Pixar animation studios - art for good /
I feel very fortunate to be part of the great northern California adventure of digital art and film. I had the opportunity to meet and work with some of the most talented people in the digital art industry, the movers and shakers of the contemporary digital art world. Recently I have been thinking more and more of the opportunity we have as artists to influence the visual advancements for the greater good and for social change in the world. I believe change happens one person and one good and one single minded intent at a time. My friend Maria Lee invited me and a few friends from the film and game industry to donate art pieces to a great cause - I was really glad to see my friends rally around and make a difference. Thanks to Maria Lee and all my friends and of course John Lasseter & Pixar who generously organized and hosted the event.
SOMA SPRING OPEN STUDIOS: APRIL 17-18, 12 noon - 6 pm @301 8th Street @ Folsom, #245 /
Good Morning and Happy Spring ! I'd like to invite you to SOMA SPRING OPEN STUDIOS: APRIL 17-18, 12 noon to 6 pm. I will be showing ink drawings on paper at site301: 301 8th Street @ Folsom, #245.
Thanks to Kathy Arnold who kindly invited me to share her studio. I will be thrilled if you can make it! For more info. please, visit http://www.somaopenstudios.org/
There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly. R. Buckminster Fuller /
The tree of Life grew out of a tiny seed drawing, about 2x2 inches. I wanted to refine a process where I would plant a seed little drawing and allow it to grow into a full piece. The top image is the very first stage of the Tree of Life, the equivalent of a lump of clay. This moment is one of the scariest in art. It's like you are standing at the edge of a cliff and wish you could close your eyes and fly away. It turns out you need to climb up instead. Actually being at that very moment is never scary for me, I enter the tunnel space of my vision and the world around me becomes absolutely perfect. I generally do have a partial tunnel vision where things don't quite register and i could, without a penalty, focus on only one thing at a time. And no, there are no drugs involved ;) i could never drink or eat when I draw, they are incompatible activities.
Most beautiful room and most beautiful painting /
A room created by an Italian designer in Rococo style and a fantastical painting by a Netherlandish painter - the spanish kings had the divine taste.
Art Mart Manifesto /
I spent days in New York looking at almost all art fairs, including The Armory, Volta, Red Dot, The Independent on 22nd street, as well as Pulse and the Art Dealers on 5th ave. Also went for the Skin Fruit show at the New Museum, The Whitney Biennale ( stunning works on paper ), MOMA - where William Kentridge had a show I have seen and completely overpowers me every time, and where Abramovich had her pre-miere. Also went to be delighted in the works on paper at the Museum of Art and Design. Just counting the number of galleries at the fairs, I saw about 350-400 galleries represented and that was just the most intense experience and very solid exchange of molecules.
As a student of art I am very interested in process. I believe the process drives the outcome of a piece and allows the artist to bring a lot of power to the surface. Seeing Picasso's experiments, trials and errors to reach the final Guernica taught me a lot about process. In fact, I spent far more time looking at Picasso's sketches and thrown away work rather than Guernica itself. Process could be many things - studying Goya's black paintings at the Prado and studying their history allowed me to see the broader reach of process, where it also includes intent, and anguish. In the black paintings Goya used printers ink and I recognized that a solid enough process allows the artist to introduce and control seemingly "random" experiments. Just like in Martial Arts, once you have done your poomse about 10,000 times you feel confident leaping around a bamboo forest. 
I also used to worry about the viability of paper as a medium but after seeing Bronzino's drawings at the Met I absolutely recognized the fact that the fragility of the paper in no way diminished the power of the line. The work was so moving and the rooms so crowded with breathtaking works that I never had that doubt again.
Most beautiful thing /
Most beautiful thing happened to me at the Met - I went looking for "the Nose" ticket from the scalpers and in the confusion got... a standing room ticket... for La Boheme. Sometimes greed and unfavorable circumstances guard the doors to most wonderful places. Seeing opera, like art, moves me beyond the obvious, profane and the mundane and, of course, the most beautiful things happened while I wasn't looking. I got to meet absolutely delightful couple art collectors from Denmark and My standing room neighbors were ardent opera fans - There was the orthopedic surgeon exchange student from Tokyo, an ardent opera lover, and on right was an IT guy from HBO.
After first act we were standing around chatting about what we thought we liked so far when a really nice couple handed us their tickets on the way out.. leaving early. My Tokyo friend and I were grateful to the really nice people and got to see the rest of La Boheme first class ! La Boheme was the most moving music and singing I heard this year so far - it inspired me beyond the visual and the sensual. The soprano was world class and Rodolfo was great too. But most of all, I got too see the power of high class art to turn a "light" story into a grand excursion of the imagination and emotion.
Before.. and after:)
Exquisite Corpse I - The final piece /
More about the Exquisite Corpse history and origins:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exquisite_corpse
More about our collaborative process: http://absurdasart.blogspot.com/
Exquisite Corpse /
Black and sepia Ink Drawing on Hot Pressed Board, 30x40 inches. The Corpse gave me a chance to collaborate with a group of awesome artists and also address the subject of the body. I have dealt with the body a lot as a photographer and this was a very different experience. To me the question of what happens to the body and what is the body is as important as what is outside of it, part of the reason i dislike ruffled backgrounds is because the substance of what is around the thing is as important and material as the thing. I am also very interested in the contact - how is the body situated in what surrounds it, since it's essentially the same matter, it's just a trick that it's invisible to the naked eye.Location: Part of a Absurdas Exquisite Corpse collaboration
Tree of Life - work in progress /
Tree of Life - beginning /
Happy New Year 2010 ! /
Earth never stopped spinning for me in 2009, it started with a beautiful dance with most dear friends in a chilly square in Sofia. We danced a horo and made merry. Since then 10 years worth of things happened, but even more things didn't happen and the latter turned out to be really important unhappenings. I can only say I didn't get enough of my family and dearest friends in 2009 so I'd love to have more in 2010. The other almost as important event was of course seeing Picasso's Guernica in the Reina Sofia in Madrid, in the last days of December. along with it seeing Picasso's process while developing his ideas for the giantic piece - it was as if seeing Michelangelo carving a slave or Bernini growing Daphne's marble tree. "Effortless" Guernica took an enormous amount of rejection to make the perfect composition. My quick iphone notes from that moment:
"Reina Sofia . Dali, Picasso, popova, Magritte , Dali:) the masters had impeccable sense for composition. Broad strokes, Dali's paintings are very detailed and full of wonder. And finally the guernica by picasso - picasso's fury monochromatic with perfect sense for composition, I crave to get closer . Odd looks a bit like a collage. Increddible. This has been such an intense day so far. Seeing picasso's process was a very special / guernica looks effortless but took a lot of preparation and study. In hindsight now i understand why Guernica looks like a collage - He worked on and developed parts individually. Can't get enough of Picasso... My back is killing me:) but I am still on the second floor."
Group exhibition at the Law School of the University of San Francisco /
Couple of my still life photographs were selected for the show on view Jan 8th till mid May, at University of San Francisco Law School, curated by Saiko Matsumaru. it really is appropriate to call this still life although I do not seek this genre on purpose, it rather becomes what it needs to be. Both pieces will be 30 wide x 20 inches tall. I have very few "still life" pieces but the ones I did are of special objects that carry a lot of meaning for me, almost in a karmic way. Both pieces have total of 5 objects in them but the objects cover a wide range of my experiences, and I brought the objects to my studio from distances ranging from half a mile to 6000 miles ( the tea cup ). The flowers are currently floating somewhere in the pacific ocean - I bought them at Dia De Los Muertos for my grandfather and dropped them off the Golden Gate with one of my drawings attached as a makeshift chute.
The cup always seems to strike people the most, but if it was just the cup, it would have been too mundane. The parking ticket on the other hand provides the "rage" plane that lifts the cup from the mundane and into the iconic plane. These are just some after thoughts... at the time I was mildly dismayed but much more excited about the color at play.
I was chosen for ArtSpan's Selections 2010 /
Selections 2010, ArtSpan's prestigious biennial juried exhibition will feature 20 SF Open Studios artists at California Modern Gallery, 1035 Market Street, in January. Selections 2010 will be juried by artist Ray Beldner, author and arts writer Alison Bing, and director of California Modern Gallery Inga Fischer. Exhibition Opening Reception: Thursday, January 14, 2010 (free and open to the public). Exhibition Dates: January 7 - 22, 2010. It's still very interesting to me.. when I draw and when I go around taking photographs, my body and my energy are at very different levels, I feel as if I jump to and from quantum-like states going from one activity to the other. Drawing is very still and I feel perfect calm and I understand all, and everything in the universe makes sense. When I go out with my camera it's constant excitement and fascination, as if i see things for the very first time. I marvel at very tiny details or at very big details, and I try to understand the world and steal pieces of it via the lenses.
Christmas /
I will spend Christmas in the Netherlands again, although for a very short amount of time and afterward I am heading to Madrid to study at the Prado, mostly to look at Hieronymus Bosch work, hope it's not travelling somewhere. Especially interested in The Garden of Earthly Delights, the museum site says it's in room 56, so I'll be there.
Slices of a Mountain /
Battle of Hoth /
I had a great time working on Star Wars: The force Unleashed - Ultimate Sith Edition. The Empire Strikes Back was my favorite episode from the original trilogy and I was in my childhood heaven working on the battle of Hoth as an Environment lead of an awesome team. ATATs, Snowspeeders, X-Wings, Wampas.. the latest provided a bit of a comic relief and enormous fun to do.
