“The art of living nine lives, without dying once.” LICHIBAN is a Brooklyn-based self-taught visual artist, illustrator, art director, curator, and full time creative hustler. She was born in a border city in Hungary and from early on she acquired a fascination with borders, limits and ambiguous dividing lines; her experiences on the margins of cities, countries and subcultures eventually formed into a semi-consistent life philosophy, which continues to inspire her creative development. Her images draw inspirations from a wide range of extraordinary life experiences and impressions, such as her childhood memories of folktales, comic books and animations, her studies in Sufism & Buddhist Tantrism, her travels to war-torn countries (Bosnia, Kashmir, Eastern Turkey), her volunteer work with refugees and trauma victims and from meeting exceptional people. Her experiences led her to a deep appreciation for people and their stories, which expresses itself best in her love for faces. Most recently, she has been working on developing a number of feline superheroes to visually narrate her mystical mythology. Situated at the intersection of pop surrealism and fantasy art, though defying limitations, LICHIBAN’s work explores the concept of “shapeshifting” as a symbolic representation of the human potential to transform into other entities through the use of the imagination. Visionary and subversive, playful and esoteric, her body of work creates a new hybrid taxonomy that merges human with animal, man with machine, terrestial with outerspace creatures. Her works convey a sense of longing and magnetism intended to invite the spectators to experience themselves as imaginary characters in a world of galactic feline superheroes, time-traveling samurais and tribal warriors, gods and goddesses, nature spirits, shapeshifting mystics, tricksters, outsiders, galactic explorers or iconic pop figures. Above you’ll find an incredible mixtape celebrating the 4th year anniversary of Lichiban’s online art diary, and introduction to her newly created mix series. Good friend, producer/MC/DJ & renaissance man, MeLo-X, uses his magical skills to blend all 30 tracks taking us listeners on a psychedelic space-ride. I’m absolutely lovin’ this incredible lady! Be sure to check out more of her work, you will NOT REGRET IT!
