Examples of my Artwork

Hello, please feel free to browse around a collection of some of my works 🙂  Many of these were paintings and drawings done by hand, either with graphite or acrylics.

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Conducted some comic workshops in college

Steam Punk Oil painting

 

 

 

 

Powerman 500 fan tribute; color pencils, paint, ink

Comic drawing

 

Spiderman; pen

Geek Out Art reception and Happy Hour: Friday, October 18, 2013 6:00pm

Hey everyone! I’m having an official Art show reception in Brooklyn. My work ranges from oil paintings to figure drawings, all inspired by the best things in life: science, comics and video games. My work will be up after October 3rd, but this is the official reception.

The venue itself is really great and serves drinks based on physics concepts!

http://southslopenews.com/blog/food/welcome-supercollider-4th-ave-cafebar-officially-open

Come enjoy some drinks and free prizes!

How Graphics can affect the way we read and interpret an article

I’m sure most people are familiar with “Facebook” and the many features the application boasts. We live in an age where communication is encouraged through social media. It’s far easier to find people, send messages and tag your friends in embarrassing photos from last night’s party, all in the same place.

Google has decided to join the forces of online interaction with “Google+”. The new networking system allows users to add friends to specific circles, thus for easier privacy settings. I came across a great article on CNN.com that mentioned how most users for the site are male. *The Graphics used for the article simply shows the logo for the Google+ site, simple and informative.

(You can read the article here:   http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/social.media/07/15/google.plus.male.mashable/index.html?hpt=te_bn12). 

It claimed that this is what happens when you combine technology (male dominated “relevant to interest”) category with “nerdy people that have the free time, mine as well”. The statistics had been rendered through some website and I found the result to be amusing. I personally know plenty of female users for the Google+, but I’ve never conducted a survey of the user group <_<

Shortly after having read the first article, I came across a second one that tried to restate the data: (http://www.businessinsider.com/women-on-google-plus-2011-7?hpt=te_pr)

The article stated “There are more women on Google+ than we originally thought”.  It basically said that the statistical data may have been a bit exaggerated.

*The Graphic displayed for this article depicts a man holding a bunch of sausages in his hands. The Graphic has sexual innuendo which is humorous in nature. The intention of the Graphic is to allude to an overwhelming sense of male presence in one specific area. 

I have nothing against the nature of the second Graphic, simply found the jump between informative to metaphor interesting.There’s quite a gap between simple logos to just food!

 

I find it fascinating the way in which our brains register pictorial information. These articles are a great example of how a Graphic can set the tone of the article, implying either a “serious” and “technical” approach or something the reader should regard as “light-hearted.” Seeing as the second article is about correcting an error, a humorous approach is better suited for smoothing over the data.

Puffing vs. Pictures… will new graphic warnings affect how people see smoking cigarettes?

The Food and Drug administration introduced 9 new graphic warning labels for cigarettes, an attempt to further regulate tobacco products.

 

As seen, the labels are obvious about their warnings, and very graphic (no pun intended.) The rules implied are:

The warnings will cover the upper portion of the pack both front and back.

Fifty percent of the package must be covered.

The warnings must also cover at least 20% of a cigarette ad.

Each warning will also have a phone number — 1-800-QUIT-NOW

The labels are meant to encourage smokers to quit, and the n

ew packaging will be issued by Sept 2012.

The reason for this change? The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (FSPTCA) mandated better graphics to inform the public about smoking dangers. It’s the first change the tobacco industry has seen in 25 years. The Government will also not lose money from enforcing the rule since Tobacco industry will have to shell out money for the change.

Canada, Brazil and Australia have long been leaders in tobacco control and have had very graphic art on their packaging for years.

While I am glad the Tobacco industry has new graphics that will be “easier” to communicate ideas to the public, I’m still frustrated with other things. Of course you could just go ahead and legalize other “drugs” if you’re so concerned about the public health…..but that is an argument for another day.

Fine Arts and the Gaming Industry

I’ve always been a huge fan of really amazing gamer concept art, and the gaming industry is full of talent. Video games can provide a virtual playground for the user.

Take one of my favorite games, Bioshock, for example. The underwater city  of Rapture is visually stunning; the artistic details of the game breathe life into a new world.

Here is a link to the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lmw78t8NgIE&feature=related

Bioshock of course comes with it’s own large book of concept art that can be bought online (although it’s fairly expensive.)

E3 is a huge gaming expo in Los Angeles, where art galleries are proud to display gamer art. An exhibition titled “Into the Pixel” attempts to break that barrier between what is considered fine arts and computer games. It’s a show that is taken seriously through jury selection. 

An example of one of the works is “Cronos Battle,” from last year’s “God of War III.

 The Smithsonian Institution will be opening “The Art of Video Games” which is pretty amazing.

This is all very relevant to my nerdy interests :p

 

3-D printers to become mainstream home item

(Article found at CNNMoney—-http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/03/technology/3D_printers/index.htm?iid=HP_LN)

3-D printers have existed for quite awhile, according to CNNMoney for over twenty years. The machines themseleves are expensive, costing multimillions and only till recently utilized for automobile and aerospace companies.

Could these machines alter the way we live on a daily basis? The vice president of global engineering for 3D Systems. Rajeev Kulkarni claims that printers can be bought for $1,000.  I’ve known 3D printers to exist in industrial manufactoring, but it would be amazing to see them on a consumer scale.

Imagine being able to create 3D materials and objects right in your own home :p

Agriculture Department replaces food pyramid with “My Plate” symbol

From Washington, the Agriculture Department decided to simplify the symbol for nutrition with a “My Plate” visual that will replace the USDA’s food pyramid. Complaints about the food pyramid included it being “…tired out, overly complex and tried to communicate too many different nutrition facts at once….”

The new symbol is meant to be more familiar and associated with meal times. The USDA center for Nutrition and Policy and Promotion also wants to incorporate social media tools to communicate information to a larger audience.

Robert Post of USDA’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion  said the new chart is designed to be “more artistic and attractive” and to serve as a visual cue for diners.

Gone are any references to sugars, fats or oils, and what was once a category called “meat and beans” is now simply “proteins.” Next to the plate is a blue circle for dairy, which could be a glass of milk or a food such as cheese or yogurt.

In addition to telling people to drastically reduce salt and continue limiting saturated fats, the most recent set of guidelines asked diners to enjoy food but balance calories by eating less and taking smaller portions.

VS.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Analysis:

There are a few ideas at work here I would like to point out, first being the power of visual communication. Symbols can certainly change people’s attitudes towards a certain idea. While the information displayed by the food pyramid may be similar to that of a plate, people might respond better to what they are familiar with. The plate is a much more literal suggestion of how a meal is to be prepared. We can clearly see how information can better be given when visual cues are changed.

We can also understand perhaps an overwhelming need for Americans to re-evaluate their dietary needs. I’m not sure what it says overall in terms of the American public intelligence to follow a pyramid, but still I can appreciate the change.

Bean-Bag Toss Boards for the Lafayette Art Museum

On June 17th, the Lafayette Art Museum will auction off unique bean-bag toss boards, painted by local artists. The Auction will take place after a barbecue dinner at the Fowler House.
Although I’ve been pretty busy with moving to Indianapolis for the summer, I thought it’d be awesome to work on one more art project. I volunteered to paint a set of boards, and they came out quite nice. I decided to keep it simple and repeat the circle shape in the form of Swiss cheese, with mice for accents :p

 

Impressionist Claude Monet’s triptych finally reunited after 30 years!

http://www.artdaily.com/index.asp?int_new=44635&int_sec=2

KANSAS CITY, MO.- For the first time in more than 30 years, all three panels of a remarkable water lily triptych by the preeminent Impressionist Claude Monet will be on view together, from April 9 to Aug. 7, at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. The exhibition reunites the right-hand panel, from the Nelson-Atkins collection, with panels owned by the Saint Louis Art Museum and the Cleveland Museum of Art. The three were last exhibited together in 1979. With the exception of a triptych in New York’s Museum of Modern Art, this is the only Monet triptych in the United States.

“What this show does is it puts our Monet in context,” said Ian Kennedy, Louis L. and Adelaide C. Ward Curator, European Painting and Sculpture at the Nelson-Atkins. “This will be a much more intimate experience of his work than what you normally get in museums. It’s a very focused experience of Monet, without distractions, and you get to see the paintings as he intended them to be seen—not separated and surrounded by other pictures.”

Without doubt, Monet (1840-1926) was the most important of all the Impressionist painters, and his water lily paintings represent the culmination of his career, dominating the last decades of his life. “These landscapes of water and reflection have become an obsession for me,” he wrote to a friend in 1909. “It is beyond my strength as an old man, and yet I want to render what I feel.”

Monet’s famous garden at his home in Giverny provided the inspiration for these and all of his water lily paintings, and the exhibition will bring to life the importance and beauty of this garden—and the artist’s passion for it—through a range of archival photographs, as well as an early, rarely seen film from 1915, showing Monet painting outdoors in his garden.

It is believed that Monet began work on these three massive canvases, each measuring approximately 7 feet by 14 feet, in 1915 and continued to rework them in his studio at Giverny until his death more than 10 years later.

“We don’t even know for sure whether he considered them finished,” said Simon Kelly, who, as curator of modern and contemporary art at the Saint Louis Art Museum and former associate curator of European painting and sculpture at the Nelson-Atkins, has been working on this exhibition for more than three years.

A major focus of Monet’s Water Lilies will be revelatory conservation work that highlights the extent to which the artist—widely thought of as a spontaneous painter—obsessively changed his composition over the years. Through x-ray imaging, light boxes, and computerized cross-sections, conservators have discovered more about Monet’s changes. For example, beneath a cluster of water lilies on the Nelson-Atkins canvas, conservators found the image of an agapanthus plant that Monet suppressed halfway through painting it. An x-ray of the agapanthus will be part of the exhibition.

“The exhibition will explore the whole issue of process, really giving us a sense of how Monet worked, how he built up his paint layers,” Kelly said.

In a separate, dedicated space, the paintings themselves will be displayed with side panels at slight angles to recreate something of the panoramic experience of the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris where several of Monet’s water lily triptychs are mounted.

“Monet painted these in the panoramic tradition, but with no horizon line, so it’s an internalized psychological panorama,” Kennedy said. “We want people to contemplate, to become completely submerged in the experience. There will even be background music as visitors enter the main display so people will have this meditative, almost yoga-like experience looking at the pictures.”

After the exhibition premieres at the Nelson-Atkins, it will travel to the Saint Louis Art Museum in the fall of 2011, before showing at the Cleveland Museum of Art at a date to be confirmed.

Fine Arts Senior Show (Purdue)

It’s been pretty hectic as of late with finals coming up. I had one portfolio review for Life Drawing II, and two more to go.
Recently my work has been in the senior show and can be seen in the background of the Journal and courier :p Here is the link to it!

http://www.jconline.com/article/20110422/ENT15/104220306/Purdue-Fine-Arts-seniors-present-one-their-biggest-shows-ever