Danni Shinya Luo

When Danni Shinya Luo was living in China as a child, she was always doodling in her text books and imitating drawings from her favorite Manga pages.  After she came to the US, she enrolled in weekend art classes and eventually got a 4 year apprenticeship with Chinese-American watercolor master, Ding Ha. Shinya then went to study at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design, earning a Bachelor’s degree in illustration. While still in school, she joined founder Melody Severns as one of the original members of the female-empowering artist collective, Girls Drawin’ Girls. Shinya’s post-collegiate character design work at Neopets led to group exhibitions alongside other animators and within two years of graduating from art college she had landed her first feature exhibition at Billy Shire’s renown La Luz de Jesus Gallery. Under the tutelage of director Matt Kennedy (who has remained her primary gallerist) Luo’s paintings have been featured in numerous museum exhibitions and other important, international galleries. Her success in the pop surrealism field drew the interest of major entertainment entities like Hasbro, MGA Entertainment, Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds, Zenescope Comics, and Marvel Comics–where her redesign of the X-23 character graced comic covers, omnibus collections, posters, specialty products and toys.

 

Ms. Luo has published 3 monographs so far. Her first book, Break The Ice, was a self-published, limited edition, soft cover collection that sold out immediately upon release.  The second book, Soft Candy, was a mass-market hardcover published by Last Gasp of San Francisco that landed the young artist in bookstore chains all over the country, and the subsequent kindle release via Amazon.com brought her global fandom. Shinya’s third book, Un Petit Catalogue, focused on the more risqué aspects of her signature female nudes.