Mythos: Legends of the Pink Monkeys

Mythos: Legends of the Pink Monkeys is the most recent series being developed in Fleck’s studio. In Mythos, Fleck develops a lexicon of meaning-laden symbols to create and represent open-ended narratives echoing the issues facing our current world. In a language of peaches, sharks, snakes, and pink monkeys modern myths unfold. These tales center around ideas of environmentalism, class disparities, allocation of wealth, mental health, and nature. In an effort to remove bias, Colin uses uncanny avatars in the form of pink monkeys to stand in for humanity. Placing these monkeys in abstracted space, where landscapes and patterns blend, he creates compelling images meant to ask more questions than they answer.

Mythos: Legends of the Pink Monkeys, explores what Joseph Campbell termed the Monomyth, and a seemingly universal language of symbols that have inspired much of Fleck’s recent works. People familiar with China’s quintessential folk-tale of Sun WuKong, or the Monkey King, will recognize a familiarity within Colin’s pink monkeys. In Mythos: The Pursuit of Precious Fruit, his monkeys are seen inhabiting the skies, riding upon clouds much like Sun WuKong is said to have done. Further, drawing from Chinese lore and fusing it with elements borrowed from Norse and Greek mythology, Fleck imbues his golden peaches with an underlying meaning: desire- in all its forms: wealth, sex, and immortality.