The Imagination of Mister Cartoon Reaches Beyond the Streets of LA

The likes of Danny Trejo, Kobe, Eminem, and Travis Barker have paid an upwards of $50,000 to have LA’s own, Mister Cartoon, ink the available real estate on their bodies with a one of a kind design in his own street style. According to Snoop Dogg, “if you ain’t got tatted by Cartoon, you ain’t got no tatt”.

Mark Mechado’s road to becoming Mister Cartoon is a fascinating put-one-foot-in-front-of-the-other journey starting with airbrushing his designs on t-shirts and selling them when he was 17 years old. That led to airbrushing portraits of the lowriders his friends owned, which led to graffiti and mural work around Los Angeles.

His work has been seen all over the city’s empty wall spaces, on authorized t-shirts, as well as Santee Alley bootleg shirts. His style and design has become synonymous with the culture of LA, and the city of Los Angeles itself. At least east of La Brea, anyway.

Mister Cartoon has become so popular and respected that Nike wanted to collaborate with him. He was specifically commissioned to put his spin on the beloved Cortez model. He has also done work in conjunction with the LA Kings, the LA Clippers, Toyota, and created digital murals for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

All of this eventually led him to becoming a master at the art of tattoo.

After giving him one of his first tattoos, Eminem anointed Mister Cartoon as the “best in the world”, and the 90s/early 2000’s hip-hop culture would go on to validate that statement.

He’s appeared in several music videos of his clients, designed the Cypress Hill logo, as well as the logo for Shady Records. He also toured with several bands including Cypress, Blink 182, and No Doubt. He carried along his “road kit” of tattoo equipment inking the famous, or famous adjacent, backstage, in the green rooms, or in hotels.

During those years of touring, he brought to the rest of the world the East LA aesthetic, reaching as far as Japan. That homegrown LA “look” is based in Chicano art culture that displays what is most important to that community; family, brotherhood, religion, and area code (specifically 213). His style is now recognized all over the globe, and influencing fashion and attitudes in communities that are thousands of miles, both literally and figuratively, from the street scene of Los Angeles.

Though his work has been featured in several exhibitions over the years, he now has his very own inaugural solo show titled “Just My Imagination” at the Beyond the Streets Los Angeles Flagship hosted by Control Gallery in south Hollywood. What an appropriate place for him to display his paintings for the first time, because his work did, in fact, reach beyond the streets of his neighborhood, city, and state.

Unlike most street artists that need to travel country to country, city to city, passport stamp to passport stamp seeking walls to display their personal artistic statements, styles, and tags, Mister Cartoon’s tattoo art travels the globe for him. Once it has been embedded deep within his client’s flesh, it becomes portable street art that will only leave the Earth when that person passes away, sealed deep within the shadows of a closed casket under feet of dirt. Even then, the artwork will live on chronicled in photos to be viewed and admired for eternity.

It will never be washed away by the rain, never sought out by art collectors to steal and put up for auction, and never removed by authorities.

Now, twenty of his works are on display, which includes paintings on canvas, kandy painted car hoods, and tattoo wall art. There is even a beautifully restored classic lowrider 1939 Chevy Master Deluxe coated in shiny midnight blue, adorned with murals of gangsters on the sides and trunk panel.

Have a look at the photos of the artwork from this unique LA historian, and innovative ambassador to the City of Angels:

There is an excellent documentary about Mister Cartoon and his best friend LA photographer Estevan Oriole (who deserves his own gallery show) on Netflix, titled “LA Originals”. It is a great portrait of how they both became icons within the hip-hop world.

Click the photo below for the trailer!

Since I can’t afford the $50,000 tattoo, I snagged a limited edition Mister Cartoon spray paint can while there. It comes in a nifty wooden case with a sliding glass front. I cannot wait to display this on my shelf for all that come over to see.