Digital Artist: Stjepan Šejić

Stjepan Šejić
(click for full view)

Stjepan Šejić is a Croatian comic book artist currently working as an illustrator for Top Cow's comic book Witchblade. Before comics, he wanted to become a lawyer, and worked as night lifeguard at a public beach. He later began to think about drawing comics. Šejić was mainly inspired by Italian comic book titles before he stumbled upon a copy of Witchblade. He became fond of the characters and the artistic style, which lent inspiration to his own. His artwork is created with a combination of Photoshop and Z-Brush.


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Grace Cavalieri

Art Experience: Meadows Museum

As an artist, one is expected to step outside their own work and experience the world; this includes attending museums. For me, a relatively poor student with no transportation, the Meadows Museum here on the SMU campus was an ideal spot to stop by and observe. I went there with the intention to find contemporary work, drawing directly from Shag.

Welcoming me to the museum, sitting proudly, rests Sho (2007) by Jaume Plensa.

This wire piece forms a human head and the contours of the eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. I unfortunately attended the Meadows Museum on a cloudy day, as this piece is most stunning at night with spotlights shining on and underneath it. I am very impressed at the size of this work and all the effort that must have been put into it.
The human head is an incredibly familiar object, one that many beginning artists get tripped up on as they struggle to document every tiny detail that makes up what we call a face. Sho takes all the technicalities out of it, leaving just the bumps, creases, and valleys that shape a face. This kind of simplification is a critical part of contemporary work to me, and I found myself instantly drawn in.

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The Circus (1937), Joan Miro

Upon locating the contemporary section of the museum, I was struck by the bright colors and interesting forms of Miro's piece. While I'm most fond of bold colors, the cloudiness interrupted by the solid black lines really appealed to me. Not only that, but I am incredibly attracted to all shades of blue so the variety of hues and the way they play together make me love this piece as both a contemporary work and personal choice.

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Portrait of Mari (1958), Antonio Saura

In my Rhetoric class, we were told to write a paragraph about the inherent tragedy in one of the artworks in the Meadows Museum. I had picked Saura's painting, as I read a story of anger and loss in the heavy lines in this piece. Even now, the visceral strokes and almost rebellious drip lines speak of a deeper meaning than just something abstract. The colors of the strokes almost fade to white towards the center of the piece, a reason or meaning for I cannot divine. My appreciation for this painting is something inner that I have yet to be able to figure out how to explain.

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Cubist Landscape (1917), Juan Gris

Finally, I found a more traditional interpretation of the contemporary cubist style. Buildings, trees, earth and sky all meld together in an almost cut-out like fashion I found quite similar to Banksy. The solid colors firmly state what shapes they are taking, creating a landscape seen through cubist eyes.

As I made my way out of the museum, I glanced upon a traditional portrait of some duchess (I failed to document the title of the piece in my rush). While the face and subject were unremarkable to me, I was drawn to the details given to the ruffles around her neck.



That kind of technical skill in miniature size is something I strive for in my own artwork, so I was quite impressed and left the museum in high spirits.


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Grace Cavalieri

Art Experience: Frances Stark

Today, ASAG1601 went to the Hughes-Trigg Student Center's Pollock Gallery to investigate artist Frances Stark. She appears to use a combination of [her own definition of] carbon, gouache, rice paper, and cut-outs from a variety of sources (magazines, posters, et cetera). However, I will not be writing about her media or usage thereof. Instead, this post will document my interpretations of three of her pieces in the installation.

"Unfortunately nothing is so hard to achieve as a literary representation of a man thinking."

This piece immediately stood out to me not as two circles with repeating English letters to form a sentence, but an ASCII image. Upon further inspection, the the reality and my initial thought are not mutually exclusive. The circles created by the placement of the letters are indeed a form of ASCII art, and as such incredibly scientific and regulated.
As for the sentence itself, it almost feels like Stark is lamenting her inability to document one's thought process. However, as everything is done intentionally, so too were the letters put there for a purpose. To me, it screams "circular thinking." Going around and around, repeatedly, with no forseeable end: is that not a representation of a man thinking, if not literary than visually?

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One's first impression is that of a metallic chrysanthemum. Look closer and you'll find each little piece of this flower is individually cut and bound together. Not only is this form visually stunning - both the flower itself and the paper it rests on shines/sparkles in the light - but seems to speak of a deeper meaning. In this I read of a segmented person attached to form a whole. Many different pieces make up a whole person, after all.

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A Particular Wavelength

I required no time to ponder my thoughts on this installation: I knew immediately what image it invoked in my mind, and the variety of meanings behind it. Right off the bat, I saw a similarity in the format of this piece and the computer process of defragmentation, a process that attempts to free up space by compacting files and reduce fragmenting. So we start with the concept of organization and reduction in scattered thoughts, but this artwork holds more than just that.



Stepping a bit closer reveals many rows of yellow icons - a representation of a piece of paper with a "w" overlaid. I have desaturated the photo to allow a clearer view of the icon.
Combining the idea of a desire for more, free space with icons upon icons of what is almost a representation of a Microsoft Word document, results in a powerful interpretation: there have been many a false start, and it has come time to start to erase and overwrite these dead-ends - to begin anew.


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Grace Cavalieri

Digital Artist: Sarah Ellerton

Sarah Ellerton
(click for full view)

Sarah Ellerton is an Australian IT worker, but began her obsession with graphic novels with Inverloch, a 760-page comic completed in 2007. She has been author and artist to two of her own comics (Inverloch and Phoenix Requiem), as well as artist to a third (Dreamless). All of her artwork is created in Painter and Photoshop on a PC with a Wacom drawing tablet.


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Grace Cavalieri

Essential: Banksy

Banksy
(click for full view)

Banksy is the pseudonym of a British graffiti artist, political activist and painter whose identity is unconfirmed. His satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine irreverent dark humor with graffiti done in a distinctive stenciling technique. Such artistic works of political and social commentary have been featured on streets, walls, and bridges of cities throughout the world.
Banksy's works have dealt with an array of political and social themes, including anti-war, anti-capitalism, anti-fascism, anti-imperialism, anti-authoritarianism, anarchism, nihilism, and existentialism. Additionally, the components of the human condition that his works commonly critique are greed, poverty, hypocrisy, boredom, despair, absurdity, and alienation.


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Grace Cavalieri

Art Experience: Grace Cavalieri

Grace Cavalieri
(click for full view)

Grace Cavalieri is a poet and playwright who has published 15 volumes of poetry and more than 20 plays. She continues to actively write and publish in Maryland. Cavalieri produces a weekly radio show at the Library of Congress entitled "The Poet and the Poem," heard nationally on public stations around the country. Her poems evoke strong visuals and deep emotions. A sample of her work can be found here.


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Grace Cavalieri

Essential: Shag (Josh Agle)

Shag (Josh Agle)
(click for full view)

Josh Agle (better known as Shag, a contraction of the last two letters of his first name and the first two letters of his last) is a painter, illustrator and designer working in southern California.
His paintings celebrate consumerism and consumption on vividly colored, sharply rendered panels; the characters drink, smoke and eat in lavish, stylish surroundings. Most of his paintings are set in the middle of a story or situation -- characters are interacting and reacting to each other and to outside events. Agle doesn't offer too many clues about the stories, preferring that the viewer create his or her own narratives to fit the situations.


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Grace Cavalieri