CHECK OUT MY ART (pic heavy)

Hey Everybody-

I just wanted to share some of the art I make with you guys. I make photographs and drawings, and I will be posting new images throughout the week, so keep checking back on this thread. I was trained as an artist, but currently I work for an architecture firm. I just recently applied to Yale School of Art for a Graduate Degree. I won?t find out if I am accepted until April.

Most of the photographs I take are of sets I build in my studio. Some of the more recent sets took quite a bit of time to build, while the earlier photos were not as detailed. These sets are miniature landscapes of my own construction and imagination. I?ll start with my most recent photograph first. It?s called God?s Eye:
http://www.geneticdisposition.com/godseye.jpg

Here is the set in my studio:
http://www.geneticdisposition.com/eyeset.jpg

I had to hire a 3D renderer to help me realize the eyeball shape. Here is a 3D model of the set. The entire project took me something like 10 months.
http://www.geneticdisposition.com/eyewireframe.jpg

My previous studio photograph is titled: The Giant Footprint Reclamation Project.
http://www.geneticdisposition.com/footprint.jpg

Here is a work in progress image:
http://www.geneticdisposition.com/footprintconst1.jpg
I made a few detail images of this set as well:
http://www.geneticdisposition.com/footprintdetail1.jpg

this one has a slight bit of photoshop in it. all the others are straight shots.
http://www.geneticdisposition.com/footprintdetail2.jpg

This image is titled Symbiosis. It?s a fantastical allegory from another world. I imagined a creature with a huge mouth that was half buried in the ground. The other half consisted of a huge red web designed to catch prey. Humans have discovered this creature and are explioting it. Here is a simple drawing of the creature:

http://www.geneticdisposition.com/symdwg.gif

Here is the final image:
http://www.geneticdisposition.com/symweb.gif

A progress image:
http://www.geneticdisposition.com/symbiosis-const.jpg

A detail:
http://www.geneticdisposition.com/symbiosis-detail.jpg

<font color="#cd6600" size="1">[ February 08, 2004 11:38 PM: Message edited by: Figment? ]</font>

Cross Section:
I wondered what a planet would look like if it were sliced in half. So I built one. I was inspired by peanut M&M?s.
http://www.geneticdisposition.com/c-section.jpg

Here is a shot of the set. This was a complex lighting job:
http://www.geneticdisposition.com/c-section_const.jpg

Very impressive man!

VEEEERY cool stuff, man-

I love those "footpint" pics.

I always thought that one of the cooest jobs ever would be a set builder on something like Thunderbirds or even Godzilla.
That reminds me of that big time!

Very cool!

<font color="#cd6600" size="1">[ February 08, 2004 11:46 PM: Message edited by: Street Worm ]</font>

I remember the Bigfoot one- dude that creature diorama is gorgeous! I like your ideas of surreal fantasty elements discovered by man and turned into top secret sites.

Jaw dropping great! http://kisielka.com/MessageBoardDooDads/surprise.gif

Way cool Figgy! I especially dig Symbiosis! It's good to see the frog made it in there. http://www.hostboard.com/forums/

Is your studio in your home? Is it a loft? How big is it? I need to move to another house so I can make my studio bigger. I have no room to create many of my ideas. http://www.hostboard.com/forums/

Awesome!
I love miniature sets. I've got one rolling around in my brain for a photo as well... maybe I should just get you to do it. [img]wink.gif[/img]

P.S. Do you ever get the urge to run electric trains through your sets?

Quote:

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Originally posted by Andyman:
Is your studio in your home? Is it a loft? How big is it? I need to move to another house so I can make my studio bigger. I have no room to create many of my ideas. [img]frown.gif[/img]

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">My studio is in my home. I have a 2 BR apartment, and the larger beadrooom is my studio. It's pretty much the only way I can work. I use so much stuff from the rest of my house in my art, they need to be close together. My studio is fairly small- around 11 x 12 feet. Lack of space has really turned into an issue with the set installations. God's Eye, my last shot, was 9 feet long by 5 feet high by 7 feet deep. I was able to fit it into the room, but I almost wasn't able to fit it in front of the lens. My camera was 4 feet into my living room when I shot that.
Just like collecting toys, you somehow manage to find space for stuff & make it all fit together.

Wow! Those are great!
That footprint one rules!!!

Freakin' AWESOME!

good stuff man

That footprint set has always been one of my faves. I'm really looking forward to seeing what else you add this week. There are a couple other faves I'm hoping that I get to see again.

today I want to show some of my drawings. I have been drawing ever since I was a little kid. Mostly black & white pen and ink. back in 1995, I took a long trip to India, and I saw a lot of this:
http://www.geneticdisposition.com/india.jpg
This photo was taken at a place called Fatekpour Sikri. It used to be a Mogul Palace. these screens are carved out of stone. the interfearance pattern created when two screens overlap fascinated & inspired me. When I came home, I made this:
http://www.geneticdisposition.com/kitum.jpg
It?s called Kitum, named after the cave the Ebola virus supposedly came from. I did a series of these drawings, always experementing with line quality and placement, but floundered for several years. It was hard to pre-visualize what the final image would look like, and I got a bit too wrapped up in the process of making these drawings.

Which brings me to this:
http://www.geneticdisposition.com/veintemplate.gif
I made this drawing in Illustrator, and then was able to print it out full scale on a printer at work (it helps to work for an architecture firm). I made this last year. The template was the same size as the original, about 55? high. Here is what it turned into:
http://www.geneticdisposition.com/veinriver.jpg

Here is my newest template, hanging up in my living room for scale:
http://www.geneticdisposition.com/apt.jpg
And the template: I am using a larger sheet of paper for this drawing. it?s 6 feet log and 3 feet wide.
http://www.geneticdisposition.com/snaptemplate.gif

The process on my drawing table:
http://www.geneticdisposition.com/table.jpg
http://www.geneticdisposition.com/closeup.gif

I love the pen & ink drawings! One of my favorite classes in art involved texture & pattern with pen & ink. Bravo!

To me, seeing where an inspiration came from, and how that evolved into a uniquely different piece is one of the most interesting things about art. Thanks for giving us the background on that.

A few years back, I made some photographs of worms that, at first, had a similar look to the above drawings. These 2 images are segments from a 20 inch x 40 foot long single print:
http://www.geneticdisposition.com/wormscroll5.jpg
http://www.geneticdisposition.com/wormscroll6.jpg

The worm series soon turned into arrangements of worms, both real and fake, with dirt and sometimes pasta. Some of the photos are based on Celtic designs.
http://www.geneticdisposition.com/fullworm01.jpg
http://www.geneticdisposition.com/fullworm02.jpg

<font color="#cd6600" size="1">[ February 10, 2004 12:25 AM: Message edited by: Figment? ]</font>

These worm photos are all large prints. usually 30 x 40 inches.

http://www.geneticdisposition.com/fullworm03.jpg

http://www.geneticdisposition.com/fullworm04.jpg

i love it all---'specially the worms as i've been practicing celtic design for about a year now and would have recognized it had you said nothing http://www.hostboard.com/forums/ http://www.hostboard.com/forums/

BUT, i do miss the fruit pics http://www.hostboard.com/forums/

I hope we get treated to the fruit pics this week.

some truely awesome stuff, Figment!

Okay, by popular request ? the fruit photos! These are all tiny sculptures I made out of food and then photographed & enlarged to a 30 x 40 print. Scale is a huge part of these images.
http://www.geneticdisposition.com/hybrid04.jpg

http://www.geneticdisposition.com/hybrid03.jpg

http://www.geneticdisposition.com/hybrid06.jpg
I gave a print of this image to Steve the Victim when we went to NJ last month.


http://www.geneticdisposition.com/hybrid08.jpg

Eventually, I got more interested in photographing meat than vegetables. I was also interested in switching the lighting around, so that object was backlit, sort of similar to the worms. This shot is my fave in the entire series:
http://www.geneticdisposition.com/hybrid07.jpg


http://www.geneticdisposition.com/hybrid09.jpg


http://www.geneticdisposition.com/hybrid10.jpg


http://www.geneticdisposition.com/hybrid13.jpg

The meat/veggie stuff always gave me the willies. Almost like perverted science gone too far. Tortured meat? I don't want to look...but somehow I must!

Y'know Andy, it's funny to watch people's faces when they come into a room with these images on the wall. First, they smile (presumably at all the bright colors), and then walk closer to an image. the smile soon flatlines, and every once in a while, the jaw drops. These fruit & meat photos are almost like Rorschach tests. People tell me they think they are so sexual, but actually, I was looking at the way nature designs flowers while I was taking these.

Hey Figgy- ever been to this place in Jersey?

http://www.northlandz.com/

thought you'd dig it~

Keep in mind Figgy, that flowers themselves can be quite sexual in design. In your works, the man made objects add a "clinical" touch of man fucking around with nature.

I see a connection between these and your miniature set pieces.

Man. Discovery. Exploitation. Sometimes frogs.

IMHO of course! [img]smile.gif[/img]

"These fruit & meat photos are almost like Rorschach tests. People tell me they think they are so sexual, but actually, I was looking at the way nature designs flowers while I was taking these.

It's funny, waaay back when I was in High School, one of our art projects was to do a big mural on a hallway wall.
My team did a pear/apple combination fruit cut in half..........
with a flower growing out of it...........

Deemed very perverse, we got back from a vacation to find it painted over!


[img]biggrin.gif[/img]

<font color="#cd6600" size="1">[ February 11, 2004 11:57 AM: Message edited by: Street Worm ]</font>

Wow !!!!! The 'meat' pics are even more amazing than the 'fruit' ones.

I give you Georgia O'Keefe. [img]wink.gif[/img]

Back in the day, I was thinking about it like this- flowers are designed to attract; ideally it is insects pollinating them, but humans and all sorts of animals are attracted to them because of thier design.

Street Worm, I have heard of that place before. Never been there, but was looking for that site for a while. Thanks!

Killer work man - this stuff absolutely blows me away! Very innovative, very original - amazing use of media!

Stellar work!!! [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img]

Figgy...what about the co-op piece we did together?

I dig those first two meat shots there- extra props for displaying some mixed media art, Fig!

Your stuff rocks Fig!

Quote:

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Originally posted by pairadocs:
Killer work man - this stuff absolutely blows me away! Very innovative, very original - amazing use of media!

Stellar work!!! [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img]

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">yeah, that's what i've been tryin' to say [img]eek.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img]

Wow [img]eek.gif[/img]

Amazing, Simply. fucking amazing!