Return To Mount Hexx At Das Monk

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A dark and foreboding summer awaits us as the Sydney based Das Monk t-shirt label release their latest collection in collaboration with UK artist Tim Laing entitled “Return to Mount Hexx”. Das Monk’s Marc Hendrick and Tim Laing have worked through the winter months to create a brave new collection which mixes a blend of kaleidoscopic colours and post-psychedelic forms to form a strange and enchanting world of modernity meets folklore in the shadowy world of Mount Hexx.

Strange and enticing characters and iconographies are revealed for all to see, including a face constructed purely from hands, a Navajo Indian paralysed in a perpetual state of bliss, an impala whose skin corkscrews around its hollow body, and a RussTim traveller whose obsession rendered him more skeleton than man. This is the time and place where t-shirt design leaves the mainstream follies of consumer sensibility and light humouresque and entrenches itself in the dark arts of illustrated madness and fear. Dare you follow them to the brink, to the very nether regions of the underbelly of urban streetwear, where few live to tell the tales of Mount Hexx? Well if you do you’ll be glad to know that Das Monk are offering worldwide free shipping if you use their enchanted code >> superfreebie << at the mysterious chamber of the checkout

Mount Hexx Tee at Das Monk

Where is the strange and mystical world of Mount Hexx? Is it in the mind? Is it on the earth? Is it lost in the aeons of time and space, unbeknownst to the ken of mortal man? Who knows, it looks great no matter what the story behind the image may reveal. The artwork for this was created by Marc Hendrick, there’s something other worldly about Mount Hexx, perhaps a tad 1970’s prog-rock, but still an effective design all the same. It conjures up a lot of ideas for me, on a microscopic and macroscopic scale, a dark and brooding snapshot of a genetic experiment, or some outer worldly cataclistic event yet unforetold. Either way it’s a great design and should definitely sell well!

I’ve taken a look around Tim Laing’s portfolio site for the answers and to be honest I am still left wondering. Although I must admit the guy has a fantastic eye for illustration, his works are extremely moody and Marc has done a wonderful job transferring many of them to the medium of the t-shirt. This one is probably my favourite by Tim, Peeling Impala.

Peeling Impala Tee at Das Monk

The Peeling Impala Tee is highly reminiscent of M. C. Escher’s surrealist drawings, the atypical striped markings of this African deer-like animal of the savannahs has been accentuated by the segregated spaces of the unfurling image. This is a particularly powerful image, it reminds us of the dissipating environment all around us, especially so in Africa where the ecology is particularly fragile. This animal reminds me of my childhood, one that I have only ever seen stuffed and mounted in the Natural History Museum, a rather terrifying place for kids I might add. VictorTim England has a particular penchant for cataloguing the species of the world, few would survive the journey back here, and those who did were not cared for properly, besides the climate and conditions they were kept in would produce immeasurable suffering for animals of all kinds. This piece is a sad testament to the future, and a close one at that, one day we may not have the chance to see such animals run wild, and ironically those who take the opportunity to see them in their natural habitat are adversely affecting their environment. It’s a pitiful time for nature, for the animal world, for nature it self.

Skullfingers Tee at Das Monk

Skullfingers is available in black and blue and is a real bruiser of a design, I’d park this firmly in the Shamanic camp! It could be coincidence or perhaps it’s fate, who knows but last night I was watching Dead Man, a movie by Jim Jarmusch starring Johnny Depp, it followed the demise of an accountant coincidentally named William Blake – artist, poet and visionary – from Cleveland who travels to a non-existent job in the town of Machine. He’s wrongfully accused of a number of murders before being taken under the wing of “Nobody”, a Native American Indian and outcast from his tribe. At one point “Nobody” takes a handful of Peyote and has visions of William, he sees his face as a skull, he sees the face of death. Skullfingers does strange things to me, it reminds me of the silly hand signals one makes as a child, we always saw this configuration as an owl, the wisdom of which still eludes me, yet here the image takes on a more sinister direction. The mask of death is within us all.

In case you haven’t noticed many of the links point to Das Monk’s new store based at The Grand Social online collective of Australian and New Zealand designers. It would be nice to see something along these lines in the UK, we will have to wait and see if there’s any businessman artistically drawn to the idea. For now though do make sure to include the code “superfreebie” at the checkout if you do purchase any of Das Monk’s 100% organic cotton, pesticide free, eco-friendly iconic shirts! Join them today for the “Return To Mount Hexx” at www.dasmonk.com

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