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.

THE CULTURAL BOLSHEVIKS' ORDER OF BATTLE

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!

SPECTACTION

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.