Butch Locsin’s two-car storage is stuffed with skulls. Thirty-nine skulls to be precise.
They’re not actual skulls; they’re masterfully sculpted, intricately painted styrofoam masks. When he locations one over his head, he transforms into his alter ego: the Skeleton of Colour.
Locsin makes use of the masks throughout his hypnotic avenue performances when he clothes up in vibrant three-piece fits and units off dozens of smoke grenades, swirling clouds of shade round himself. He’ll march ahead in glittery, silver loafers, lunging to the bottom and spinning round. When he emerges from the smoke, he appears to be like triumphant.
The Skeleton of Colour lets Locsin specific himself in a method the “typical Butch” can’t. “The masks empower me,” he stated. “After I put them on and all eyes are on me, it simply offers me this confidence, this rush.”
Locsin has carried out all around the globe, from the streets of L.A. to festivals in New Zealand to parades in Mexico, since inventing the character in 2014. He’s been in commercials, films and music movies, and garnered roughly 250,000 followers every on Instagram and TikTok.
Taking pictures his mysterious smoke exhibits in public isn't any small feat. Locsin wants to seek out areas massive sufficient for the smoke to rise and unfold. He additionally wants to suit all his digicam and lighting gear with out blocking passersby and site visitors. He likes going late at night time to the 2nd Road Tunnel, Slauson Avenue Bridge and Bay Road. He sometimes places on the exhibits to make social media content material, however typically he’ll publish a couple of shoot on his Instagram story so followers can come watch in individual.
Locsin developed an infatuation with skulls as a child after seeing them graffitied on the streets of L.A. His favourite Marvel character was the Punisher, an antihero whose image is a cranium and crossbones. So, he started to design cranium masks. The colourful fits and smoke grenades adopted.
“I began taking part in round with this character and I used to be getting actually optimistic suggestions,” Locsin stated. “And from there it simply took off.”
The Skeleton of Colour is an homage to Mexican tradition and the Day of the Useless, a November vacation honoring the lives of previous family members. It’s sometimes noticed via household gatherings or the creation of shrines — and sporting cranium make-up and masks. Although Locsin is Filipino American, he appreciates the vacation and enjoys celebrating it.
On social media, Locsin’s efficiency movies are flooded with optimistic reactions, however whether or not his artwork upholds the unique that means of the vacation continues to be open to debate.
Consuelo Flores, a Day of the Useless legacy artist at Self Assist Graphics, a company dedicated to advancing Chicanx and Latinx artists, believes private relationships and identification are necessary components of the vacation.
“It’s crucial to me that this celebration maintains its authenticity,” she stated. “His work could also be fairly and it could be dazzling, however I don’t assume it has the substance to be an genuine illustration of the celebration.”
Flores stated there's a sure accountability that comes with cultural representations in artwork. “It entails a stage of respect and realizing what we’re doing as an alternative of simply taking part in with it,” she stated.
Nonetheless, Gabriela Rodriguez-Gomez, a Chicanx research professional who teaches a course at UCLA on Day of the Useless visible tradition, doesn’t let Locsin’s Filipino roots have an effect on the best way she views his artwork.
“I all the time say to my college students, ‘Before everything we have to acknowledge and respect the truth that these are traditions that have been handed down via generations by Indigenous individuals,’” she stated. “‘However you don’t need to be Mexican or of Mexican descent to know or admire these visible cultures.’ After I view this work, I see somebody who's appreciative of a really deep-rooted custom that isn't simply in Mexico but additionally in Latin America and plenty of different components of the world. I’m glad he's taking this on and loving it and discovering success with it.”
Rodriguez-Gomez added that it’s necessary for artists to provide again to the cultural communities that encourage them, whether or not that be via monetary help or elevating consciousness about traditions.
Locsin has made an effort to attach and collaborate with Mexican creators like Fermin La Calaca, a performer from Mexico. Like Locsin, Fermin wears painted cranium masks. In contrast to Locsin, he makes use of solely his stage identify and by no means removes the masks in public. The 2 have been collaborating since 2018. Final yr, they starred in a business collectively for a Mexican canned items firm.
“On the finish of the day, he’s not Hispanic however he represents the tradition very well,” Fermin stated.
Locsin is honored to show his artwork in Mexico and to have discovered group via the Skeleton of Colour. He is aware of that his Day of the Useless representations solely scratch the floor, however it’s as a result of he’s set boundaries for himself.
“I do know it’s finest to permit it to return naturally,” he stated. “As soon as I really feel I've the proper option to showcase a deeper illustration, I'll dive deep. As the best way issues stand now and what I’m snug with, the character has been an entity of celebration.”
Fermin and Locsin name usually to “ping-pong concepts actually intensely.” Fermin will inform Locsin how he’s working to good setting his fingers on fireplace and Locsin will clarify his imaginative and prescient for a brand new masks.
“It's important to perceive, this isn't a daily job the place you're employed eight hours a day,” Fermin stated of his and Locsin’s work. “It’s a continuing factor. You’re all the time interested by it.”
After graduating from a San Fernando Valley highschool and going to automotive commerce college, Locsin acquired a job at an L.A. Health. In the future, after eight years of promoting health club memberships, he stop on a whim and enrolled in group school to take portray, life drawing and picture enhancing lessons. “A number of my classmates had practiced artwork their entire lives,” Locsin stated. “However my creative renaissance got here late. I needed to push myself to match the usual of what I noticed round me.”
His masks begin as hole, styrofoam semicircles. However after sculpting them with sandpaper, overlaying them in Bondo physique filler (sometimes used to restore automobiles) and smoothing the imperfections together with his fingers, Locsin finishes the masks in quite a lot of methods. He’s lined masks in pretend marigolds, pearls, mirror shards and gem stones. He’s affixed hats on prime, and painted others with a whole lot of detailed brushstrokes. He’s glued 20,000 beads onto masks whereas watching “Sport of Thrones.”
“With each new masks I make, I all the time ask myself, ‘How can I be revolutionary? How can I be totally different?’” Locsin stated.
Some masks have names, like “Rojo” or “Mr. Suave.” Locsin’s favourite masks is called Malakai. A easy, seafoam-green cranium, Malakai was one of many first masks Locsin created; he believes it brings him luck. He wore it throughout his first efficiency in downtown L.A., traveled with it round Europe, introduced it to a Day of the Useless parade in Mexico Metropolis and used it whereas filming a music video for French Montana (who purchased two masks for $3,500 apiece afterward). Locsin doesn’t sometimes promote his masks. He needs his character to be one among a sort.
Locsin’s fits are one other essential side of his performances. In school, he went thrifting for swimsuit items at Goodwill. The garments usually match loosely and didn’t match. Now, he will get his outfits tailored. The final time he counted, there have been 37 fits in his closet. He rotates via them for his shoots.
“The smoke, the outfits and the masks are all coordinated primarily based on shade idea,” Locsin stated. “Nothing is random. It’s all stuff I realized in my artwork lessons.”
When he was working at L.A. Health, Locsin by no means dreamed of changing into a efficiency artist. Now, he brings his masks with him to the health club. He says he's extra snug with it on than off.
“The masks makes him an amplified model of himself,” stated Cesar Ramirez, one among Locsin’s shut buddies. “It offers him this charisma.”
Locsin’s life now revolves across the Skeleton of Colour.
“That is one thing that I’ve devoted myself to for the final seven years,” he stated. “I wish to create a picture that may outlast me.”
Locsin just lately flew to Mexico for the beginning of what he calls “Day of the Useless season,” his busiest time of yr. For him, it lasts from late August till the November vacation. Whereas in Mexico, he’ll movie two commercials and tons of content material for social media. He’s presently creating two new pink and gold masks for the journey. An identical swimsuit is with the tailor.
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