nealyamamoto

A native Los Angeles dissembler, Neal Yamamoto was born in the fall of ‘58 near Bengodi’s Parmesan Mountains to mendicant Luddite parents. Convinced he was the reincarnation of Baron Munchausen, he began experimenting with therapeutic automatic writing, but found the resulting thousand pages of text illegible. Realizing it was easier to automatic-draw than to automatic-write, Neal began his professional art career by creating the “Kung-Fu Dog” cartoon strip for CFW Publications. Twenty years later his minor scrivenings are forgotten (with the exception of one heavily edited tome on folklore) but his humorous illustrations have graced the pages of more than thirty children’s activity books, including several how-to draw books, and at least one anthology comic. His fever induced scribblings have also been used by L.A. Parent, Backstage West, Lakeshore Learning, Asatsu America and many other companies with more okane than sense. Several of his gag cartoons have also mysteriously found their way into publications like American Legion Magazine, Medical Economics, L.A. Funnies, Animal Press and others too paranoid to name. The artist’s series of Daruma paintings is his attempt to capture the transitional nature of cultural icons as they move from a state of quasi religious veneration to pop trendiness. His surrealistic still-lifes are rendered with a combination of gouache, humor, reverence and a number three Winsor & Newton/Series 7 sable brush. Since ‘84, Neal has been composed of several elements not found on the periodic table, masqueraded as a three-foot tall professional basketball hustler and repeated the palindrome “Madam, I’m Adam” to far too many women.