In the Belly of the Beast: my first art exhibit (at Sweetwater Center for the Arts)

Recently one of my digital artworks, “Ocean Invasion #12: We’ve Got Crabs!” was accepted into the juried exhibit “In the Belly of the Beast” at the Sweetwater Center for the Arts in Sewickley, Pennsylvania. This past weekend was the opening reception, which was quite an exciting event for me, especially being my first such experience. I had no idea what to expect. Hell, I didn’t even know if their were general rules for what to wear (luckily there were not).

NOTE: This exhibit will be hanging at Sweetwater Center for the Arts through July 28th, 2012. So go check it out if you get the chance.

Exhibit description:

“In the Belly of the Beast

Reception: Saturday, June 30, 7:00-9:00 p.m.

The raw force of nature unleashed. The soul of a beast exposed. The sheer power of entities not made by man that humble humanity into feeling small. This exhibit will reveal the essence of the organic: plants, animals, water, earth, sky, fire. Not in the safe, controllable way people see them, but instead showing the dynamic strength and ungovernable temperament that they truly possess. Selected art will focus on Mother Earth in an unaccustomed way. Work may also express the contradiction of what is man-made versus wild.

This exhibition is juried by Cynthia Shaffer, who built her art career in New York, Chicago and Phoenix before moving to Pittsburgh in 1990. She currently divides her time between henna tattooing, teaching art, taking photographs of animals at the Butler County Humane Society, volunteering at the ARL Wildlife Center, and working on her own art. Using bones, dead bugs, stones, feathers and other natural elements, Shaffer creates intricate patterns and mandala designs that juxtapose these components. Her objective is to show the beauty in things most people find repellent. “The color of a Japanese beetle is more exquisite than I can paint. The curve of a pelvic bone is more graceful than I can design. It fascinates me.”

The opening reception of In the Belly of the Beast will be attended by Pennsylvania creatures saved by the Animal Rescue League Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, with photographs and information about their organization.”

Me and my work at the exhibit
My first presence in a juried art exhibit!

I was also incredibly lucky to have my wife and several friends there to show support (and observe the other art and eat the shrimp and meatballs and ogle the porcupine and turtle).

Me and my friends, taken through the walled mirror.
Cool 2 level layout at Sweetwater. And my friends.

An interesting side note: the building featured in my artwork (with the crabs scurrying up it) is actually the apartment building in which several friends live.

Occupants of the building in my artwork: Benjamin and the Sarahs.

Another cool aspect of the exhibit mentioned above was the fact that the Animal Rescue League was there, along with some of their rescues, including a porcupine and Eastern Box Turtles!

Porcupine rescued by the Animal Rescue League in Pittsburgh

All in all it was a wonderful experience, and I hope to do it again soon.

Exhibit handout

Featured on Symbiartica – the Scientific American art blog!

I owe a great debt of gratitude to Glendon Mellow, the excellent science artist, blogger at The Flying Trilobyte, and writer at the Scientific American science-art blog “Symbiartic“.

In his latest post at Symbiartic, he featured my recent work “Ocean Invasion #12: We’ve Got Crabs.

Science-Art Scumble #31.

So check it out, and check out Glendon’s work as well.

Thanks, Glendon!

Ocean Invasion #10: The Loggerheads Got In!

Ocean Invasion #10: The Loggerheads Got In!

Loggerhead sea turtles invade a kitchen like a a colony of ants.

This is the tenth in a series of pieces, “Ocean Invasion,” which finds ocean creatures living in absurd land habitats.

This work was modeled using Blender software. Texturing and post-processing was done using GIMP. Completion took approximately one month on and off.

Ocean Invasion #10 - Detail 1
Detail

 

Ocean Invasion #10 - Detail 2

 

Making of “Ocean Invasion”

The following images are renders of my “Ocean Invasion” series, with only the geometry visible (no textures, fur, grass, lighting).

For those of you “in the know,” these were made using approximate Ambient Occlusion on objects with the default shader, and with all objects duplicated and each duplicate object shaded with a Z-offset wire material.

there were many more images here… but they seem to have disappeared from my server. Perhaps I will attempt to replace them some day. Unlikely.