Project 2 (Part 1)

Jack Nicholson: The Man!

Stock photo

Illustrator Trace

What does a song look like?

Here is an interpretation of how the song "Cloud Floatain (Ultra Living Remix)" by Joshua LaRue might look.  Illustrator proves to be pretty cool for swirling circles.

Portraits WOOHOO

Illustrator Traces

                            

Line Drawing of Corgi

Left: Original

Right: Illustrator Pen Tool Trace

       

Vera Molnar: Pioneer

Vera Molnar

Source: Google images

Vera Molnar, a Hungarian born French artist, began her life-long passion of creating art at a very early age (philipgalantar.com)  She began sketching landscapes of her uncle's cabin in the mountains at age twelve and is accredited with developing "systematic methods of creating art" (philipgalanter.com).  As noted on philipgalanter.com, she used only five colors to repeatedly draw this scene until she grew unhappy with her pieces, then she would switch colors adjacent to each other.  As her career progressed, she became a Professor of Art History and Aesthetics at the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest (philipgalanter.com).  As the article by Paul Hertz expresses, she was said to have 'programmed' her art before ever using what she referred to as the 'Machine Imaginaire" (philipgalanter.com).  A portion of her artwork is centered around repetitive shapes with a diverse set of variations for each, continuing her style of systematic "trial and error" with different forms of a singular image.  She continues to make art from her residence in Paris (philipgalanter.com).

http://www.dam.org/dox/2456.6Pkud.H.1.De.php

The above image is a part of her "Hypertransformation" series.  I took a liking to her artwork, after reading that her methods were algorithmic and systematic.  I wondered what type of art she created and these were the types of images I found.  At first, the two-dimensional image is just that: flat; however, after a second or so, I found my eyes interpreting the image as having a large amount of increasingly concentrated depth.  This particular image and style reminds me of a scene from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, starring Gene Wilder, in which the visitors to Wonka's factory enter a hallway that is continually getting smaller, but looks large from afar.  My intrigue in this art type is seated in its simplicity, yet complex nature.  The very systematic repetition of squares that decrease in size is hypnotic and is similar to hypnosis devices like the cliche spiraling coin:

Google Images

http://digitalartmuseum.org/gallery/image/8845

Molnar, 1990

The spacing between the squares adds the third dimension of perception to the piece and transforms the image significantly.  A similar image (below), from the series "Lettres de ma Mere," uses a different method of repetition while retaining a systematic chaos quality.  This piece reminded me of the style used by the author Johnathan Safran Foer in his novel "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close."  I never read this book, but was shown a page out of it by my sister, where the printing of a series of pages had been repeated to create an increasingly dense block of text:

Google Images

Overall, I found Molnar's works to be very interesting and simple.  There are just a lot of variations which would make it seem like her art is not very hard to imitate.  I feel that her art lacks in the complex nature that makes modern art visually challenging, but her skill in creating more complex images only using repetition or scaling, similar to the way a computer works, is noticeable and enticing.    I was drawn more to her pieces that involved bright colors, of mainly yellows, reds, and blues.  There are many examples of how similar ideas to her's have been applied to a variety of mediums and methods, though this seems to be commonplace among her style of taking a stock image and performing a multitude of transformations on it until distortion is limiting creativity.  

John Moberg: Photoshop Man!

           John Moberg

                               (www.modernclimate.com)

The artist that I have chosen to research is John Moberg.  I stumbled upon his work simply by typing "digital artists" in my Google search bar.  When I clicked on a link to one of the top results, I was met with some interesting images that reminded me of the project that we are undertaking for class and observed a variety of artwork that looked heavily layered and used a large palette of color and patterns.  As I searched for his history of works and sifted through the results of my search engine, I discovered that he is a Yale graduate and owns a business named Digital Ink, which can be found on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Digital-ink/404552436248308). One website (art-3000.com) states that his choice of medium is Photoshop and that he is based in L.A.  Aside from this information, his biography seems to be very quiet.

103a

http://www.digitalartistdaily.com/image/15437/103a

This piece, entitled "103a," stood out to me in my searches along with the image below, "137a."

137a

http://www.digitalartistdaily.com/image/15746/137a

I found these pieces to be particularly intriguing, mainly due to the aesthetic realism that they create.  The computer generated nature that is produced using overlapping images and highly contrasting colors combined with variable opacity, to me, is very unique.  In image "103a," the people that have been placed in the foreground as compared to the background, which is a mixture between a sunset in the mountains and a cataract that appears to just appear, simulates how most images of people actually are: people in foreground, nature in the background to show place.  The interesting, almost abstract, structure of the image collages poorly lit, somewhat monotone images with vibrant "happy colors."  The central focus of the image is generated by the ring that surrounds the "renaissance" violinist and the angel above the man in the American flag wheelbarrow.  I'm not sure what the meaning of this image is exactly, but I speculate that it is a symbol of patriotism, given the American flag and the helmet that says "No Faith" on it.  It may also suggest that mankind has imposed itself in all realms of nature, if one chooses the seemingly more cynical vantage point.  Image "137a," I believe, contrasts the meaning of the previous image, in that nature is what is being imposed.  In both images, Moberg uses very defined shapes and vibrant colors, at the same time as he uses lots of blending and fading between layers of images to create a cohesive space.  These images together are good examples for the project we are currently working on: using Photoshop to create a "believable" 3D digital space.

I found the aesthetic quality of Moberg's images to be very appealing and was entranced by the cohesiveness between images of the foreground and background.  Some more of his images continued to use nature and humans in overlays together, some of which were, in my mind, pretty cool looking!  I was suprised to see that Moberg doesn't have many pieces or that much information can be found about him or his work.  I really enjoy the challenge of observing his work and the uniqueness of his design in each image.

Here are some more that caught my eye, just to tease the senses:

Art 1

http://www.digitalartistdaily.com/image/15749/art_1

-- Pay attention to the sphere in the upper right corner.  Similar spheres are used in some of his other pieces and are used as magnifications that would utilize the "Transform" device of Photoshop.

180a

http://www.digitalartistdaily.com/image/15895/180a

Photo Enhancement

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