GANGS OF PLUTO

DIS.PATER is a Brooklyn-based artist who blends the worlds of sci-fantasy, homoerotica + fetishism, 90’s comic art, and fashion design through his original concept: Gangs of Pluto.

In Gangs of Pluto, DIS.PATER manifests a world that merges inspiration from Dante’s Inferno: ‘The Divine Comedy’ and the cult-classic film, ‘The Warriors.’ The blend creates an exploration of urban espionage, otherworldly-futurism, and mythology and mysticism of the Underworld while the characters self-examine and search for methods of rebirth and growth through their beliefs.

He pulls influence from his zodiac, Scorpio, and its ruling planet, Pluto, for design aesthetics, character development, and color inspiration. The scorpion informs the sharp, alien-like exoskeletal visuals and fuses them to hyper-sexed European fashion, punk attitudes, fetish + club gear, with an experimentation in gender nonconformity. ‘The Warriors’ reference comes through in each of the planet’s regional group’s cultures and styling to create the visual of ‘gangs’ through like-minded ways of presenting themselves and/or their unified beliefs. The character design and physicalities are angular and unapologetic shapes through exaggerated distortions while still allowing for a sensual fluidity in body language (a design aesthetic that shows DIS.PATER’s attachment to artists like Schiele). Colors extracted from the New Horizon’s 2015 images of Pluto’s terrain are combined with hyperreal 90’s neons to create a high-contrast and unexpected palette that includes a signature fuchsia that DIS.PATER uses throughout the body of his work.

DIS.PATER inducts figure drawing models and personal friends that have inspired him into the Gangs of Pluto world as characters and design references. This practice also expands the concept into a physical representation and social experiment as his personal ‘gang’ of creative collaborators.

While the zodiac, planetary references, and aesthetics drive the Gangs of Pluto visuals, DIS.PATER also embeds personal experiences and trauma into the character designs and singular art piece narratives. He extracts memories from a difficult adolescence that are symbolized by subtle nuances in details, character physicalities, or even their costumes (or lack thereof).

DIS.PATER is currently developing the strategy of telling the Gangs of Pluto story through a means of sequential visual art while using the singular piece collection as its base exploration.

@dispatcher_nyc