SPECTRUM

I found out several months ago that a few of my pieces were going to be included in the latest edition of Spectrum, but since then I had been wondering how they going to be layed out, given my long vertical compositions. I was afraid that they would be crunched down to half a page and the detail would be lost. When I received my copy of Spectrum 17 in the mail last week I was happy to see that not only were the images printed full page size, but they were also bundled together in a little spread (along with a nice piece by Ching Cia Ee).

As usual the book is loaded with amazing work, with a nice mix of styles and mediums. There is also a nice balance of representation between Spectrum regulars and new comers. Throw in a great piece by Fearless and you have a really nice art book.

DYSTOPIC (ventilate)

Michael at Ventilate asked me to be part of their latest poster series. Ventilate had featured some of my work a few months back and their site is great (check it out), so I was more than happy to say yes and work with them. When I found out that the theme of the series was "dystopia" I couldn't help but be a little disappointed. I had worked on a number of dystopic projects over the last few years and I was kind of tied of the whole genre. But I soon got over that, really enjoyed creating the piece and was pretty happy with the end result.

The geometric forms in this work, that represent the ideas of intolerance, discrimination, and conformity, have taken on the form of a cityscape. This city, with its monotonous forms and dull, limited palette is meant to portray a dystopian society, perhaps one that has become violently egalitarian. The cosmonaut represents the non-conformist (the artist, the magician, the outsider), unable and unwilling to submit to the limited regime of the majority. His mind remains high above, "in the clouds", holding on to the fragments of a life now lost. But he nurtures and cradles a hope (here displayed as a sage plant), a hope for a better and more fulfilling future.

This poster is available for free download, at print resolution (24"x 36" @300 dpi), at the Ventilate website.

Thanks to Michael Brown, and everyone at Ventilate for inviting me to be a part of this project.

CARNE MAGAZINE

I was invited to contribute a few pieces to the current issue of Carne Magazine. Carne is an online visual arts magazine based out of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Every issue is packed with a great selection of photography, design, illustration, street art, etc. by artists from all over the world. It is definitely worth checking out. Download Issue #6 here.

I had to crop a number of pieces as the template of the magazine didn't really work well with the aspect ratios of my work, but I think in the end it turned out well, and gave the images a new perspective.

Thanks to Ignacio Sauri Torres for inviting me to be part of this issue.

AVANTGARDE/STROKE.03

Here are a few pictures from the Avantgarde Digital Exibition at the Stroke .03 Urban Art Fair in Berlin that I contributed a few pieces to. I wasn't able to attend but apparently the show was a great success with a host of amazing artists, over 8000 visitors over the 4 days (Oct 7th-10th), and a lot of media attention.

Thanks to Marco Schawlbe for offering me a spot in the exhibit and to everybody that helped put the show together!

ARARITA

This is one that I've had in my head for awhile. Using the orbs in a planetary formation, with a large orb representing the sun surrounded by smaller orbs representing the planets, is something that I've wanted to do since the beginning of this project. I've focused on the seven "traditional" planets as these correspond to the seven points (six exterior points and one in the center), of the Hexagram, although I've also placed Uranus and Neptune in the distance. The character is the Earth (with the Moon orbiting his helmet), and more specifically mankind as a whole, the qabalistic Adam Qadmon. He represents our unique position in, and our relationship to the rest of the solar system/universe. That he is solitary refers to the fact in some ways we are all alone....and that we are all human, all related, that we are all one.

The title ARARITA is a qabalistic name of god formed by a notariqon of the Hebrew phrase "achad resh achdotho resh yechodo temurahzo achad" or "One is His beginning, One is His individuality, His permutation is One", and speaks to the unitary nature of the divine. In the tradition of the Hermetic Order of Golden Dawn the name ARARITA is used in the Rituals of the Hexagram, with each of it's seven letters assigned to one of the planets.

Higher res. and detail here.

AIRHOLE

Here are a few images I created for Airhole's 2010 facemask line. These pieces were for the "Aviator Series", and I guess they figured that I would be good for the job given my apparent love for helmets, cables, wires, hoses etc. Anyways, these were a lot of fun and they should be hitting the shelves in the fall (if they aren't already!).

STROKE.03

I've been invited to take part in the next installment of the Stroke Urban Art Fair. Stroke.03 will take place in Berlin from October 7th to the 10th in Hall 5 Station-Berlin. From looking at the previous installments of Stroke, it looks like it will a great show, with wide range of art, including street art, poster art, paintings, videos etc. Some of my work will be included in a new aspect of the show that features digital art. For more info check out the Stroke.03 website here.

ENTANGLED

Here is one I squeezed in between a couple of side projects. The title is reference to my own feelings, and position towards this project as of late. I would love to spend more time on it, emmerse myself in it, make it better, but a busy life prevents me from doing so.

All the orbs represent different aspects of my life (which I won't go into here), which entangle me, and compete for precious time. Some of these aspects are good, some bad, and a few are much more important than my digital scribblings, but they pull me away regardless.

I don't know why the figure is female...maybe my anima is surfacing...

Details and higher res. images here.

FLICKR

I've created a Flickr page to post higher quality images, along with more details. This will help address Blogger's short comings and hopefully give me more control over how my work is viewed (and spread around the Internet).

Moving forward all the details of the pieces posted on this blog will be posted on this Flickr page.

Check it out here.

HIGH 5 VIDS

Here are a couple of videos featuring the Endeavor High 5 board that features the Hexagram images from my Entartete Kunst series. The first is a product knowledge video produced for Endeavor by Randy Ross. The product shots look amazing and I don't look like a total fool (I hate being on camera)......You can find it here or on the Endeavor website.

The second vid is from Snowboard Review.com at their 2010 Snowboard Test. From the print review:

"This was the last board which I tested at the 2010 UK board test and it was so nice to finish off with a traditional cambered twin which had, in our opinion, the best graphics of any board at the test. The topsheet was basically made up of Endeavor's 'Cosmonaut" graphic which was beautifully printed and the base shared the same burnt orange colour with very detailed Space-odyssey style sci-fi space 'things' painted on it. The cost of such elaborate artwork cannot have been cheap and this board looked so good I was desperate for it to work for me on the hill. Fortunately, I was not to be disappointed."

Check the video here.

THE TOWER

I'd had been picking away at this one on and off for awhile, but spent the last few nights finishing it off before I lost all interest in it. Now that it is done(?), I think I'm pretty happy with now it turned out.

The title "The Tower" is a reference to 16th card of the Major Arcana of the Tarot, and represents the breaking down of established forms to make way for new forms to emerge, divine energy descending from a higher reality, or in the case of Yeats, the location in which the descending lightning of daimonic inspiration is received. The large angular figure takes the place of the tower while the other figure, bracing himself to receive this energy, represents the artist, magician, poet, etc. hoping that his soul will be transformed by the creatively destructive gift of daimonic inspiration.

STATE OF THE ART

Here are a few pics of my wall at the State of the Art exhibit that ran for a week up in Whistler. The show was good, with some great work by some really talented artists, and it was nice to hang out with some old friends before the heading over to the opening party.

Thanks to Kassia O'Connor for organizing the event, Max Jenke for giving me a spot at the show, and to Richard Alm for doing a great job with the giclees!

Photos courtesy of WSSF.

DRIFTING (Apologies to Charlie Harper)

Here is one I started awhile back and just got around to finishing. This one grew out of a period of low energy. The whole family was ill (those kids can bring home a lot of germs, and I seemed to catch every bug brought into the city during the Olympics), it was pissing rain day after day, I was pretty busy at work, and was just run down. The form, the mood, the palette and the title sum up my mental, emotional, and physical state at the time.

The subtitle is a reference to Cincinnati based artist Charlie Harper (1922-2007). My wife introduced me to his work last summer, and his minimalist style really appealed to my own graphic sensibilities. As a gift to her I bought her this wonderful book by Todd Oldham that collected a large selection of of Charlie Harper's work. I went through the book, cover to cover, numerous times. I hadn't looked at the book for a few months, but as I was finishing this piece I happened to be flipping through the book, and to my surprise I looked down and saw almost the very same image on the page. I didn't recall this image from the book at the time, but it must have bored it's way into my subconscious. It is humbling to realize how derivable your ideas are. Maybe one day I'll have an original idea.

I've included the Charlie Harper image (from the Giant Golden Book of Biology, 1961),with the detail. Enjoy.

STATE OF THE ART

I've been invited to be part of the State of the Art exhibit up in Whistler again. Last year was a lot of fun and I think a number of the artists that participated in the exhibit last year are returning this year, so it should be a good show. The show starts on April 18th and runs for a week at the Whistler Conference Center. If you are in or around Whistler that week you should come and check it out.

THE IDEAL - CRETIN AND WHORE

Here is another image inspired by one of the deriding slogans from the original Enartete Kunst exhibit in Munich, 1937. "The Ideal - Cretin and Whore", along with "An insult to German Womanhood", were slogans used to describe works of art that certain Nazi art/cultural theorists felt graphically expressed base sexuality and exalted people of the lower classes, likes pimps, prostitutes, idiots etc, above the German bourgeoisie. In the exhibit these slogans largely referred to the work of Otto Mueller and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.

I was interested in these two judgments, the cretin and the whore, but was at a loss at how to portray them (without defaulting to stereotypes), or how to incorporate them into a composition. At first there was just a single character, and various attempts were made using different compositions, poses, colour schemes etc., but it never seemed right. It came together when I added a second character, each symbolizing one of the ideas.

The cretin is located at the bottom of frame. Her features: the submissive pose, the blank expression, the cool colour scheme (with an almost sickly green), are meant to represent her stunted, or limited mental nature. The whore, with her more open posing, and the red based colour speaks to her sexual nature, but the desaturation and her inversion indicates that this apparent promiscuity is excessive, forced, unbalanced.

The hit of red represents the anger and intensity of these words, this judgement. The red is splattered on the page, representing how quickly theses judgements can be made, and how the effects of these ideas can bleed out in unanticipated ways. The orchids growing out of these trails represent the true strength and beauty contained within these individuals that is obscured by the judgements placed upon them.

HIGH 5 - "5th"

Since there were five boards in this series I had to create a fifth top sheet image. While this image is not considered part of the Hexagram series, and is exclusive to Endeavor, I did follow the same elemental inspiration for it's conception and design. The colour, and symbology all relate to the spirit element and has hits of the other four colours representing that this element is the embodiment of the other four combined.

I've included the two top sheets that I created for this fifth board. The female one was done first, but I was then asked to change this (along with the yellow/air Hexagram image), to a male for the sake of the "jibbers". I've also included the base graphic, which is actually a chunk of the second Entartete Kunst image, "Milkcow" (see below), re purposed, as I was running out of time to get these done!

HIGH 5

Endeavor Snowboards used my Hexagram Series (see below), for the graphics on their High 5 board for their 2010/2011 line up. The images were perfect for boards, with their long vertical compositions, and the helmets fitting so well into the nose of the board. The top two images come from the new Endeavor catalogue, and the boards will be released late summer/early fall 2010.

The third image is the final the design comp (that's why they are all the same length and have the same info.), where you can see the graphics a little better. The images had to change a little for production. Some changes were minor, like lengthening the bottom of the images to fit the board dimensions, while others were quite extreme, such as changing the female form on the yellow image to a male. This was done as the Board of Directors at Endeavor felt that the gnarled old male faces would be more appealing to the the target market for this particular board ("jibbers" I believe they called them).

Thanks to Endeavor for making this happen, and thanks to Max Jenke and Rob Dow at Endeavor for their time and feedback.

Photos by Scott Serfas, courtesy of Endeavor Snowboard Design.

MODEL

As the Entartete Kunst project grew out of a need to move away from production art (something I have create almost daily as a concept artist), I thought it might be interesting to try and create a piece of production art, a model sheet, based on the figures seen in the series. It soon became difficult and felt wrong so the final product was scaled back from the original intention. I couldn't bring myself to create a character turnaround or get to formal or final with the details and any attempt to describe the design elements only produced more questions. But in the end I think I prefer it that way, choosing interpretation and subjectivity over the rigid structure of design.

SPECTACTION

I've been neglecting the blog again. The reasons for this are many: family stuff, sick kids, trying to re-watch past episodes of Lost before the new season starts etc. etc. Anyways I have a few things to post in the near future so I'll start off with a few pics of the pieces I hung at the Spectaction event from before Christmas (two months ago! - I told you I was neglecting this blog).

Spectaction was a party put on by The Arts Benevolence League (ABL) to help support Camp Goodtimes and the Canadian Cancer Society. The event was sold out (500+ people), featured some amazing artists and was an all around great time.

Thanks to Christian, Max and everyone at the ABL for putting on this event and thanks to Max Jenke for curating and giving me a space at the show. Photos courtesy of Vivo Headwear and The Arts Benevolence League.