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.
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.
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 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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
Here is another new Entartete Kunst image. This one wasn't part of the original vision for the series but popped into my head after coming across the title while researching the concept of Entartete Kunst in the excellent book "Degenerate Art: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany"(Stephanie Barron ed. 1991). The title, "The Cultural Bolsheviks' Order of Battle", like the previous post, comes from one of the slogans painted on the wall of the exhibit, deriding the art on display.
I took the idea of "the order of battle" pretty literally, representing it through the collage of Soviet-era military vehicles, the Mars symbolism, the left palm print representing the left hand path, the sharp shape language and the use of the colour red. The intravenous therapy suggests that this false world view is something that is not self-sustaining and generally unhealthy.
Again I've included a few detail shots.....mainly because Blogger sucks for viewing images. I'll be putting together a Flickr page in the near future for better viewing!
I'm going to be contributing a few pieces to the Spectaction Benefit Party. The other featured artists are great and all proceeds go to support Camp Goodtimes. The exhibit is on Dec.19th at District 319 here in Vancouver. It should be a good time so come out and support a The Canadian Cancer Society and their Camp Goodtimes Program. For more info go to The Arts Benevolence League.
It has been awhile since the last post. I had a busy fall with various side projects but they are pretty much all wrapped up (I haven't forgotten about your tat Doyle!), so hopefully I'll be able to settle down for the winter and create some more stuff for myself. We'll see how it goes.
This image has been trying to force it's way out of me for some time, as it was one of the first envisioned for this series. It speaks to the fact that even in the darkest, oppressive world-view there can be an element of hope, light and potential. The title is taken from one of the deriding slogans painted on the wall (largely referring to the work of Karl Schmidt-Rottlff), at the Enartete Kunst exhibit in Munich in 1937.
I've included a few detail shots as the image is large and a lot of the details get compressed for blog posting.
Here is the latest Entartete Kunst image. I had this one in my head for awhile but I was at a loss for a title. Then I happened across Peter Cohen's excellent documentary "Architecture of Doom"on Google Video. The film argues that the driving force of Nazism was largley aesthetic, and the concept of Entartete Kunst is explained in some detail. Since the discriminating nature in this work is represented by structure, hard edges, and geometry, and since these forms played such a large roll in this image I thought the tilte would fit. Funny how you often stumble across something just when you need it.
I also included a detail image because these images are quite large, being 12"x20", or 12"x24" in most cases, and a lot of the detail is lost when crunching them down for blog posting.
Been awhile since the last post. Sick kids, sick me, busy at work and lots of other stuff going on. Anyways, this is part two of the hexagram piece (see below), the earth and air aspects of the symbol. I had originally decided against creating these two images, and to focus on the water and fire aspects of the hexagram (again, see below), as they speak to the nature of creative inspiration, but then a project materialized (that I cannot mention at this time), that required me to move forward with these images.
