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Sket One’s Designer Toy Works

Sket One’s Selected Consumer Product Dunny Works

My Impressions of these Sket One Dunny designs

oday we’re going to examine the works of Sket One , specifically his product-based custom and production pieces. Now, since you might not be familiar with Sket’s history, let’s start there. Born Andrew Yasgar on August 16th, 1970, Sket grew up in New Haven, Connecticut and began writing graffiti in 1986, going through a couple of graff handles, like AJ Juice, Saint, Maze, and Maz. Around this time, Yasgar’s friend Jimmy Myers came up with the Sket tag, but he never really painted that much. So, in 1988, Yasgar asked permission to assume the identity and the rest, as they say, is history.Fast forward to the early 2000s and Sket discovered the burgeoning American art toy movement, one of his designs even being included in 2004’s Dunny Series 1. But it was in 2006, with his contributions to the fourth SubCultures exhibition at New Haven’s Channel 1 , that Sket’s product-inspired pieces really began. You see, for this gallery show, Sket hand-modified five designer toy forms into the likeness of common household products.At the time, Sket was working for a marketing agency, so he was no stranger to the concept of branding or how to properly utilize it. And much like Andy Warhol before him, Sket’s consumer-product imagery reimagined as art pieces drew attention to the everyday art modern people take for granted, how a beautiful ketchup bottle’s label could be easily reimagined into a sculpture.While Sket continued to exhibit custom made designer toys along this conceptual line, it was one of those original five — the Heinz Ketchup Dunny — that would truly launch the artist’s long-standing line of product-inspired Dunny pieces.In front of me, I have two pieces by Sket using this theme, the handmade resin KikkoSket from 2013 and the Kidrobot produced Sketracha Dunny from 2016. As they are both inspired by Asian condiments, portraying partially exposed clear containers, and include chopstick accessories, these seem like an ideal pair to compare and contrast.The Sketracha Dunny is based on the design of Huy Fong Foods ’ Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce, wonderfully recreating the brand’s cap as well as the iconic bottle aesthetic, including a rooster mascot. This is the used bottle chase version, made in the likeness of 2014’s Pass the Sketracha custom edition, but — as you can see — the limitations of the production process aren’t perfect.The clarity of the form is disrupted by the unsightly joining tabs and seam lines, the sauce-like remnants being painted details that simply hug the shell. On the other hand, with the custom made KikkoSket piece, you have a solid, non-articulating clear resin form that resembles the glass container to a tee.And this process also allows for the quote-unquote soy sauce it contains to be added to the resin as a pigment, really infusing the whole form and looking all the more realistic for it. With all the same little touches that make Sket’s production pieces noteworthy, such as the slyly manipulated text and design, this ear topper is an actual cap from a Kikkoman bottle, the specific brand that the entire piece is modeled after.Adding to the overall aesthetic, this came with wooden chopsticks, a bamboo placemat, a dipping dish filled with resin to resemble soy sauce, and stacks of ginger and wasabi, both cast in resin. And, all together, it creates an atmosphere and context for the piece that make it unforgettable.

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