Wahyu Ichwandardi aka Pinot isn’t your typical animator and illustrator. A quick scroll through his Instagram feed and you’ll encounter drawings and animations in his signature, pixelated style. Although the Indonesian artist employs traditional tools such pen and paper to create quirky visuals of cats, dogs and even Steve Jobs, Pinot is acclaimed for using unconventional devices to create a slew of meticulous animations such as crafting a rainy New York City scene using Mario Paint in the Nintendo SNES. He’s able to create on anything that is programmable including Nokia phones, PalmPilots, ZX Spectrum and vintage Apple Mac computers.
The artist is prolific with these devices, having created hundreds of these illustrations that depict bustling city life, nostalgic avatars and familiar pop culture subjects such as Grogu from ‘The Mandalorian’ and Childish Gambino. Although Pinot suffered a stroke in June 2022 that left him in a coma for two weeks, that didn’t stop him from producing pixelated pieces. “ Learning to use his non-dominant hand, he keeps working with his Amiga 1000 (1985) and Macintosh Plus (1986) to craft pixel art as part of his recovery therapy. Pixel by pixel,” as per a statement.
IDEA recently published a new book that brings Pinot’s most recognizable creations to print. Designed by Karla Jarvinen, the double-wiro tome encompasses 244 pages containing sticker sheets, printed Post-It inserts, flip book sections and cardboard inlays. The book is available to purchase for £60.00 EUR on IDEA’s website and is limited to 1000 copies.
