieces and I have really enjoyed the process. I am also working on a three-way collaboration with Geek Out Store and Commune Gallery. I have some other projects that I am working on now that I am really excited about.

Art

Pamela Sneed’s Speaking Tongue opens at Dashwood Projects

November 15, 2024

Pamela Sneed’s latest exhibition, Speaking Tongue, will be on view at Dashwood Projects from November 20 to December 21. The show features twenty watercolor and ink paintings inspired by her recent trip to Kenya, where she was deeply moved by the elegance of giraffes, the landscapes, and the energy of Nairobi.

Blending her background as a poet and visual artist, Sneed’s work reflects on themes of identity, nature, and connection. Her paintings capture the beauty and spirit of the animals she encountered, alongside reflections on her own experiences as part of the African diaspora.

This exhibition marks Sneed’s first solo show with Dashwood Projects and will be accompanied by a new book, also titled Speaking Tongue, to be released in December.

By Enzo Holdt
Artworks by Pamela Sneed

Art

Tiebreaker - Alvin Armstrong

November 15, 2024

There is a moment of silence right before the play. Just before the racket strikes the ball as it hangs weightless in the air, breathless and charged. It’s the fleeting yet decisive instant that can alter the course of the match, determining who wins and who loses.

Alvin Armstrong depicts this crucial moment in his new exhibition Tiebreaker, symbolizing the risks and rewards of competition. It’s an implication of something else at stake, where athletes push not only their bodies, but their spirits to the absolute limit.

The dynamic figures embody the strength, grace, and agility juxtaposed by the vibrant color palette evoking not just the joy of competition but the charged energy of the court.

Tiebreaker is opening Thursday, November 16th at Anna Zorina Gallery.

By Rea Brayshaw
Artworks by Alvin Armstrong

Art

The Things People Are Ashamed To Take Photos Of: The Photography and Films of Yuhan Cheng

Yuhan’s latest exhibition of photo and video work titled 窗子外 Outside the Window, Inside the Tank 鱼缸里 takes its namesake from what could’ve been a mundane encounter. A month after moving to New York City from Chengdu, China, they stumbled across an abandoned fish tank left curbside. It reminded them of “the rotating fish in a tank that faded into the background of their mother’s home in Chengdu”, a thread connecting childhood familiarity that transformed into a symbol of greater significance in adulthood. A tank is a world within a world; a microcosm secluded from the broader chaos of the outside. Since then Yuhan has captured the other kinds of “fish tanks” closest to them in their photography and short films. Not literal ones necessarily– but intimate confined spaces in Chengdu and NYC where time stands still.

In the midst of taking snapshots of loved ones, Yuhan decided to turn their tender but examining lens on themselves. They realized shooting self-portraits unraveled a deeper understanding of their own nonbinary gender and queer sexuality. Yuhan admits in one of their short films “I hide from looking at my own body.” Yet, in the seclusion of their room which doubles as a dark room, Yuhan began to develop their first nude photos chronicling the subtle wounds; bitten cuticles, bruises, and scrapes they’ve accumulated involuntarily, once again documenting the things people choose to hide.

窗子外 Outside the Window, Inside the Tank 鱼缸里, debuted at FAR-NEAR Studio Hours a gallery in Chinatown focused on expanding the art world's view of Asia and Asian artists curated by Lulu Yao Gioiello. The event merged Yuhan’s works from the past three years, including 70 photographs, three short documentaries, and one installation. There was something uncanny about the gallery’s atmosphere – from the dollar store teal green curtains obscuring every window to the clusters of framed photos mimicking how photos of relatives are displayed in one’s childhood home, to the darkened lighting that was both disorienting and cozy. All these details were meticulously chosen to imitate the rooms depicted in Yuhan’s films and photography. In other words, the audience was invited to Yuhan’s “fishtank”, to share the odd balance of comfort and unease of being known intimately. We talked to Yuhan at Cafe Reggio to understand how their latest body of work came into being.

Initially, I was exploring my friends’ identities through the lens, but slowly, it became a tool to confront and understand my own queerness and gender identity.

Ora Margolis— Were any memories/childhood experiences you had in Chengdu important to how you've developed as an artist?

Yuhan Cheng— Growing up in Chengdu, especially in a military household, shaped and gave me a source of contention how I understood my identity. There was always a sense of conflict when it came to my body and feeling like I didn’t quite fit the expectations around me. This tension has been a driving force in my practice, pushing me to explore identity and belonging in my work.

Tell us a bit about your latest exhibition Outside the Window, Inside the Tank at Far. What headspace were you in when taking these photos?

YC— Outside the Window, Inside the Tank is about the fluidity of self; our bodies, our environments, and our identities. The idea of water as both a symbol of confinement and freedom is central to the photos and film that comprise the exhibit. This fluidity much like how I see my experience moving between Chengdu and New York, where similar feelings follow me no matter where I am. Water mirrors the body, the frame, and the room, which are all containers of the self.

Previously, you’ve said you wanted the exhibition space to look "like your room". How did you make that happen and why is your NYC room important to you?

YC— My room in NYC is an extension of my identity. It’s where I feel vulnerable and where I explore myself most openly. It’s a manifestation of my sense of self. I recreated certain elements in the exhibition—the green sheer curtains, the dollar store shower curtain with bubbles, and the center installation depicted a self-portrait deteriorating in water, reminiscent of a fish in a tank. This room, like any other room or container, magnifies the tension of self-exploration.

Has your idea or comfort with your gender identity and /sexuality changed since you’ve delved into photography?

YC— Yes. The process of photography and filming has been a mirror to my own understanding of self. Initially, I was exploring my friends’ identities through the lens, but slowly, it became a tool to confront and understand my own queerness and gender identity. The process of photographing my queer friends and then myself allowed me to come to terms with who I am.

How did you and Lulu Yao of FAR-NEAR Studio meet, and what makes her a good collaborator?

YC— We first connected when I reached out with my series Princess of Funan River. Lulu understood the struggles and complexities in the work and she invited me to expand on those ideas with her. Our collaboration has worked because Lulu truly resonates with the themes I’m drawn to, like fluidity, transformation, and the intimacy of navigating belonging.

After completing Fish Tank and Remnants of an Amateur Film, what kind of movie do you want to make next?

YC— Right now, I’m more focused on writing. I need to understand what I want to say before making another film. Writing helps me find clarity;it’s a crucial part of my process.

What kind of camera do you use and why?

YC— I use a Canon AE-1. I started with it and I still love it. It's small, spontaneous, easy to use, and light. It allows me to capture moments naturally without overthinking.

What's your biggest fear?

YC— Being disconnected from my sense of self, from others, and from the things I love.

When do you feel most like yourself?

YC— It’s during those fleeting moments when I complete a project. That feeling fades quickly, leaving me searching for the next project to reconnect with that sense of fulfillment.

How do you want people to feel when they interact with your art?

YC— I want them to feel whatever resonates with them. I don’t want to prescribe the experience; it should feel right for each person.

Your work focuses on the close knit communities that surround you or various metaphorical “fish tanks”. What communities do you feel closest to?
YC— The queer artist community, both in Chengdu and NYC, has been a source of comfort and understanding for me. There’s something about shared struggles and shared creative language that feels like home.

What's the biggest difference between living life as a queer artist in NYC and in Chengdu?

YC— In both NYC and Chengdu, I’m learning more about myself. NYC offers a sense of freedom, while Chengdu is home, a place of comfort and history. Neither place defines me but both are significant parts of my path.

What are your next moves/goals?

YC— I want to continue exploring both film and photography, expanding my narrative style and experimenting across mediums. During my show, I found new ways of seeing my photographs such as by adding a window screen between frames or letting a self-portrait fade and grow mold in water. These approaches allowed me to see my work not just as 2D images but as 3D objects.

I want to keep pushing the boundaries of how photo and film can interact, and I’m also interested in trying photojournalism. My focus remains on collaborating across mediums and continuing to accumulate experiences that I can translate into sincere honest work.