Monday, January 30, 2012

Scanned Images (with edits)



TEDDY BEAR <3

 
                                                                                BELT

                                              HALF BUNNY FROM EASTER EGG HUNT
                                           RUSSELL STOVER CHOCOLATE CONTAINER

                                                            CHUCK E. CHEESE TICKET

                                                                        EARRINGS

                                                         JEWELRY CONTAINER TOP

                                                               MAGNIFYING GLASS


                                                                            MINERAL

                                                                         TURTLE

First Pixel Sketch


Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Joseph Scheer: Moths - Enhancing Art

http://www.artnet.com/artists/joseph-scheer/artworks-for-sale




Joseph Scheer is famous for his works in print and on the web.  He has employed technology to enhance nature in how one views it and how one thinks of it.  He is known for his prints of moths.  He worked with a technical speciality, Klingensmith, who provided Scheer with the scanner responsible for capturing three-dimensional images of moths (National Geographic).  The special scanner can take up to 20 minutes to scan a single moth, resulting in high pixel images and expansive data files.

In this prints, one is able to see moths at high resolution.  Detail is visible that may not even be visible to the naked eye.  His prints are blown up to over 30" large and sold.  It truly is an enhancement of nature.  Joseph spends a great deal of time perfecting each picture, keeping the actual moth in view as he edits the digital files of the moth.  He does this so the picture is a fair representation of the actual moth (National Geographic).

When one thinks of a moth, one does not think "beauty".  I think of insects that are on my door and fly into my house.  Joseph captures the beauty of a moth, and the detail of its structure, in a way nobody had before him.  What I admire most about the prints are that they are so realistic.  With photoshop and other digital tools, it is quite simple to enhance an image to make it more vibrant and appealing, even if it is already appealing in the first place.  For instance, the picture of the dragonfly on this page is attractive.  The original was attractive and received many compliments (credit to Matthew Wise) but I enhanced it to look even more vibrant and sharp.  Joseph does not enhance his moth pictures in the slightest.  He works to preserve their natural form, enhancing them so that people can see and appreciate the moth better, but not striving to make it look falsely beautiful.  With all the available options of enhancement in this day and age, I think it's commendable and the thing I appreciate most about his art.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Can Henne: E Paintings

"My passion is to raise awareness that there is much more than meets the eye.  There is an incredible power within color and form, not only to entertain us, but to lift our emotions and moods, but there is this amazing ability to transfer information.  In fact, that's what's going all the time.  We may not even be aware of it, but that's what's happening." - Can Henne

Can is a diverse artist, responsible for creating digital works, paintings, installations, video art, and sculptures.  He is also the director of the Pink Gallery in Berlin.  For a number of years, Can has been experimenting with photography and painting.  Originally, Can had intended this artwork to include photo cutouts and color.  This artwork has evolved into what he calls his E Paintings.  Can thinks of his computer monitor as a canvas, using the photo cutouts as he originally intended but using digital means to paint in the same piece of art.  He also scans real paint into some of his E Paintings.

Each of the E Paintings is very abstract in nature.  There are innumerable layers to each work, all with a different opacity so some aspects of the E Painting are obvious, where others have to be focused on for a long time in order to see what is truly there.  Each E Painting is filled with vivid colors that draw the eyes, distinctive shapes standing out in each one.  His E Painting, "Finally Arrived", viewable in section 11 was especially interesting to me just because this title is more ambiguous than the rest.  It left me with the question of "Where have I arrived?", as it seems Can's E Paintings are meant to appeal in different ways to a variety of people.

The "Finally" in the title implies wherever one is arriving has been desired for some time.  In the E Painting, one is able to view stars and moon, appealing to those with a scientific background.  In the bottom left hand corner, I see a city and I think of the Emerald City in the Wizard of Oz.  Just above the city, I see a faint image of Tree, which would appeal to those who believe in God or have a strong religious background.  Perhaps the faintest image in the entire E Painting that I see is a house, the peak of it visible in the sky.  This E Painting could be of finally arriving home, reaching success in another form, or dying.  I believe the colors in "Finally Arrived" are meant to draw upon emotions, red and yellow being emphasized perhaps to evoke a sense of hope, joy, or love.  Perhaps the mixture of the familiar and grounded and abstract and foreign is meant to draw upon a human beings mixed/contrasting feelings towards death, or finally arriving.

The ambiguous nature of his E Paintings is what I think truly makes them strong.  All of them are strongly distorted in one way or another, allowing for anyone who views them to pick up on select parts of the E Painting of which to identify.  His use of distinct colors and shapes, and how they intermingle, has the capability to leave the viewer with a certain emotion.  One may not even be able to describe what she feels when viewing each E Paintings, but Can definitely achieves his goal (as cited in the first quote).  The viewer is able to feel something towards each painting and cannot deny that there are multiple level to the experience which may not always be interpreted.