Author(s): Joseph Ari Aloi

Art History

The first monograph to collect the diverse and eclectic work of one of the true visionaries of the contemporary art world. Joseph Ari Aloi - aka JK5 - is a compulsive artist, for whom every free moment is an opportunity to create. Bringing together the formal practices of his work as a graphic designer and fine artist with the instincts and references that colour his twin passions of tattoo and graffiti art, JK5's is an expansive, textured, and above all highly individual visual vernacular. Whether as a painter, illustrator, calligrapher, or designer, JK5 is preoccupied with the collision of deeply personal and revelatory themes with profound pop-cultural iconography - a combination that has resulted in a powerful and readily identifiable style, which informs everything from charcoal sketches to oil paintings, poetry, tattoos, and collaborative commercial products. This creatively designed monograph draws on an eclectic body of work that extends from paintings on canvas to plastic vinyl toys, from storyboards for animation films to collages and scratchcards, and from outlines for tattoo work to a vast collection of sketchbooks - each filled from cover to cover and completed with such regularity that they serve as a kind of library of artists' diaries, recording his changing preoccupations and reflecting his varying visual interests over the years. Edited by the artist, and designed to reflect the varying and tactile nature of the work, this is an artist's book that will exist as a unique and collectible object in its own right, as much as a record of the remarkable output of one of the most prolific voices in contemporary art.