KAM
Playful and sharp, light and warm-hearted: KAM’s work cannot sit still. It winks and stares back. It moves through human spaces with a kind of visual mischief, a rebellious presence that doesn’t shout but absolutely won’t be ignored. At its centre: Lucky the Ghost. A softedged, hard-hitting figure who travels through landscapes of water, knowledge, and meaning.
In Murky Waters (as seen on the cover page), we follow Lucky through a modern story and vision of Loch Ness. Folklore ripples beneath the surface; monsters and myths are to be discovered. All is guided by a deeply rooted curiosity and how an image can be loaded with meaning. The unknown becomes magnetic, and Lucky becomes a gentle guide through wonder and the subconscious territories of water. What lives beneath is not only what we fear, but what we hope for. Reflection becomes a form of storytelling.
The second piece, Dropping Bye, slips from myth into critique. A challenged river: engineered, industrial and filled with chaos. Lucky floats face-down among what remains: echoes of aquatic life, fragments of discarded culture. Pop icons, graffiti, the gloss of surface with the weight of what’s lost below. Here, joy and consequence press against one another. The lines stay clean, the colours precise, but the message remains: we have turned nature into a stage, into characters that must do as they are told, and in the act of creating our story, we have forgotten what nature once meant to us.
And yet, there’s humour: Lucky’s face does not accuse, it observes. KAM lets the character exist as both a mirror and a question. With Mickey Mouse hands and comic-book clarity, Lucky is both recognizable and slipping through one’s grasp. A composition of nostalgia and disruption. A traveller between realities. Lucky appears in plain sight and disappears just as fast, leaving behind only a question mark that can be translated to a gut feeling.
In this work, pop culture and philosophy intersect. Animation meets awareness. The influence of artists like Murakami is evident, but never copied. KAM moves between digital formats and physical worlds, between commercial ideas and conceptual depth. Illustration here is a medium of rebellion, a charming one that bites where it’s needed.
There is no lecture in these images, but a provocation to encourage thought. Lucky is not a mascot; it is a reminder. A figure drifting between joy and justice, with its Mickey-Mouse-like hand pointing right back at us. We don’t watch Lucky. Lucky watches us. And that makes all the difference.
KAM is a multidisciplinary artist and designer whose work spans illustration, animation, and conceptual design. Creator of Lucky the Ghost and the animated series Bread and Circus, KAM blends pop surrealism with cultural critique: always playful, never passive.
KAM is the Silver Artist of the ArtAscent Water call for artists. To see the full body of work and profile, get a copy of the 2025 ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Water issue.
