A digital artwork of a lamb with a woman’s face that is adorned in jewellery that Grimes would wear sits next to an anthropomorphic moth/woman painted in earthy green tones. The colour palettes are soft and muted, in juxtaposition to the experimental and edgy shapes that multidisciplinary artist, Khy, creates.

A mixture between tattoo designs that are rising in popularity across the Western world and Y2K styles, the multidisciplinary artist creates abstract art, sculpting and fashion as a means of connecting with their Chinese culture. When he is not creating art that is posted on their social media, he is studying Fine Arts, majoring in painting.

Their most recognisable pieces, gremlins, are reminiscent of the shapes and colours of Yoshitomo Nara’s art. The cutesy faces, mixed in with the styles of Japanese fashion brands such as WTAPS and Sacai, balances adorable with authentic and on-the-edge cool. Looking at their gremlins, images of Gorillaz characters immediately come to mind. This is quickly dissolved the longer you stare at the image. Breaking down each aspect of the gremlins clothing, you start with the headpieces that look like the recent rise of crochet hats made in weird, whacky styles like bunny ears, seen on rappers such as Slowthai. The body and feet are adorned in fashion styles that alter between Shinjuku, Y2K and punk.

The anthropomorphic nature of their gremlins, with some having cat-like faces, to a human head being attached to a fish’s body, shows Khy’s fascination with animals and insects. We live alongside animals each day, from the pets we may love to the birds we hear in the morning and the cicada’s that welcome the summer evening, animals and humans are never far from one another. Do we forget that we are just animals too, blessed (or cursed) with a cortex that allows us to think and problem-solve? Can Khy’s art be a reminder of such things?

Khy draws inspiration from pop surrealism, insects and animals. Pop surrealism, the lowbrow art begun in the West Coast (California) in the 1970s, sees hot rod cars, underground comix and punk music fuse together to create sarcastic, ironic, at times humorous takes on current times.

Their line drawings look like something off a flash of a Berlin/Moscow/Melbourne inner north tattoo artist. Looking at each piece you can gain a sense of their curiosity with insects, with beetle and butterfly silhouettes that look as if they can be cast in iron. The difference in style between the insect-inspired line drawings and the gremlins highlight Khy’s versatility, but more importantly, they give the audience a freedom to let their imaginations run amok.