The award-winning mixed media storyteller’s solo show returns to her analog roots

Skewville is pleased to present “Between the Lines,” the latest solo show by pioneering New York-based painter, digital creator, toy designer, and world builder MUMBOT. Following a slate of group shows—as well as a partnership that brought the artist’s most famous character Aughostus literally to space—“Between the Lines” offers new and never-before-seen canvases witnessing MUMBOT’s return to painting. Over 40 fine retailers across the United States stock her adorable plush toys, including Hot Topic and Boxed Lunch, and she’s gained international recognition not only in the art and designer toy world, but through digital art in the web3 space. 

MUMBOT began creating her vision of fantastical characters connected by lore around 2008, when she was a street art punk turned young mother considering the media she’d want her kids to see. Early experiments gave rise to the suite of loveable creatures that drive her work today—including Shumi Mushrumi, Mossy the Moss Spirit, and the elegant, effervescent phantom named Aughostus. While MUMBOT WORLD raises spirits with positive messages, they’re not totally upbeat. The sweet smile on Aughostus, for instance, is the spoonful of sugar delivering his deeper message around mortality, and the urgent need to seize life’s possibilities. 

While MUMBOT began mostly in painting and drawing, the artist’s DIY bent has led her to explore a vast range of mediums. MUMBOT participated in her first toy shows in 2017, exhibiting at Brooklyn’s famed Five Points Fest, and then at DesignerCon in Anaheim, CA. After producing numerous custom pieces around other people’s characters, she taught herself toy production. Every project since has tackled a new medium, testing new processes in-house. At the same time, she continually weaves new storylines to engage fans, developing new channels for collectors to experience and participate in MUMBOT WORLD, which she shares through art, plush, toys, zines, animation, physical materials to a 3D interactive world built in Unreal Engine.

Following digitally-driven projects like MUMBOT’s Axiom Space Mission and her participation in “The Canal Street Show,” curated at LUME Studios in New York last month by famed artists Efdot and Sendrock, “Between the Lines” marks MUMBOT’s return to analog artmaking. The exhibition will display about a dozen new paintings—and, never satisfied with just one medium, each canvas translates MUMBOT’s characters through acrylic, aerosol, Krink markers, and more. She’s also hand-embellished prints of digital art that she’s never shown in person before, alongside an extremely limited collection of her ubiquitous characters, to mark the exhibition.

Still, the digital realm remains a critical component of MUMBOT’s process, connecting her with fans, who enjoy new ways to experience her work. Rumor has it that this latest exhibition might feature a few exciting Augmented Reality components for those who can attend in person. One thing’s for sure, though—”Between the Lines” will kick off on the evening of Saturday, May 4 from 6pm to 10pm in Bushwick with a perfunctory Skewville bash. This time, the generous folks over at Reyka Vodka and Kings County Brewing Company are providing libations, with a special coffee cocktail on offer by Denim Coffee. Don’t miss this rare chance to see the tactile artwork behind MUMBOT’S universe in person, peering between the lines of her ambitious art practice.