springs and grottos

Spring heads and grottos

Crypto-Zooid-Draco

I recently read an artical on dragons that brought to light how they often represent our encounter with the other. A creature so incomprehensible that dread is inevitable.

Allegory of the Dragon @www.disinfo.com

Vintage Disney Color palette inspiration

Took this palette idea from From Rain to Shine blog by Jess for vintage Disney colors.
The sense of emersion was greatest for me when I would ride the Haunted House attraction.

I like the blues and greens used in the official poster for the Haunted Mansion attraction.

My friend Bernadette Januska showed me how to make mosaics and grab palettes from them.

Lately I have been using discarded student paintings and drawing on top of them. I enjoy the sense of happensatnce that defines some of the uncanny relationships between my drawn forms and the forms developed by the chromatic decisions of these student works. One of the reasons I am so attracted to this painting by Ellie Wools is that her palatte reminded me so much of old Disney colors. Also I believe she is a very interesting person with a unique outlook on her experiences. I think htis is directly related to her unorthodox use of color. Maybe it has to do with her growing up so close to Disney World-The Great Simulacrarium.

Still looking for that old Disney blue. I think that blue is the official color of Air Conditioning.

This one even has the yellow in it.

Submision3 Spring 2015

I was struck by an ongoing interest in the grotesque, which manifests itself in my work as creatures or abstractions of humanoid and not so humanoid forms, maybe speculative forms would be a better description. Part of my project for this semester utilized stalagmites and stalactites in an attempt to generate a grotto affect. Utilizing the etymological relationship of grottos to the grotesque and imparting the formal language of a grotto’s structure to suggest a space where one might chance a run in with the other.

http://animalnewyork.com/2013/digital-grotesque-gorgeous-algorithmic-3d-printed-grotto/

This idea of the grotto as a place to encounter the other, is compatible with my interest in the dynamics between the hidden and the revealed and the objects that demarcate these zones. These traditionally might take the form of a temple curtain or a veil over a brides face or a flag over a casket, or a handkerchief over a magicians hands. There are also popular cultural references to the veil or curtain symbol as with the green curtain in the wizard of OZ and Scarlett Oharahs green curtain dress.  I also have come to loosely associate the ceremonial use of a wool cloth called a baize with games of chance like like billiards black jack ad craps, games of chance being concerned with the act of speculating on an outcome from the vantage point of the unrevealed. Heidegger defines the reveal as Aletheia.  I am starting to relate this to the idea of the Sublime. I have come to interpret the moment of the Sublime as a liminal juncture of time and space where we begin encounter and confront the unknown and then begin to sublimate the experience into something not so alien. 

3rd submission R&D II Spring 2015

targets to be placed on objects to be shot at

cut out on old student painting

bike wheel turned into star target -this is the back

some kind of blood jelly target

ghoul target

fuzzy worm target

Student painting cut out-black line drawing on old oil painting

found ouil painting and black line drawing on wood panel

wisp target

collection of potential shooting gallery decor

rotisserie motor target rotator

found painting cut out black line drawing

front of bijke wheel star target

Roy's low steaks

I have always been greatly influenced by Lichtenstein. I think it was his way of taking the low definition of pulp illustration and giving it a hyper contextualized forum. He described the ecstasy of appearances. The adrenaline of dreams and the potential for each individual to reign supreme in that space. Sometimes I think this is the real backlash against the pulp genre in general.  Pulp chokes on its own toxic air of solipsism. I get that impression from looking at cosplay participants of a comic convention. Vanity and self engrossed mirror gazing finds benefit only when the self begins to dissolve. On a technical note I have been wanting to play with Lichtenstein's painting of a steak. When I deconstructed this piece I started to discover how he was playing with Magritte's pipe and Braque's collage all at once. The efficient strokes of line for the sinew of fat and then the flat field of red meat and marbling establish a nice dynamic. Roy gives us access to success and excess. He has reified the rare and cut the common cold.

rare common cold cut