This image is a continuation of The Sigils Series, begun in 2008, where I projected abstract symbols onto figure models.

My conception of it relates to our interactions with other people, about how often we are filtering the person present in front of us through our preconceived notions, abstract concepts, and thoughts about them rather than more directly relating to them. Psychology’s concept of projection is also another interpretation I’ve toyed with. The link above has a more thorough artist statement.

The idea is to recreate religious imagery of the plethora of Gods in the Hindu religion and perhaps some of the saints from Catholicism. I’m thinking in particular of the kitschy imagery on candles to be used on altars of the Hispanic flavor of the Catholic tradition.

I’m also using “India Bazaar” as reference, which has a great vintage look.

I’m not going to try to be ironic and clever as some sort of statement about religion, but rather to try and create vivid & enchanting imagery with current technology in this rich tradition. I won’t replicate the look of the pastel and airbrushed colors but try to make some really photo-realistic representations of the Gods and Goddesses.

I’ll be using the green screen I have set up in my studio space at tockwotten so I can make the backgrounds in post-production.

http://picasaweb.google.com/jay.gidwitz/PinUpsProjects#

I would shoot the photographs in front of green screen and then create the (usually sparse) environment in photoshop and then import the image into Painter X to make it look more like an organically painted image.

I would not just be recreating the look of pin-up illustrations, though; I want the models to have the “look” of belonging to various sub-cultures: hipsters, goth, with tattoos or mohawks etc. (Which I can do in photoshop afterwards if necessary).

The images would still be relatively tame to modern standards; the “oh golly!” look on the model’s face as for some reason a little bit of thigh or bum was being revealed, as was that style of illustration.

Or feel free to comment on the concept below.

Surrealist nude female figure expressing time and decay

I finally got a decent picture of this model finished.

Most of the pictures I made from this photoshoot received little acclaim. Richard Fishman actually liked this image!

Yay!!

In progress artist’s statement for “interacting | processing”.

sigil n.

1. A seal; a signet.

2. A sign or an image considered magical.

A sigil can be understood as a symbol for a concept, complex meaning, or family seal representing the values that a family considers most important.
In the western esoteric tradition, practitioners created a symbol based on a statement of intent or something s/he wanted and then performed a ritual to attain a specific result.

In psychology we understand that we as humans filter our experience and derive meaning through the beliefs and preconceived notions we hold to create meaning from an overwhelming amount of sensory data. Other filtering processes exist at an evolutionary level, a cultural level, and an individual level.

Through certain filtering processes a person can create an “impoverished map” and unconsciously limit themselves or derive meanings and interpretations that simply aren’t there.

While the filters the brain uses to make sense of the world are not thoroughly understood at the level of neuroscience and how this is occurring in the brain, Neuro-Linguistic Programming provides a useful model for how this is occurring in the mind. So while we objectively don’t understand it, we can still influence it subjectively.

Meta-programs are the processes by which we as humans sort multiple generalizations. The simple meta-programs are taken from the Myers-Briggs type indicator, although NLP considers these processes to be malleable rather than hereditary.

Other meta-programs include: proactive / reactive, moving towards / moving away from, in-time / through-time, sameness / difference, match / mismatch, self / other, and the representational systems.

Understanding the processes we use to make sense of reality are as important as knowing what is occurring, as much as that is possible.

Duchamp’s “Large Glass” suggests transparency, but allows the viewer none through the abstracted nature of the work. Instead of looking through a window onto the world, the viewer sees something incomprehensible, and is left with only his thoughts and more questions, and nothing to hold onto.

One of my pieces got in!

The Winners’ Exhibition opens Sunday, May 4th at 7:00pm (Rome time) on artromgallery.com.

The picture was an unpublished image from the Erich Zann posters.

After acquiring a room full of stuff the next stage was to decide what to do with it, and then to compose the work, and create more work from that.

The chance operations component in a sense was a use of surrealist techniques where random actions are performed and then the artist produces work using that with the potential of creating “happy accidents,”
or “synchronicity,” or “resonance,” (or insert analogous word from the philosophy of your choice here.)

And by using chance operations the artist can incorporate elements into the work that s/he would have never consciously chosen or come up with–in the hopes of creating truly unique combinations.

See “cut-up technique,” and”aleatory.”

Click one of the images to see the gallery.