SPECTRUM 18

 

 

Here are a few pics of the two pieces of mine that were published in the latest edition of Spectrum. I was pretty pleased that my Dystopic piece was printed on a full page, and the other piece, A.R.A.R.I.T.A., seemed to hold up on the half page size.

This edition is quite large, and features some amazing work, including a nice cover piece by Jean-Sebastien Rossbach, and another banger from Fearless. Definitely worth checking out.

THE STAR (emperor)

This new one was created as a design for a possible 2nd model kit for Michael Fichtenmayer's Industria Mechanika. The first kit, based on my Dystopic (ventilate) piece is currently in the master modelling stage and hopefully I'll have some progress images to post soon!

As the 28th piece is this series this one was inspired by the 28th path on the the Tree of Life, "the ruler". The colours are from the four worlds, and the tertiary graphic elements speak to correspondences of this path. The title comes from the tarot association, The Star. In divination the meanings of this card are hope, guidance and future possibilities, represented here by the female cosmonaut curled in a fetal position. Her fixed gaze tells us she has the determination to grasp one of these possibilities and to reach her chosen future potential.

The subtitle "the emperor", while possibly reinforcing the title of the 28th path, is more of a nod to Crowley, who proclaimed that Tzaddi was not The Star, and that the true Hebrew letter for this path was Heh, a letter more traditionally associated with Path 15 and the Emperor.

High res. and details at my Flickr.

ADVANCED PHOTOSHOP

Here are a few pics of a spread I had in Advanced Photoshop #88 last month. My EK piece "Drifting" was chosen to be featured in one of the "How I Made" sections of the magazine. These are 2 page features that describe the piece, the artist and outline a particular Photoshop technique, or effect used during the creation of the image. As I don't use any Photoshop effects, I had to try and outline my painting process in 3 steps!

The rest of the magazine is full of great digital art, articles and a 6 page feature on Maciej Kuciara. The magazine also comes with a CD full of brushes, tutorials and other media.

Thanks to Adam Smith at Advanced Photoshop/Imagine Publishing for inviting me to be part of the issue.

BLOOOM

Here are a few pictures of the work I exhibited at the ARTISHOX Gallery booth at the Blooom Creative Industries Art Show that was held in Cologne, Germany over the last few days.

ARTISHOX finished my prints off with Dibond/Diasec. I had never heard of this process before. It involves fusing a piece of acrylic glass to the print, and mounting it on a aluminium and plastic plate. Apparently the colours are more brilliant and the image is sharper than framing behind standard glass. Anyways, I was happy with the end result and thought they looked great.

I had the honor of exhibiting with other ARTISHOX artists Michihiro Matsuoka, Esther Barend and Philip Bosmans.

Huge thanks to Ben Wouters for putting everything together, hauling everything to Cologne, and for curating the booth!

More pictures here.

ARTISHOPIX

ARTISHOPIX, the online shop/gallery of the ARTISHOX Gallery, is up and running. A whole bunch of my limited edition Entartete Kunst fine art prints are available on the site.

The shop also offers the wonderful sculptural works of Michihiro Matsuoka and paintings and fine art prints by Philip Bosmans and Esther Barend. The work of additional ARTISHOX artists should be appearing on the site soon.

Check it out here.

THE PASSAGE

Finally a new EK Piece.....it has been awhile since the last one back in June. I had a busy summer, and finding time for personal work proved difficult with several vacations, a kitchen reno, another set of boards for Endeavor, and spending a lot of time with the kids. As we settle into fall I plan on having a little more time for my own work.

The sketch that this one grew up around was started back when I was working on the piece for Rooms Uncovered Magazine, and shares the same two panel layout. The title, The Passage, along with the birth like imagery of the main panel, and the altered or evolved state of the right hand panel (here represented by the colour shift and time passage), speaks to the changes that have occurred within us, or that we feel have occurred, when we emerge from an experience.

Having emerged from a forced break from my own work, along with other recent events related to these pieces, I feel I have a new perspective of where I want to take this series.

High res. and details at my Flickr.

BLOOOM

I'll be exhibiting some pieces at the Blooom Creative Industries Art Show in Cologne, Germany later this month. My work will be exhibited at the ARTISHOX Gallery booth, along with work by other artists the gallery represents.

This is a large show, with a host of galleries and artists exhibiting their works. The show is also running in conjunction with ART.FAIR, so there will be lots to see and experience.

The show runs from October 29th till November 1st, 2011 at Staatenhaus AM Rheinpark, Cologne, Germany.

If you are in the area, go check it out.

CGWORLD MAGAZINE

Here are pics of the interview/feature I had in CGWorld Magazine. The issue came out back in January but I haven't posted it because due to several mail snags I did not receive a copy of the magazine until now.

CGWorld is the largest and most influential monthly magazine in China's CG Industry. This high quality magazine is full of amazing art from around the world, interviews with creators and also publishes material from US industry magazine Cinefex for the Chinese audience.

Thanks to Chief Editor, Yu Zhuo for the opportunity and for all his help.

ARTISHOX

I'm happy to announce my joining of the ARTISHOX Gallery and Art Agency. The gallery, located in Hasselt, Belgium, will carry a selection of my current works and I'll be creating a new series of works specifically for the gallery in the future. As an agency they will also be representing, promoting and managing my work.

For those unable to make it over to Belgium, my work will also be available on the ARTISHOX online store, ARTISHOPIX, that will going live in the near future.

ARTISHOX exhibits and represents a host of amazing artists working in a wide range of mediums and subjects including Michihiro Matsuoka, Raf Veulemans, Philip Bosmans, Lex Tintel and Esther Barend to name a few. Check them out on the ARTISHOX website.

Thanks to Ben at ARTISHOX for his belief, commitment, effort and guidance.

INDUSTRIA MECHANIKA

I'm pleased to announce that the guys over at Industria Mechanika are going to translate a few of the figures from my Entartete Kunst pieces into model kits. The first one up is going to be "Dystopic", a piece I did last year for Ventilate. The figures will be roughly 12 inches and the kit will consist of resin parts and wires for cables and suspending orbs. We are just getting started on this so they won't be available for a few months but I'll post updates as they come.

Industria Mechanika is also working with Ian Mcque and Adrian Smith to bring their amazing work to 3 dimensions. From what I've seen so far the results are incredible. Check it out here.

THE BRIDGE

This one began as a piece created for inclusion in the second edition of the art book "Schwarz Auf Weiss - Style Needs No Colour". As the title suggests, the theme of this book is that a strong design or illustration should be able to hold up in black and white, that the composition, the line work, the rendered values, etc. should create a solid piece, without the use of colour and/or "flashing techniques". That being said, this book is less of a manifesto, and more of a celebration of the strength and impact of black and white art.

When Christian Schupp (AROONE), the creator of the book, asked me to contribute a piece I was eager to participate. I always envision my work in colour, almost always work these pieces up in colour (as opposed to painting in greyscale then colourizing later), and often like to use colour to reinforce the meaning or idea behind the piece, so I thought it would be fun, if not a little challenging to realize a proper EK piece in greyscale.

The piece itself has no particular meaning. It has yet to be determined if the figure is falling/jumping from, or being pulled back up to, the the construct I began calling "The Bridge" during the production of this piece. The title is a reference to this, as well as a bit of a nod to the German expressionist group of the same name. The artists of this seminal expressionist group, including Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Emil Nolde, Erich Heckel, and Max Pechstien were to suffer at the hands of the proponents of Enartete Kunst. After the Nazis secured power in Germany these artists were among those who had their work was seized, sold off or destroyed, and they were refused to display their work in public. In the case of Nolde, he wasn't even allowed to paint in private.

It is an interesting note that the artists in Die Brucke created a lot of black and white work, mostly in the form of woodcut prints and etchings.

After sending this piece over to Christian for the book I ended up adding a couple of hits of colour. One was the red hexagram, to cement the piece in the series, the other was a blue field behind the horse and rider symbol on the one of the orbs, a nod to the Blue Rider Group. Maybe for me style needs colour.....

Volume 2 of "Schwarz Auf Weiss - Style Needs No Colour" will be published later in the year by From Here To Fame Publishing. From the small amount of the work I've seen from the book, it will definitely be worth checking out.

High res. and details at my Flickr.

BORNINCONCRETE.COM

I've finally created a website to feature my personal work and other various projects I've worked on over the last few years. All the Entartete Kunst work is on there along with the Endeavor Snowboard stuff and a few other projects as well. The site also has a built in shop for the giclee prints I offer, which up until now, were only available privately and at art shows. In the near future I'll be adding some of the concept art I created for the last few game projects I worked on, so come back for another look. Check it out at borninconcrete.com.

POLITIKIN ZABAVNIK - WHAT THE FUCK?

Last week a couple of my pieces showed up on the cover of issue #3093 of Serbian comic/entertainment magazine, Politikin Zabavnik. While it is flattering to have my work considered for the cover of this popular and historic magazine, my work was used without permission, and was altered/censored (hexagrams and text elements removed), from it's original form without consent.

It is unfortunate that the the editors at Politikin Zabavnik didn't just ask to use my work. I'm happy to cross promote with magazines, I've done this in the past, and I'll do it again in the future. If they had asked me in the first place, I could have provided them with high resolution images that would have made their cover, and my artwork, look better (as opposed to scaling up low res. images off the web for print).

The altering/censoring of my work without consent is completely unacceptable. If they had an issue with certain elements contained within my work, or thought that these elements would be potentially offensive to their readership, then that should have been a clear sign not to have used my work on the cover of their magazine. To add insult to injury, their paint over job is poor, creating a false impression of the work.

I don't know if anymore of my work appears within the magazine itself, and if so, if these images have been treated in the same disrespectful manner.

I've sent an email over to the editors of Politikin Zabavnik asking for an explanation. Not surprisingly, I haven't received a response yet......

STROKE 04

I've been invited back for the next instalment of the STROKE Urban Artfair, to be held in Munich from May 26 - 29, 2011. I exhibited some work at the third STROKE, held in Berlin last October, and heard it was a great show (I couldn't go because I was broke.......still am). I'll be featured in the digital exhibit along with a host of great artists. As with the last exhibit, our work will be displayed on large flat screen displays.

Anyways if you find yourself in Munich at the end of May go check out the STROKE Urban Artfair at - Zenith - Die Kulturhalle / Lilienthalallee 29 / 80939 Munich.

Thanks to Marco Schwalbe for inviting me back!

ROOMS ART UNCOVERED

Here is a couple pics of the cover and feature published in Rooms Art Uncovered #4. I received my copy of the magazine a while back but I've been so busy lately I'm just getting around to posting it (this also explains the lack of new art posts as well.....). Print copies and a downloadable .pdf are available from the Rooms site. Print copies are also available in bookshops in various cities in the UK, continental Europe, and Asia, check the stockist list on the Rooms site.

Thanks again to Eva, Anna and Adan at Rooms!

STATE OF THE ART

Here are a few pics of my wall at State of the Art. I hung giclees of my board art for Endeavor's 2011/2012 line, along with an example of one of the finished snowboards. As usual the show featured some great art from a host of amazing artists. It was nice to exhibit with friends and work colleagues (one present, one former), Rory Doyle and Nelson "Dedos" Garcia. I shared a whole wall with Doyle and his wonderful "Wood Grains and Chest Stains" series.

The Endeavor exhibit showcased the whole 2011/2012 line of boards. Here my "Always in the Dark" board is sandwiched between Doyle's awesome Next and B.O.D. boards.

The show is up until April 23rd, at the Whistler Conference Centre.

Thanks to Kassia O'Conner for her hard work curating the show, and to Jean and Angus for putting me up while I was in Whistler!

SLEAZE MAGAZINE

I had a little spread of my work featured in the latest edition of Sleaze Magazine. Sleaze is a lifestyle magazine published out of Berlin and features articles about fashion, music, art, games, etc. A full digital version of the current issue can be viewed off the front page of their website.

Thanks to Sleaze contributor/graphic designer Sascha Thau for including my work in the magazine. Sascha is also a contributor to my Enartete Kunst series, by providing me with the German translations for the titles of the pieces. He has saved me from linguistic embarrassment on numerous occasions. Cheers to you my friend.

STATE OF THE ART

I'm going to be exhibiting some of the art I created for Endeavor Snowboard Design's 2011-2012 line at this years State of the Art show up in Whistler. This show always showcases some great art, and the opening night is good time, so if you are in the area come by and check it out. The show runs from April 15th to the 23rd, at the Whistler Conference Centre.

UNCOVERED

This is a piece I created for the cover of the upcoming issue of Rooms Art Uncovered Magazine. Rooms is a London based quarterly art magazine that offer their publication in both print and as a downloadable .pdf. Each issue is full of an eclectic mix of art and is worth checking out.

The theme of this piece was inspired by the concept of the magazine: "rooms is dedicated to all those spaces which are filled with ideas, emotions and creativity, and our mission is to uncover all these artist's dens and bring to light as much art as possible".

I pushed this statement through the "EK Filter" and came up this piece that features a cosmonaut, the motif for the artist, creative force in this work, emerging from a capsule or room. He is surrounded by other capsules that are also filled with individuals, ideas, and emotions but at the moment he is the only one brave enough (or foolish enough), to expose himself to the outside world. In the inset panel on the left the close up of his face gives us the impression that he isn't quite sure of himself, but because he is driven by passion, he carries on.

Wicked Golden Dawn font courtesy of Hydro 74/Legacy of Defeat.

In addition to the cover I'll have some work featured on the inside of the issue along with an interview. I'll post again when I get the details.

High res. and details at my Flickr.

HIGH 5

As mentioned in a previous post, here are the graphics for Endeavor's High 5 board for the 2011/2012 season. These graphics differ from the original "I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have To Be Destroyed By Me" pieces in that they have been lengthened to fit the boards, minor text changes (the title pluralized as Max Jenke thought it would better represent the Endeavor crew), and the addition of patch graphics and info. text.

The base graphics are patches that incorporate the central figures of the topsheet image as well as some of the other symbolism of the patch that inspired that particular board.

The top image is a promotional shot of the 155 "Sneeky Pete" board, the second is from the 2011/2012 Endeavor catalogue and the third is my final design sheet.

DRAINED

For the last three years every January/February has been a rough time of year for me. With kids that during the winter months are bringing home illness, and me, with what must be one of the weakest immune systems known to man, I'm constantly sick. This aligns with a number of mandatory social engagements that cannot be missed. Work at the studio always seems to be crazy busy during these months and I usually have a number of side projects on the go that require attention. This all adds up to me being completely drained physically and mentally.

I think I stated working on this piece in anticipation of all this descending on me but so far this year has been different. I haven't been sick (unfortunately the kids still have), mandatory social engagements have been minimal (and the ones I have attended are enjoyable because I don't feel like crap), and work at the office hasn't been busy at all. My energy levels are high and I'm excited about the side projects and personal work that I have on the go.

Now I'd like to think that I felt the need to work on this piece because I was being told that I was done with be plagued in this fashion. Time will tell. Knock on wood!

I COULD TELL YOU....

I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have To Be Destroyed By Me is group of five pieces created for Endeavor Snowboard Design's High 5 Board for the 2011/2012 season. The project was based on material from Trevor Paglan's book of the same name. This wonderful book is an examination of the visual culture of the American Military's black/classified programs, presented through the patches worn by the units involved in these programs. For each of these mysterious patches obtained by Paglan, a rough history is given and the obscure symbolism is deciphered (or at least an attempt is made). It is a small but fascinating glimpse into a hidden world.

Max Jenke from Endeavor gave me the book, asked me to read it, and come up with a graphic based on, or inspired by the contents. I struggled with it at first. While I'm a bit of an aviation geek and know some of the history of this material, I had a hard time getting over the bravado and cheesiness of it all. But I had faith in the idea and there was enough interest in the symbolism involved so I sunk my teeth into that and learned to embrace the less desirable aspects of the material.

The central figure in each piece is an interpretation of the major design element of a particular patch. This central figure bleeds out into a dark area that contains elements from the symbolism and history of the program that the patch relates to. These elements are faint, incomplete and obscured, and this, along with the heavy use of black speaks to the idea that these projects are from a world hidden from view. As a large portion of the patches in Trevor Paglan's book deal with projects that involve aircraft, at the bottom of the frame is a mash up of aircraft, both real and theoretical, that were developed out of American black military projects. Again these elements are kept dark and obscured.

The work presented here are the pieces in their original form. They were lengthened for use as topsheet graphics on the snowboards, and base patch graphics were designed for each board. I'll post images of these in the future when I get some shots of the prototypes from Endeavor.

THE TURTLE

Here's one that I've been picking away at for awhile in between a few other projects. After working on a few EK pieces that were a little more conceptual in nature it was nice to get back to the free form, and work on something that was looser and a little more impromptu. This one started as a rough character sketch that I thought looked like a turtle, so everything grew out of that. There is some symbolism involved but it is secondary to the image and I won't go into that here.

Higher rez., and details at my Flickr.

Enjoy!