All posts by amt

Illustration Faculty and Alumni in two shows on opposite sides of the country

Events, Exhibitions, Illustration Alumni, Illustration Faculty, News, , , , , , , ,

green show logo

Green Group Exhibition
curated by Mark Murphy
November 17 – December 22, 2007

Out in sunny Santa Monica, California, Illustration adjunct faculty Jordin Isip and Illustration alums AJ Fosik & William Buzzell are part of the Mark Murphy-curated show Green, which opened this month at the Robert Berman Gallery.

Here’s an excerpt of the show’s description as well as some information about Jordin’s work (as seen below): Curator and publisher, Mark Murphy has invited 40 artists to share their inspired vision about the delicate and often aggressive intermingling of human beings with nature…At first glance, Jordin Isip’s “Know” painting looks as if he utilized thread or colored string in the central figure. Jordin reports, “It’s not thread, these “tangles,” (as I call them), are made of tiny pieces of cut paper, glued together using tweezers, with a semi-steady hand and half-bottle of patience. Sometimes it’s therapeutic—like meditation, other times—just frustrating, maddening…” Jordin is a great promoter of a huge range of artistic talent.

isip-know.jpg

By Chance Alone by Jordin Isip

See images from the opening evening of Green here and read more about the exhibition here (as well as see more images). All the way across the country…these same three gentleman are included in another Mark Murphy-curated group show called Know which opens December 6th amidst the tumult of Art Basel in Miami. Here’s the overview of the show, along with information about the William Buzzell image below: KNOW looks to introduce the fans of art and culture to more that 50 major works, 8″ x 8″ in size with various social and political themes. Curator and publisher, Mark Murphy will be on hand to introduce you to the artists who are featured in “Know” and who actively celebrate the fine art of visual story telling…William Buzzell is a Philadelphia based artist who is constantly influenced by social issues and history. Will’s latest painting, “Self Portrait as a Townie,” is an acrylic and ink painting on wood that invites close inspection and is love for library books. Will has been exhibiting since 2001 and is an emerging visual artist who continually evolves, while provoking the viewer to look deeper.

self portrait as a townie
Self Portrait as a Townie, by William Buzzell

KNOW : Art Exhibition
Curated by Mark Murphy
Art Now Fair : Art Basel Miami
Murphy Design : Booth No. 215
December 6 – 9 : 2007
Thursday – Saturday : 10 am – 8 pm :
Sunday : 10 am – 6 pm

Go here to see images from & information about all the artists involved in this exciting show.

Congrats to our faculty and alums going coast-to-coast!

John Hendrix posts drawings of “Illustration in the Age of Anxiety”

General Info, Illustration Dept. Events, , , , ,

john hendrix sketchbook

This fantastic sketchbook drawing was created by former Illustration Department Faculty member John Hendrix during our recent symposium “Illustration in the Age of Anxiety” which took place on Saturday, November 10th and featured lectures and panels by full-time faculty members Nora Krug, Ben Katchor, adjunct faculty members Ruth Marten and Tara McPherson, and legendary illustrators Ed Koren and Ed Sorel.

Visit John’s blog to see his other interpretation of the Symposium, as well as interesting tidbits on his own work and from around the Illustration field.

(Image by John Hendrix)

Illustration Faculty Member Carol Peligian in group show at Number 35

Exhibitions, Illustration Faculty, , ,

peligian wallpaper number 35

The Illustration Department’s own Carol Peligian will be part of a group show at Number 35, curated by Ron Keyson of Wallpaper LAB. Here’s an excerpt from the official press release for the show:

Monastic life in a 12th century scriptorium and artistic life in a 21st century studio converge in a contemporary exploration of the illuminated manuscript form.

Eleven artists, ten texts and Marilyn Minter’s “merry merry” tree, oscillate as one meta-installation, posing the question, “Can books, magazines, newspapers and online information still evoke resonant images?”…

The installation itself will echo the image of lines of text: The ten works to be laid out on a single white page/wall. The gallery itself is illuminated as a sign.

This is not Carol’s first project with Wallpaper LAB. She has created work for them in the past like 2006’s Avian Lux, seen below.

avian/lux peligian

 

Don’t miss this unique show and the opportunity to see Carol’s work up close and in person.

Holiday Reading
Opening, December 1, 2007
Number 35
39 Essex Street
New York, NY

(Image by Carol Peligian)

Upcoming show at Giant Robot: Adrian Tomine

Events, Exhibitions, News, Publications, , , , ,

tomine at giant robot

Illustrations and art by Adrian Tomine will be shown in a new show at Giant Robot, which opens on December 8th with a book signing. Adrian’s most recent work, Shortcomings, has garnered critical praise from all over. Here’s an excerpt from the New York Times book review:

Tomine has always been attracted to love gone wrong among the hesitant young men and women of the bourgeois-bohemian set, but he gets his subject across in the unsentimental style of an anthropologist’s report. Unlike the more playful graphic novelists who influenced him, Daniel Clowes (“Ghost World,” “David Boring”) and the Hernandez brothers (“Love and Rockets”), Tomine isn’t given to flights of surrealism, rude jests or grotesque images. He is a mild observer, an invisible reporter, a scientist of the heart. His drawing style is plain and exact. The dialogue appearing inside his cartoon balloons is pitch-perfect and succinct. He’s daring in his restraint.

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Read the full text of the review here, head over to Giant Robot website to see a little sneak peek of the art that Adrian will be showing, and if you can’t make it to the show, pick up your own copy of Shortcomings through Drawn & Quarterly.

Adrian Tomine
Shortcomings and Goings
Opening: Saturday, December 8th @ 6:30 p.m.
Giant Robot
437 East 9th Street

Chris Ware designs poster for upcoming movie

General Info, Illustration Industry, , , , ,

chris ware savages

The Los Angeles Times recently interviewed Chris Ware (of Acme Novelty Library & Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth fame) who worked on the poster for the upcoming movie, The Savages. Here’s an excerpt:

Just from your poster, it seems you felt some affinity to the wet, wintry landscapes of the film. It also strikes me that “The Savages,” like your work, is an unlikely mix of funny and sad.

I’m not sure if funny and sad are really so terribly different things; I’ve been to violent films that I find patronizing, dishonest and depressing, yet the people around me are all laughing their heads off. As a half-writer myself, I try not to think of what’s funny and sad in a story but simply to think of what, to the best of my ability, seems truest; whether it’s funny or sad is simply how it settles with the reader. In the wake of any horrible natural disaster some well-known religious figure is inevitably asked, “How can a good God allow something as bad as this to happen?” Really, though, what difference does it make to God whether 10,000 people or 10,000 fish die? Good and bad, like funny and sad, are phenomena relative to the perspective of the organism that’s laughing or dying.

—-

Chris’s work is available through Fantagraphics and you can read other interesting articles/interviews with him here, here & here.

Illustration Alum & Children’s Book Artist Kae Nishimura visits the department

Illustration Alumni, Illustration Dept. Events, News, , , , ,

kae nishmura

Illustration alum and talented artist Kae Nishimura will be visiting Parsons this coming Monday. After graduation, Kae went on to publish works like I Am Dodo: Not a True Story and her most recent book, Bunny Lune. Here’s an excerpt from a review of her work:

Join Bunny Lune, an imaginative young rabbit, as he learns how to travel to the moon in Kae Nishimura’s delightful children’s story, “Bunny Lune.” …Adults and children alike will love this hilarious tale of adventure and self-discovery. Illustrated by Nishimura herself, the story is chock-full of wacky characters populating an even wackier storyline. Children of a multicultural bent will especially enjoy the images of rabbits dressed up in traditional Japanese kimonos and drinking green tea. “Bunny Lune” is a must-read bedtime story for all who dream of flying to the moon.

—Paul Kim, Northwest Asian Weekly

Kae will be speaking about her books and her artistic process in an informal talk during Pat Cummings‘ Children’s Book class. All are welcome to attend and here her speak.

Kae Nishimura
December 3rd at 1:30 p.m.
2 W. 13th, Room 1104

Giant Robot announces an exhibition with Illustration Alum Jill Bliss

Events, Exhibitions, Illustration Alumni, News, , , , ,

jill bliss @ giant robot

 

Jill Bliss and Saelee Oh at GR2
Los Angeles, CA
December 8 – January 9

Giant Robot presents Hidden Habitats, an art show featuring the work of Jill Bliss and Salee Oh. Jill graduated from the Illustration department and has since given presentations to our students as an alum & visiting artist. Here is an excerpt from the official press release:

Jill Bliss grew up on a family farm in Northern California where everything was hand-built or cultivated-the food, the house, the farm machinery, and even the family computers. Since graduating from the Parsons School of Design & the California College of the Arts, her professional background has included fashion design, illustration, and design theory. Whether designing limited-edition paper goods or fine art pieces, all of her work reveals a fondness for combining fabric, paper, and other found materials.

For this show, the artists will make individual and collaborative drawings, paper cut-outs, sewn soft sculptures, and other pieces that expand on the theme of their third collaborative calendar, Hidden Habitats. The artwork depicts houses, shelters, buildings, and dwellings incorporating and blending into nature. These dwellings are sometimes human-sized, but more often than not sized for real and imagined animals, reptiles, or bugs.

In this body of work, both artists explore the underlying structures of nature, the inherent beauty and interdependence of these structures, and human nature’s interpretation of and dependence upon them. The original drawings, many of which have been altered or expanded upon since the making of the calendar, will also provide insight into the artists’ digital and hand-drawn collaborative process.

For more information about the exhibition, visit the Giant Robot site.

GR2
2062 Sawtelle Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90025
gr2.net
(310) 445-9276

Chris Mautner interviews Monte Schulz

General Info, History, Publications, Reviews, , , , ,

peanuts

Over at Panels and Pixels, Chris Mautner has posted an enlightening interview with Monte Schultz, the son of legendary comic artist & Peanuts creator Charles Schulz. They discussed the recent release of David Michaelis’ biography about Charles Schulz and the controversy over how the artist was portrayed. Here’s a brief excerpt:

Q: Ok, so let me read to you a little bit of a quote Michaelis gave to me that didn’t make my story. “How could I write a book about a comic strip genius, how could he not be perceived as a complex person? Maybe it’s an overly complex portrait. Maybe it should be simplified. I should have stepped back and let the sun shine in and lighten up a little. That may be an area where the book could have been greater.”

A: Yeah, I think that if he had let dad … this is something we talked about 10 months ago when we first saw the book. If he had just let dad’s life reveal itself, and it’s interesting because David uses this line, “a live reveals.” But he doesn’t do that in this book. He doesn’t allow a life to be revealed. He makes judgements, he interprets, he mythologyzes, he psychoanalizes. David really didn’t have an interest in telling dad’s life story. He had an interest in analyzing dad’s life and that’s different. Because in doing that he becomes very selective with his wiritng. And I think that’s where the error of the book is.

Yeah, he should have simplified this whole thing. You know what he ought to have done, he ought to have taken himself of the book. If David had removed himself and just let dad’s life reveal itself then he could have alowed his readers to make their own interpretations. In fact, David tells you what to think. He is just not content to let the story reveal itself.

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Read the entire text of Chris’s interview here. Other reviews & reactions to the book can be found here & here.

(Image by Charles Schulz, courtesy of United Media)

Ted McGrath, Jillian Tamaki, & Sam Weber visit Illustration

General Info, Illustration Dept. Events, , , , , ,

sam weberted mcgrath jillian tamaki

Ted McGrath, Jillian Tamaki, & Sam Weber
10 a.m. on Wednesday, November 28th, 2007
2 W. 13th, Room 311

George Bates’s $ketchbook Warehouse class will play host to a fantastic array of illustrators this upcoming week. Published by the New York Times Op-Ed page, Texas Monthly, Society of Illustrators, Bust, Paste, SEED and a plethora of others, Ted McGrath, Jillian Tamaki, & Sam Weber will be visiting to show their sketchbooks and discuss their work.

All are welcome to attend this unique & exciting event!
(Illustrations by [in order]: Sam Weber, Ted McGrath, and Jillian Tamaki)

From the Vault: Illustration Friday interview with Philip Fivel Nessen

From the Vault, General Info, Illustration Alumni, Interviews, , ,

nessen yellow sun

While sifting through the blogroll, I came across this interview from August with recent Illustration alum Philip Fivel Nessen. He talks about the development of his style, his methods of finding work, and what inspires him. Here’s a brief excerpt:

How did you get started in the illustration field?

The first time I noticed illustration was a Henrik Drescher drawing in the New York Times book review. It was an Uncle Sam head, with spider legs, and I think lasers for eyes. It had people running through the spider legs. I think that’s where my interest in visual arts started. I find Monet sort of boring. As for doing work, I got a few jobs just through my website before I started doing any promotion or meeting with anyone. Then I sent out postcards and took my portfolio to a few places and got some good advice and some more jobs. And then I did an Illustration Friday interview.

How did you find your style? Has it changed since you started?

At first it was a very calculated thing. I spent like a month cutting things out and taking notes. Just sort of figuring out where I could fit into the illustration business and be sort of novel but also reflect stuff I really like. I also wanted to sort of look like a late 1950s, early 1960s illustrator. After I started drawing more new stylistic things popped up in response to different things. Thick lines, thin lines, abstract people, figural people. Whatever. Things are still working themselves out. I sort of hope I end up like one of those guys comfortable enough to do work that’s not the same story over and over. There is definitely a fine line between hopeless and multi-dimensional.

Read the rest of the interview here (and make sure you take a look around the rest of the Illustration Friday site for great interviews and image galleries).

(Image by Philip Fivel Nessen)