VECTOR EXPERIMENT: AMERICAN BANDANA (STONEWASHED)

 

VECTOR EXPERIMENT: SHEET METAL II

 

(MORE) POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE

I always draw them individually, and never refer to previous compositions, so it's intriguing to see that they could potentially be joined up to make one piece of art.

VECTOR EXPERIMENT: BLOC PARTY

 

VECTOR EXPERIMENT: INDUSTRIAL NOUVEAU

 

STAIRWAY TO NEVER

Below: Abstract Photo Collage Composition, 2018

Below: Abstract Vector Composition June 2021, based on elements in my painting STEALTH ( 2016 )

Below: Abstract Photo Collage Composition, 2018

EXPERIMENTAL COMPOSITION

HOMAGE TO JAPAN: SKY/EARTH/CLOUDS 

Abstract Vector Composition:

Real-world paint strokes digitized,

recoloured and recomposed.

JUNE ONLINE EXHIBITION: POSTCARD COMPOSITIONS FEATURED AT DAPHNE FRANCIS GALLERY

 To be featured throughout the month of June 2021. 

https://www.daphnefrancisgallery.co.uk/

Above: Pen & ink postcard art ( closeup, edit )

Above: Pen & ink postcard art ( closeup, edit )

DAOU INDEX

FOUND ON MY HARD DRIVE: One of my all-time favourite music artists is Vanessa Daou, a highly influential and still-potent pioneer of jazz-inflected dance electronica. I've been corresponding with Vanessa ever since her debut masterpiece ZIPLESS in the mid-90s, and I even did an article about her in my magazine, MONOBLOG.

A while back I sent her this rough idea after seeing this beautifully abstract selfie on her Facebook page. I thought it had great potential as a vinyl album cover and wanted to draw her attention to it.

Credit/Source: Vanessa Daou

A quick, snappy placeholder title, ( her name is just too good a source for plays on words ), and then a run through some typefaces and five minutes later you have the finished (as-yet non-existent) shrink-wrapped product. 

I love it, and only now have I noticed that the typeface has a 'legacy-automotive' theme that's appropriate for the photo. Hot!

DISTANCED MEMORIES - LOCKDOWN 2020 DIARY IN iPHONE THUMBNAILS / PT. 2

19 - 25 APRIL 2020

Books read: Writing With Hitchcock by Steven DeRosa & The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris

Notable events: First bike rides of lockdown; Blue bells explode across the countryside; elsewhere, my favourite plant, the ceanothus, also appears as a huge bush outside local church.

25 APRIL - 02 MAY 2020

Notable events: Blue colours begin to get replaced by the colours of summer; Caterpillar; Crops growing; Lots of bike rides in deserted countryside. 

Saved to iPhone ( below ) Additional Thumbnails: Friend's cat relaxing in the sun; Scene outside sister's apartment, Madrid, mid-May - kids let out of apartments for the first time. Dad stands by while kid climbs nearest tree.

TALES FROM THE 'CRIPTO' - MY FIRST NON-FUNGIBLE TOKEN ART

A few weeks ago, the Spanish-speaking world's premiere cryptocurrency commentator, speculator and all-round professor Juan en Cripto, asked me to create some artwork for an NFT (Non-Fungible Token ) to celebrate his achieving a milestone following of ten thousand Youtube subscribers.

After some experiments, Juan elected to go for a 'baseball-card' design for the limited edition run of ten pieces. Using blockchain technology, he will give a copy to the most loyal of his grass-roots followers, and they will each retain certified ownership of this artwork. Other reproductions could be made, but the certification that theirs is the legit artefact and not an unauthorised copy means that it may ultimately have a value like a piece of traditional, real-world art.

Of course, you can imagine that this technology will soon be applied to all digital art, and those who have legitimate proof of ownership of an original will be able to benefit from an increase in its value, and the artist will also be guaranteed a cut from any future sales.

As an arch capitalist who loves money, I can only give my wholehearted approval of this innovative and disruptive technology.

Qué es un NFT en Watafan (RSK) + SORPRESA ¿NFT GRATIS? 🎁 (2021)

DISTANCED MEMORIES - LOCKDOWN 2020 DIARY IN iPHONE THUMBNAILS / PT. 1

APRIL 2020

Notable events: Continuous blue skies; first meal in back garden; first appearance of blue and purple spring flowers.

Book read: The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Macintyre.

Additional: I spent the end of March and into April 2020 getting as much sunshine as I could, even though it was cold outside. I was very conscious of the fact that my mood would be regulated by natural light ( while adhering to the rules, obviously ). Usually this meant sitting and reading.

Luckily, in the UK we were gifted with blue skies and very favourable weather almost as soon as lockdown was announced. 

When I see these thumbnails in my iPhone, I don't even need to open the actual photographs, they represent vivid impressions of the time, and of the changing seasons during lockdown. 

...To be continued.

NEW HIEROGLYPHS - EXPERIMENTAL WORK

Digital composition features a mix of geometric vector shapes overlaid with natural real-world paintbrush strokes, vectorised.

New Hieroglyphs, Vector drawing.

GRID EXPERIMENT

Vector Art experiment. I'm not usually a fan of random painterly gestures but I do love the hard collision of amorphous shapes next to a simple grid form, as if a hole was ripped in the surface of the screen.

ALL WE HEAR IS... LADY GAGA

It was Swiss Surrealist HR Giger's birthday this week, so on social media, I reposted my 'Lady Gaga - Tribute to Giger' artwork that I did a while back (see This Week's Most Viewed, below). As a supplement to that, here's the original study of the face, which took me weeks and weeks to get right. In the end, I had to resort to geometry to properly make sure everything was in the right place (hence the grid... yes, very ironic).

 

 

[ AIR ] MILEAGE: WORK IN PROGRESS

I just found this unpublished post ( dated 21st April 2017, hence my old logo): It's one of many abstract photo compositions inspired by a stopover at Zurich Airport. Beautiful!

ALT DELETE

 Experimental vector drawing, randomly deleting parts of the composition to see what emerges.

MISTAKES & SPLATTERS

I just spent an inordinate amount of time trying to configure these paint splats and squares into something that somehow achieved a balance, while at the same time being not balanced. 

Experimental Vector Drawing, 2021

PICKING UP THE PIECES

'FLAG [INTERFERENCE PATTERN]': out-take from a vector art series, as yet unpublished.

PERIPHERAL VISIONS 02

 Below: Colony Collapse II / Vector Composition

PERIPHERAL VISIONS / 01

In the case of my 'analog' art ( canvas, paints, pencils, paper ), I've already mentioned that I rarely use sketchbooks. That is, when I start a piece of work, it's usually with the intention of getting it to a completed state ( whatever that is, it's a bit of a philosophical question ). Cont'd...

Below: Datastream Arabesque Glitch Experiments / Vector Composition

In contrast, my digital / vector art, is exactly the opposite. Each finished piece has dozens of staging points, most of which are to be found around the edge of the work space, off-screen. Re-opening a file containing not only the main piece, but all the iterations that later became the main piece, it's sometimes easy to conclude that these discarded elements and compositions can be worthy of re-examination. Sometimes they can even preferable to the artwork that I decided was the final-final version.

( Occasionally, even a discarded fragment can be worthy of inclusion, when viewed with fresh eyes after the event ).

It could be late at night, you're listening to your favourite podcast, or an album, and you are assembling and configuring shapes and forms, and editing colours, and thinking of depth and space. Sometimes you are not thinking at all, just simply throwing things around. 

What these iterations represent, are slices of time. 

Below: Datastream Arabesque Glitch Experiments / Vector Composition

All artwork on this blog, unless explicitly stated otherwise, is property of Alexi K.

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WELCOME

Yes, I'm still here. So are you. I've been very busy off the grid in 2020, using lockdown to work on other projects in other disciplines.

How has it been for you?

I want to hear from you. Due to time constraints, I don't activate the 'comment section' because I wouldn't be able to respond. However, do feel free to email me at the address below, using the subject 'blog visitor' so that I can find you in my spam folder. People who take the time to email will always get a response. Ask me anything about art: your studies, the 'art life', whatever.

Below: Sheet Metal Experiment, Vector Drawing, 2021.

Below: Sheet Metal Experiment, Vector Drawing, (detail ) 2021.