🦍 Year of the Monkey
STIX AND JONES Step inside the myth. Rotate golden skulls in AR from Year of the Monkey, a surreal self-portrait of rebirth, ritual, and transformation.
Step inside the myth. Rotate golden skulls in AR from Year of the Monkey, a surreal self-portrait of rebirth, ritual, and transformation.
🦍 Year of the Monkey
Oil on Canvas | Augmented Reality Experience by Angie Jones On view at Copro Gallery, Santa Monica, CA August 9–30, 2025 | Opening Night: Saturday, August 9, 6–10PM
Artwork Size: 60 x 48 x 1.5 in Framed Size: 66 x 54 x 3 in
Painted in 2010 while studying in the MFA Studio Painting program at Laguna College of Art and Design under the mentorship of Kent Williams, Year of the Monkey marks a personal myth made manifest. This large-scale oil painting has never been exhibited—until now. The piece features a mandrill-headed figure, cloaked in yellow and green robes, wearing the pelt of a tiger like a crown, and gripping a ceremonial staff. It’s part self-portrait, part spiritual armor. I was born in the Year of the Monkey, and the year I painted this—2010—was the Year of the Tiger. It felt like a cosmic alignment: the Monkey taking on the Tiger to begin again, reclaiming my identity as a painter and stepping into a new creative life with purpose.
This is more than fantasy. It’s rebirth, ritual, and resistance. And for the Heavy Metal Relaunch, the myth expands.
đź’€ Augmented Reality: Surround Yourself With Power
Scan the QR code near the painting or visit the 8th Wall link to activate an AR experience rooted in the piece’s symbolic world:
Two golden skulls — one Mandrill, one Tiger — rotate around you The mandrill skull burns with orange gemstone eyes The Tiger glows with pink gemstone eyes Use your fingers to move and scale them Turn 360° to explore them in your own space
This isn’t decoration. It’s a digital ritual. You’re not just looking at the painting — you’re inside its mythology.
The mandrill represents instinct, intelligence, and rebellion. The tiger symbolizes raw power, challenge, and rebirth.
In the painting, the figure wears the tiger — in the AR, the tiger and mandrill skulls orbit independently in space, like spirits split from the self. They become externalized forces: power you can summon, move, control. The orange gemstone eyes of the mandrill see clearly through chaos; the pink gemstone eyes of the tiger pulse with heart-driven ferocity.
This myth is about claiming dual power:
The primal and the visionary The past and the future The beast you were born as, and the one you become The AR gives viewers a chance to step into that liminal space — to interact with the symbols, move them through their own world, and participate in the ritual of transformation.
https://www.8thwall.com/stixandjones
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