After college, Philadelphia artist Chen Reichert spent a year in Japan, collecting postcards and sketching the various characters encountered throughout her travels. One day putting the two together, she painted a clunky robot-man walking through the forest pictured on a Kyoto postcard, and so began an ongoing series of artwork focused on the notion of people behaving robotically. "I know its a bit of a cliche idea," says Reichert, "but that's because its true. We all have our routines that we follow like programming. The robots in Japan flash peace signs to cameras, bow when they meet each other, and have picnics under the cherry blossom trees. The robots in Philadelphia sell soft pretzels, practice law, and stroll through the art museum. I just had to leave home to see it."

Reichert’s experience abroad afforded her a perspective that gave rise to these themes of automation and habit in human behavior, particularly as it is affected by place, tradition, culture, and even love. Partly because the inspiration for the project came when she was in Japan and partly because of her long admiration of Japanese pop-artists, her work has a Japanese aesthetic that draws on both manga cartoon style and wood-block prints. Many of the images contain Japanese phrases in katakana text, as with two robots bowing to one another with the greeting "Hajimemashite" (nice to meet you) or a robot watering her plant, pictured over a phrase that captures the plant's mood: "Kimochi ii" (that feels nice).

One robot character grew into a full cast of robo-friends that took over Reichert's apartment and spawned BotoDesigns, an art business that produces Japanese-themed robot art in multiple media – postcards, silk-screened T-Shirts, felt dolls, buttons, magnets, acrylics on canvas. Be sure to check out both the online store at www.botodesigns.etsy.com the first BotoDesign’s solo painting exhibition at TBar (12th & Sansom).