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To celebrate the Digital/Blu-Ray release of MOONAGE DAYDREAM, I collaborated with MONDO to create this limited edition commemorative screen print.
It’s available TODAY from 11/15 @ 10 AM PDT – 11/18 (12 PM CST 11/15 to 12 PM CST 11/18) exclusively on http://mondoshop.com
David Bowie is one of my favorite musicians not only because so many of his songs possess magic, but also because he was creatively fearless and perpetually collaborative. I first discovered David Bowie in 1983 when his Let’s Dance album came out, and its hits like “Let’s Dance,” “China Girl,” and “Modern Love” were getting radio play. I became a die-hard Bowie fan once I picked up Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars at a flea market a few years later. Ziggy Stardust is one of my favorite albums ever. It makes sense that it was Bowie’s breakthrough album, not just because his newly adopted androgynous glam image was provocative and mesmerizing, but because the songs on the album are incredible! At first, my favorites were obvious rockers like “Suffragette City” and “Ziggy Stardust,” but over the years, folkier songs like “Soul Love” and “Starman” really grew on me. It’s almost impossible to pick a favorite Bowie song from Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, much less Bowie’s entire catalog, but if I had to, I’d pick “Moonage Daydream.” It has Mick Ronson’s rocking guitar and also features unexpected instrumentation, including piano, strings, sax, and flute, which makes it both tough and pretty. I love the lyric, “don’t fake it baby… lay the real thing on me,” and all the lyrics have a sci-fi hipster coolness to them. “Moonage Daydream” is powerful, beautiful, hypnotic, hip, and a great indication of Bowie’s vision to push boundaries with his art. For this “Moonage Daydream” print image, I was able to reference outtakes from the Ziggy cover shoot, one of which I thought, with a few artistic liberties taken, could become a great portrait illustration. Bowie was incredibly photogenic, which yielded so many glorious images of him, and makes it a challenge to create a new visage that stands with the rest of his most iconic portraits. It is very meaningful for me to have the opportunity to craft my articulation of one of my favorite artists ever, from possibly the era of his peak creative genius. It is an honor to contribute in a small way to David Bowie’s visual legacy.
–Shepard
