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October 6, 2020
James Marshall aka DALEK
Space Monkey blah
acrylic on cardboard, 26" x 16", circa 1999
NFS.
James Marshall / DALEK (b. 1968) exhibited with a solo exhibition in March 2001 Anno Domini.
About the Artist
Merging animation, Japanese pop art, and an urban aesthetic, James Marshall is best known for his Space Monkey character—a strange, vaguely humanoid mouse that he would depict in an array of bright colors and twisted circumstances, often wielding a butcher’s cleaver. Working under the name Dalek, Marshall expressed his ideas through the Space Monkey character until 2007, when he began working in a purely abstract style. He has always been engaged in skateboard and graffiti subcultures, and Marshall cites his two-year assistantship in the studio of controversial Japanese artist Takashi Murakami as a formative experience.
Marshall was born to a military family in New London, Connecticut and moved around a lot as a kid, finishing high school in Japan then living in Hawaii briefly before returning to the mainland. The artist found his voice and identity in the subcultures of graffiti, punk rock and skateboarding. He earned a BA in Sociology and Anthropology from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1992 and acquired his BFA at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago in 1995.
First rendered on a wall in Connecticut in 1995, the Space Monkey that has become synonymous with his name grew and evolved from Marshall’s love for Japanese pop culture, the “vibe” of the punk scene, street art and cartoons. Marshall maintains that the Space Monkey is not a monkey at all, but a mouse—his concept of a human being lost in a growing sea of technology and convenience. Space Monkey became Dalek’s alter ego, a medium through which he expressed his emotions, ideas and concerns.
Posted by Anno Domini