Artist Post #3

Invader is a French street artist who pastes characters inspired by the game Space Invader on buildings. He uses tiles to form small mosaics, which look like 3D pixels on a bitmap. He will paste them in cities all over the world and then he will call it an "invasion" and place where to find each work in books or maps. Because the Space Invader game was done at such a low resolution, the images it produced had large visible pixels, like those of the small video game landscapes we created one of our first classes. Like I said earlier, these characters can be easily reproduced with square tiles which represent pixels. Placement of these space invaders is not trivial. Each one is placed meticulously, whether it be conceptual or purely for aesthetics. Sometimes Invader enjoys hiding the works and sometimes he enjoys placing them where many people will view them. In one city in southern France, Montpellier, he placed his space invaders so that when they were viewed on a map they created one giant space invader. Invader has another project that he also works on called "Rubikcubism" where he created works from Rubik's Cubes. Though I couldn't find much on how exactly he produces these rubikcubism works, from pictures I have seen, like the one below, of the process, it appears as though he is working from an image created on the computer, which I assume to be done in photoshop. I assume it to be done in photoshop since photoshop breaks everything down into pixels, which is what the squares on a Rubik's Cube ultimately are.

rubikcubism

                                                                     space invaders

space invader

Though his work is not complex, I do still think it is genuinely good art, and it is certainly original. The striking bright, and mainly primary colors really evoke a feeling of excitement. His choice of color also could be because it allows his work to stand out on the neutral colored background of a city. I feel as though his concept of an invasion is very relevant to the art he practices because street art is in a way an "invasion," since you are pasting work on something that isn't yours. Since art is becoming so much more accessible, in part because of digital art programs like photoshop and illustrator, I feel as though there will be an invasion of art greater than we have ever had before.

cool website with a bunch of his work!
INFO CITATION

Artist Post #2

Drew Rios is an apparel designer for Nike, a graphic designer at Toho Water Authority, and a graphic designer also at Fahrenheit Ultra Lounge & Restaurant. In the past he has worked with graphic design in the music industry. He received training in digital art at Ringling School of Art and Design. His specialties in digital art include music branding, print design, and type design. I discovered this artist on a site called Society 6. Society 6 sells prints of different artists' works and each artist has their own profile where they can post their different works and give brief descriptions of their works or descriptions of the inspiration for the work. This is a link to Drew Rios' profile. I was immediately drawn to this work of Rios because of spacey elements he used in it.

Earthrise

Drew calls this work a "tribute poster to the first image of earth from the moon." I find the mysterious mood created by the color pallet and haziness to be very relevant to the mystery surrounding space when the first picture of the earth was taken from the moon. This is the picture of earth which Drew is referencing in his work: Earth  

I interpret the texture Drew has created in the Earthrise to be some sort of replication of the texture of the moon in the original photograph. One thing I take issue with in Earthrise is Rios' way of showing the magnificence of earth. He takes a very obvious approach to showing magnificence by placing the beams of sparkling white light in a frame around earth. In the original photograph there is this natural and subtle magnificence that I wish Rios could have captured in Earthrise. I believe he was on the right track with his color pallet and texture but the added beams of light don't sit well with me in their artificial framing. However, I should explain that much of Drew's works have a 1980's vibe to them which he discusses briefly under some works. This could be why he incorporated the striking beams of light. Also, with his background in graphic design for products, it was natural for him to frame the main object of the work so that the eye is immediately drawn to what he wishes you to view first. 

Astroknot

Seeds of Mars

These are just two more of his works. Astroknot is an example of another 80's/space inspired work. Seeds of Mars is much like an early botanical drawing which he incorporated comets into to humorously suggest that the earth was "seeded with the DNA of martians."

project 1