Rob’s art aesthetic and his design house, Cosmic Debris, grew from a tangle of roots joining the DIY punk scene of the 1980s with guerrilla art, surrealism, and nostalgia for the psychedelic 60s.

For every Murakami, there are hundreds if not thousands of lesser known designers fighting to maintain relevancy while introducing new product lines and simultaneously working to realize lofty, artistic goals. So while it may not be very hard for a commercial artist to enter the gallery world based on the success of their strongest brand, reaching that next level (cover features in respected art publications, auction house representation and museum exhibition) is difficult if not impossible. But on the other hand, that familiarity often breeds contempt among art critics and highbrow patrons who consider those works kitsch. On one hand, the familiarity of their best known work enables them to reach an established audience, which can be an incredible asset for selling original art work. It’s always a challenge to impact the fine art world in a significant way, but for toy designers, comic artists and character licensors that challenge is different and perhaps more difficult. Part of that exhibition involves a contest, so alert your little sister and read on after the jump. As this latest news was lighting up the showbiz wire, Reger was quietly opening his first major Hollywood art exhibit, called The Encyclopedia of Hallucinations. At this point, the licensing of artist Rob Reger’s signature character has become a cottage industry for future goths one that includes comics, an apparel line and soon a major motion picture starring current teen it-girl (or should I say Hit Girl), Chloe Moretz. In the past fifteen years, the character Emily the Strange has risen in popularity from a seemingly random illustration on a skateboard deck into a generational touchstone for tween girls (particularly the non-Barbie crowd). “The function of the imagination is not to make strange things settled, so much as to make settled things strange.” –G.K.

Stranger and Stranger by Rob Reger