Nina's University Sketchbook, Vol 3

The summer of 2006 was quickly approaching, but I was doing a lot of drawing - today I have a mix of painting and drawing to show you - including my favourite piece that I've ever done!

This is Your Brain on Life

This is Your Brain on Life
Photoshop
This emerged from a concoction of practicing from an art anatomy book which I found in a free books pile, feeling a bit down about life, listening to Bach's "Mass in B Minor" on repeat, and feeling chained to prescriptions and television. Basically it's a lot of feelings manifested in zombies.

Ice Queen

Ice Queen
Photoshop
I throw this in the "practice" file, really - there are a lot of problems with the piece that I can see. But it was near the end of my "let's do nothing but hyper-real digital paintings" phase and I think I was starting to get burned out, hence the unfinished feeling of this. But I still like it for the story, and it's a good reminder that I have actually done quite a bit of this style. It's easy to forget! All this archive digging actually has been simultaneously inspiring and therapeutic...

Ideas are Byrning in my Mind

Ideas are Byrning in my Mind
Graphite Pencil
Ok, this is the last David Byrne reference I'll make in this series, I promise! But this piece is one of my favourite pieces that I've ever done. It has a variation of my favourite lyrics from the Talking Heads song "Crosseyed and Painless" framing the picture:

Facts are simple and facts are straight
Facts are lazy and facts are late
Facts all come with points of view
Facts don't do what I want them to
Facts just twist the truth around
Facts are living turned inside out
Facts are getting the best of them
Facts are nothing on the face of things

It plays on themes that both David Byrne and myself play on regularly in our artworks: perceptions of god and evolution, cycles of life and balance, and of course random household objects.

It's actually huge - each panel is 16" x 17" (I think?), and I designed it to be mounted very specifically. I never did manage to build the mount, but the idea is that it's basically settled on a lazy susan, propellor-style. The piece is designed to be viewed from any rotation, so I wanted the viewer to be able to rotate it and decide for themselves which way is up.

Someday I'll actually get it mounted and framed up properly. Mostly because I don't have the know-how or resources to actually create a complicated mount like that. Plus, I have no idea where I'd put it! I dreamed of it being in a gallery or museum somewhere, but at this point it's probably pretty unlikely that I'll ever have a real gallery show. But who knows?

Next week I have a nice meaty art post where I'll show you a selection of unique gifts that I made for people during my first summer back home in SF! Thanks again for stopping by to take a look and I hope you enjoy my selection of weird art!