PAS.TER.NAK

New Places...lets go there!

2012-02-10T19:55:00.007-06:00

I have recently placed my work for sale in a couple new venues.

Villekulla

962 Westminster at Lipton

Hours: Wednesday - Saturday, 12 - 6

Villekulla will be selling some of my Novelty Art Objects. Not all what you see here below (article from March 2010 from my Visual Chew show at Martha Street Gallery) but there are at least 22 different items, including Bacon Bookmarks, Booklets, Love/War Capsules, Oxygen Capsules, Empower Rings.......and so much more by so many other local crafty artsy folk with lots of cool stuff!

* ** *** **** ***** ****** ******* ******* ****** ***** **** *** ** *

Kustom Kulture

470 River Avenue. Winnipeg

NOW currently on display and for sale at Kustom Kulture for a few months are seven of my paintings. Some of my newest smaller work as well as a few older items that look really good in there. On one larger wall I will be switching it up every month with a new older large painting until the work comes down in June.

Here is the larger painting currently on display.

Saturn Conscious - 30 x 40 inches - acrylic on canvas

twelve + eight = 2new

2012-01-10T16:00:00.004-06:00

My latest One Take Super8 film will be screening at

8FEST in Toronto

January 27-29 at Trash Palace

Notes from Nowhere: Super Winnipeg Super 8

Curated by Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan

-exert from the program-

Winnipeg is an impoverished city, famous for its frigid winters and its artists. Sustained by cheap studio rent and fantastic thrift-store finds, the creative class thrives in the geographic centre of North America. There is very little cool factor to living in the middle of nowhere, so most of us just keep out heads down, get our work done, and try to keep the tips of our ears from freezing. Very little changes in Winnipeg.

Perhaps that is what makes the archaic technology of Super 8 neither outré nor hip. It simply is: a vehicle for ideas, images and experimentation. Friends come together to make something. It doesn’t cost very much. Like Ed Ackerman, you can even develop your own footage in the kitchen sink. Whether the subject matter is, like Deco Dawson’s, seemingly hundred-year-old gestural studies or, like Jaimz & Karen Asmundson’s, an unselfconsciously goofy celebration of place, the particulars of the form continue to enamour. Super 8 looks like memory and is similarly malleable. Winnipeg filmmakers continue to use it to create works that seem to exist outside of time, that reference an earlier time or that simply mark time with chemical collisions and light. Films by Robert Pasternak, Mike Maryniuk, Jaimz & Karen Asmundson, Noam Gonick, Deco Dawson, Heidi Phillips and Ed Ackerman.

Stills from Robert Pasternak's Super8 film RGB

INNER VIEW

2011-12-09T17:29:00.004-06:00

Sunday, December 11th from 8am - 10am

UMFM 101.5

Robert Pasternak interview on Sacred Space with George Rideout

On the 28th of November my friend George and I conducted an informal interview in my studio space. George has conducted hundreds of interviews through the years on his Sacred Space show and they have all been done live at the UMFM studio. This interview is the first of his interviews where the interviewee is in their 'sacred space'. We talked about the nature of an artist's insight, happenstance and the colors used to bring the bridge of thought to life. I can't wait to hear it myself.

This interview will be made available as a podcast at a later date.

MONA LISA ART MEAL

2011-11-04T18:17:00.003-05:00

1697 Corydon Ave.

Winnipeg

November 6 - December 5

Mona Lisa Ristaurante Italiano this year presents the work of Peter Dumans and myself. Last year I was showing work with Luther Pokrant and the three of us used to show together at the Conservatory at Assiniboine Park here in Winnipeg some years back.

I have been showing new works and old at this restaurant off and on since 1985. It's a great atmosphere and they have fantastic food. Enjoy!

Branching Off .... and ON

2011-09-28T10:40:00.009-05:00

***NAK'S UNIVERSAL BRANCHING BLOGS

This News Blog was getting into areas and topics that were not really news, so I decide to start a whole NAK universe of Web Blogs related to... my work, thoughts, and interests of course! Who cares about other things going on in the world when you can have Joy and Happiness right here!

***NEW FILM MAY OR MAY NOT BE SPECTACULAR

BELIEVE IT OR NOT and SEE IT OR NOT

November 2 at the Gas Station Theatre 7:PM

I have a new film at the One Take Super-8 Event held in Winnipeg every year at WNDX film Festival. October 29 - November 2

"This year I threw away the camera to make my film. Who knows if it will turn out. I've never done anything like it before. I'll see it for the first time along with everyone else."

Uptown Article Online here

***JUPITER ALIGNS WITH La Luz de JESUS Gallery in LOS ANGELES

OPENS OCTOBER 7th

My painting Jupiter is in a Group show celebrating 25 years of this Los Angeles Institution and It's hist Billy Shire. I am very happy to be showing with an incredible roster of artists that includes none other than folks like Matt Groeming, Mark Ryden, The Clayton Brothers, Robert Williams, Mary Fleener, Frank Kozik, Gary Panter, Victor Moscosso, and the lost goes on.

La Luz de Jesus 25

Billy Shire celebrates 25 years with huge group show & book

Part 1 opens October 7 & 8, 8–11 PM

Part 2 opens November 4 & 5, 8–11 PM

To celebrate 25 years of groundbreaking art shows, Billy Shire presents his biggest event ever: La Luz de Jesus 25, a major retrospective exhibition and companion book. The show, offering work by more than 260 artists who have exhibited at the gallery over the years, is so extensive that Shire has split it into two parts, each with two opening nights: part 1 opens October 7 and 8, and part 2 opens November 4 and 5. The list of participating artists is a veritable Who’s Who of art world luminaries. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see all these artists together in one show.

View the complete list of artists here.

View the artist roster for each month here.

The book, La Luz de Jesus 25: The Little Gallery That Could, features images of all the art in the show, a personal anecdote about Shire and the gallery written by each artist, essays by La Luz gallery directors and a foreword by Shire. The book is more than a simple record of the show. Taken together, the images and essays present a history of La Luz de Jesus through the eyes of the artists whose careers are intertwined with Shire and his gallery.

Jupiter - 2011 - 18 x 22 in. - acrylic on canvas

About La Luz de Jesus

Billy Shire opened La Luz de Jesus in 1986 to showcase the work of underground and folk artists largely ignored or dismissed by the legitimate art world. The first permanent gallery space to exhibit alternative art, La Luz quickly became famous as much for its splashy, raucous monthly opening parties as for the often outrageous and confrontational art on its walls. When choosing artists, Shire challenged received notions of “good taste” and “high art” and rejected the arbitrary but long-cherished distinction between commercial and fine art, embracing illustration, underground art, outsider art, animation, and comics, both underground and mainstream. As a result, many artists hugely successful today credit Shire with having launched their careers, and he is widely acknowledged as a seminal figure in contemporary art movements such as Lowbrow and Pop Surrealism.

***FOUNTAIN of YOUTH FOUND in COSM

Yes, it is right here in the pages of COSM the Journal of Visionary Culture. It must be true! I have a new work, or rather thought/teaching in this new issue #7. This Magazine is published through the leadership and insight of one of our foremost visionaries, Alex Grey.

***CART EXHIBIT in Baltimore at CURRENT SPACE is extended to October 21st

Here are links for reviews in the Baltimore Sun & and a new arts review blog based out of Baltimore
http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/arts/bs-ae-arts-story-0805-20110804,0,1807348.story
http://whatweekly.com/2011/07/13/6873/

***ARTWORK at Gallery LACOSSE

For those that love my Concrete Expressionism work, well they are now available at Gallery Lacosse at 169 Lilac Street, Winnipeg.

Night Watchman - oil pastel on paper - 7 x 10 in.

From Jungle to Jungle

2011-08-22T21:36:00.007-05:00

1981, acrylic on illustration board, 20 x 30 inches, (top part is cut off)

Another 30 Year post for your retro pleasure. This is my 5th painting. ( you can see the first four in my May 2011 post ) As my first four paintings were done while finishing high school, this painting was done in a summer limbo period before an unknown future of not going back to school and not having a job. One can see some obvious influences such as a Frazetta, Whelan or Boris setting and the use of a Kull or Krull figure from a comic magazine Bizarre Adventures #26. I thought at the time I had quite an original idea with the juxtaposition of the two different worlds, a theme that would be prevalent in many future work. Wait a sec, It already has been prevelant in my previous three paintings. Funny. I remember feeling really at home painting the buildings without any reference, but I was stumped by how to paint the vegetation. To this day I still really like this one, though I cringe a little bit for the swipes of reference. Hey, I was only 17. I am amazed that I kept track of how long it took me to paint the different parts of the painting and how long I spent on preliminary drawings etc. In total, 63 hours.

C.A.R.T in Baltimore Sun

2011-08-19T16:40:00.001-05:00

Here is an article in the Baltimore Sun about the C.A.R.T exhibit currently on at Current Space Gallery in Baltimore. .....and they used one of my pictures for the article!

TABLE SPACE

2011-08-16T21:05:00.006-05:00

Every day I have a billion things to do....or is it that I have a billion things to do and I just do as much of it as I can every day? Anyway, I was reading the morning paper and I came across this image (bottom) which somehow grabbed me and made me look and look. The squares, the color, the divisions...I saw beautiful geometric form, and thought I needed to explore this and create a piece of art.

Normally I would have torn out the image and kept it on my desk and put it on my list of things to do. Then eventually it may have turned out to be not so important to do as I have so many other apparently important things to get done. And Like a dream that was relevant and fantastic when you first woke up, eventually fades into nothing as you go through your day. But this time, I said, "Look Robert, you know it's not going to take you long to do it in Illustrator, so just do it now! Besides, you've been procrastinating on your real work all week now anyways, so here's your spot." That's what I said. And this is what turned out. (above) I was pretty excited about it. Hope you like it too.

Robert Venosa Visionary

2011-08-16T20:40:00.007-05:00

January 21, 1936 - August 9, 2011

It was with a saddened heart to learn of the passing of one of the true greatest visionary artists of this time, Robert Venosa.

Just as I was being turned on as a surrealist artist, Robert Venosa had already accomplished an incredible journey of the soul and mind. He was one of the few figurative artists that I was seeing in a magazine called Omni. Venosa along with Henricott, Helnwein, Fuchs and Dali, really made a switch in my mind in viewing our body placement in the metaphysical world. Robert has and will always be a beacon light post on my journey of enlightenment.

REAL POLLICKS

2011-08-16T20:08:00.007-05:00

My friend Ken Gregory has been working on some candy projects lately and since he was in the process, he offered to help me out in making some real POLLICKS lollipops. He had already made a mold for the base white candy part, so all we had to do now was make up 4 separate batches of candy. WOW I was amazed at how simple it was to dribble on the hard candy and how quickly they looked just like my fake Pollicks. These edible masterpieces will not be available anytime soon for the consumable masses, but check out my painted Pollicks Lollipops available now. They come with an old-school popsicle-styled silk-screened wrapper. Nakfactorium!

OUTDOORSTALLATION

2011-07-22T23:54:00.003-05:00

For this weekends Brandon Folk, Music and Art Festival, I set up a little display of cosmic proportions on the festival grounds amongst the trees. My first time really doing something like this. It shows the a scaled down version of the exact scale between the sizes of the Moon, Earth and sun along with the correct distance that they would be from each other.

I wish it could be more hands on, but that would have been I bit too delicate in this environment. I do have available, a simple model kit that I manufacture, that contains this delicate orbital structure. It's an excellent educational device.

Shopping C.A.R.T.

2011-07-08T16:05:00.004-05:00

Tomorrow is the opening of an enormous group show I am happy to be part of at Current Space Gallery in Baltimore Maryland. At least 70 artist's interpretations of products and packaging in this store set-up 'art of commerce' ( or is it the groceries of art ) show called C.A.R.T.. The show continues to September 4th.

I am very happy to be part of this show as I get to display more of my art novelty items and it also gives me the impetus to create more! Not that I don't create on my own but I just seem to do even more. I seem to be only one of two Canadians participating, the other being Emily Comeau from Montreal.

I have 13 items in the show, with varying quantities of each. Some of the other items include:

-Top Secret Message

-Picture Cigarettes

-Loose Leaf Doodle Pages

-Post Surreal boxes

-Oxygen Capsules

-Admit It tickets

-Sgt.Smokes

Most of my items are not so much food related at a lot of the other work I've seen so far. It's all AMAZING! Some clever and talented folks out there.

WIDE OPEN SPACES

2011-05-25T20:57:00.007-05:00

30 YEARS OF PAINTING!

Wide Open Spaces May 1981, 24" x 26", acrylic on canvas

This month 30 years ago I was just finishing up High School at West Kildonan Collegiate when I painted the above work. Nobody at school ever really saw my work nor did I ever really show it. In my last half of grade 12 I only had half a day of school. I suppose I spent some of that free time doing art at home or at the Forum Art Institute. No sooner than I finished the painting a dentist by the name of Dr. Sidney Fleisher bought it for 150 bucks. He had lent me a set of teeth for reference after not being able to find an illustrative brochure with a perfect set for me to draw upon. So he said when I had the painting done and upon returning the teeth he wanted to see it. He had a hundred paintings up in his practice making it an alright place to get dental work done.

So now I will show you the three paintings that came before Wide Open Spaces.

Communicative Travel November 1980, 20" x 20", acrylic on paper canvas

This is my first painting I did while my brother and I enrolled in painting classes at the Forum Art Institute under the tutelage of Nickola Bejelejac in the old CPR Station building. What a place that was! Everyone was was twice our age or older. Some were really old by our perspective and have been painting there for years. But boy could some of these folks paint. And there were all sorts too from smooth surrealism by Dan Gregg (one of my favorites) or the rich impasto scenes or the organic flows from a syringe needle by Vicki McBain. This wasn't really a place to learn to paint as much as it was a place to hang out to paint. I learnt by watching everyone. Yes the instructor had lessons if you wanted or cared, or you just went on your own pace and Nick was there to question and guide you to a finished work. You could not sign a piece until he said so. That's funny.

This first painting was made from a first assignment which my brother and I both thought was pretty cool. It consisted of drawing a series of four squares then adding various lines in each one to divide the space. We then chose our favorite, put it aside, then added more lines to the remaining three squares. Then once again choosing our favorite and putting it aside and continuing to add more lines in the two left and so on until you were left with four drawings you liked. Then you colored them going through this same method of pleasing elimination. So by the end you had four colored drawings that you liked. But now, you had to choose one and do a painting of it.

But how do you paint? Nobody showed us. You had to figure it out for yourself. If this first painting was going to be a jumping in the deep end learning experience, then I though if I was going to learn something I would give myself a challenge and try to think about the various ways that I could possibly do shading with acrylic paint. Earlier on when I was working with grahite, it was really important for me to know how to shade to give objects a 3 dimensional quality, so I wanted to learn to do this with paint. In this one painting I tried three different blending styles. Wet on wet, thinning with water and dry brushing. I liked dry brushing the most and is the method I would mostly use in years to come.

Metal Stones December 1980, 24" x 36" acrylic on canvas

This is my second painting finished just before my 17th birthday. I still really like it! I had been interested in science fiction, fantasy, surrealism and architecture so I guess it kind of got all rolled into this one. I saw a picture of the ruined buildings in a National Geographic magazine and it really sparked the idea. From old to new and having the juxtaposition of the architectures.

Hope For One April 1981, 20" x 30", acrylic on illustration board

This is my third painting. I was really quite a loner in school and pretty quiet to. Though my friend Sam was always around and tried to crack my multiple shells I pretty much kept to myself and my thoughts. It was always the end for me in many ways and I suppose this painting illustrates this inner feeling of isolation and of being trapped and held onto, of being at the end of my rope or at the end of the world. I suppose that if I was going to be stuck here, there was still hope for my spirit. "Your spirit shall set you free." One of the first artists that I loved and felt a connection to was Roger Dean of Yes album cover art fame. I had his first book called Views and I loved it, I loved it, I loved it. There is some of him in the rocks and land.

Four For The Day

2011-05-25T20:36:00.004-05:00

This week for 7 days I will be posting STUFF for Arden Hill's project Four For The Day which he has posted on Wordpress. This project gets people to post a collection of four things every day for one week. It started January 1st and will end December 31st. I have Day#179 - Day#185. I had so many options of things around my studio that it was a tough ride in deciding. The model rocket ships I have here was one of the hopefulls that did not make it. Maybe if I had a better photo?

At any rate for anyone interested in this project, please check it out, and if anyone is interested in participating then e-mail Arden. if you know of anyone else that likes stuff feel free to pass the call for submissions onto them and have them email their interest to ardenhill@gmail.com

SHIFT into PLASTIC PAPER

2011-05-04T10:56:00.004-05:00

ANIMATION FESTIVAL TIME at the Part Theatre. Fabulous films and related events including my little FLIP BOOK Exhibit SHIFT. yee haw! PLASTIC PAPER

PRAIRIE SCENE WINNIPEG

2011-04-25T17:41:00.004-05:00

If you happen to be in Ottawa in the next couple weeks be sure to check out the multitude of artistic activities that will make up Prairie Scene in 2011. My film 412222 will be projected during the opening kick-off festivities along with other Winnipeg films brought together by Monica Lowe from the Winnipeg Film Group. But that is not all!

I am also part of a huge Winnipeg artistical tour-de-force exhibit curated by Noam Gonick and Plug In ICA called Winter Kept Us Warm .This show will then travel to Paris France for an opening in June at la Maison Rouge, Foundation Antoine de Galbert, then down to the International Museum of Modern Art in Sete, France for a run there from November to May 2012. I will be showing two older phallus drawings and 5 old and new wooden phallus carvings.

TRADE MARX

2011-04-21T09:41:00.005-05:00

Art for the People

A Rare Collection of Authentic Archival Soviet Propaganda accompanied by the

Pop Surrealist work of Robert Pasternak

There will be a huge salvaged collection of Soviet WWII - Cold War era

.....

prints

posters

photographs

16mm/35mm film

****FOR SALE*****

A museum/university quality collection direct from Moscow via the defunct Soviet-Canadian Friendship Society.

Formally,

the pairing between Pasternak and the collection emphasizes a consideration

of the era's design aesthetic, advertising sensibilities and printmaking techniques.

While the juxtaposition of the mixed media, presented in a contemporary Post Collapse

era provides a surreal celebration of a bygone Fantasy and Ideal "Reality" that maybe

never really "Existed".

ROBERT PASTERNAK

Is a Winnipeg-based, multi-disciplinary pop surrealist who moves seamlessly from

metaphysical paintings and science-fiction illustration to hand-processed film, collage

with found materials, to imaginative product-design. From High-Sci-Fi to Low-Scrounge

comix, Pasternak has exhibited his work extensively in his 27-year art practice, and Nak’s

illustrations have graced album covers, science fiction magazines, and literary book jackets.

His exhibits are always different in that they usually highlight one of the multitude of areas of

visionary visual work that he is continually juggling and adding to. Nak has exhibited at

La Luz De Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles as well as The Irvine Fine Arts Center in Irvine

California, Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, Stanley Milner Public Library, Martha Street

Studio and Ace Art.

http://www.robertpasternak.net/pages/nakfactorium_home.html

COME BLOW YOUR MIND AT THE OPENING!

The show continues for two weeks.

But LIMITED DAYS ONLY

THURSDAY, FRIDAY, SATURDAY 12 - 7

Envious portrait of the Ages

2011-04-04T18:40:00.000-05:00

Since my last post I had become nostalgic for the paintings of my youth in the time period of 83 - 85 and found myself viewing my these paintings in my binders and remembering all the ideas that I had that I would still like to produce on canvas. Often times I will have an idea for a whole series of work then paint only one of them and go onto something else. Then in time I might come back to that series. Others will never come back to and they remain as single entities. My goodness I liked color!...... and what is with all the green skin? I do know what's up with the hands. They are all mine and to this day are still prominent in my work.

AGES . 1984 . acrylic on canvas . 48 x 86 inches . (self portrait)

Hi . 1983 . acrylic on canvas . 34 x 40 inches . (self portrait)

Painting For Sale

2011-03-16T19:08:00.000-05:00

TREE OF ENVY . $3,000 . acrylic on canvas . 24 x 26 inches . 1985 . framed

I am looking to sell this painting of mine for the current owner who had originally purchased it in 1985 which is also the year in which it was painted when I had a studio at Forum Art Institute in the old CPR Station building.

When I saw the painting again I was struck by it's size and vibrancy of color. The photo I had been viewing all these years certainly was not as bright and I had become accustomed to the darker image. So it was nice to be shaken out of my mist. Pure bright color was a staple of a lot of my work in the 80's, pretty much all of the rainbow colors in one painting, but I seemed to have had a kNak to combine and blend them in a way as not to be garish I was told once.

When I took a photo in B & W I was surprised at the melding of the foreground tree with the background sky and this combined with the shapes in the sky was like a memory of seeing nature on magic mushrooms. So no need to take it when you've got the painting.

Ring or e-mail me if your interested. (shipping included) nak@mts.net or 204.956.7675

Twists & Surreal Turns

2011-03-03T14:45:00.000-06:00

Here are a couple newest 'works' I guess you can say. I don't know what I am going to do with the HeyPal one which I thought of only yesterday on the way to the studio. Maybe do a screen print for it or make a magazine-like ad with some copy that I've already come up with or just send it out there.

As with a lot of my ideas, something just clicks in my head. I wouldn't really say that it's like a Light Bulb over my head but rather more like a Thousand Russian Ghosts spinning the world in order to screw in a light bulb inside my head. There is often a surreal twist that goes astray after just seeing something. The ADMIT IT ticket idea was no different. Just working at my desk which just happened to have an Admit One ticket on it (which was probably there for weeks) when suddenly....Bang! I heard the noise of that light bulb crashing on the floor. Maybe I was guilty of something at the time or perhaps it's just a state of mind. Solid state? I think I'm still operating on the old tubes.

These tickets I'm just manufacturing myself in various sizes (the 12 inch ones are pretty cool) with slight design variations. From printing, cutting and perforating, I'm doing it all at the Nakfactorium. I have a 40 inch long strip of three tickets which is pretty enjoyable to see. Each ticket of course has a different number.

New Music Festival Kick-Off

2011-01-26T12:46:00.000-06:00

Once again my Film 412222 will be shown here in Winnipeg with an original live score by the eXperimental Improv Ensemble. This time at the kick-off performance of the New Music Festival held at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. This is pretty much a repeat outdoor gig from Nuit Blanche held last September, which was very Fantastic. It was a great image and sound performance. But for this event there are also many other performances happening. Check it out!

Kick-Off: Tangle

Friday, January 28, 2011 • 8:00 p.m.

The Winnipeg Art Gallery Doors open at 7:00 p.m.

Groundswell New Music returns to celebrate our 20th anniversary of New Music Festival. Come see and hear Winnipeg’s own Experimental Improv Ensemble in an exciting work that combines cinema, lights, and sound. Be dazzled by the incredible sound installations created by Daryn Bond. Hear wonderful new works by Winnipeg composers Diana McIntosh, Gordon Fitzell and Jim Hiscott. As well, witness the creation of a new work by visual artist John Funk. Curated by Diana McIntosh and Gordon Fitzell of GroundSwell.

Artists:

eXperimental Improv Ensemble (XIE); Gordon Fitzell, director Diana McIntosh, voice, piano, percussion Allen Harrington, saxophone Laura Loewen, piano Victoria Sparks, percussion Meredith Johnson, bass Bede Hanley, oboe Herbert Enns, video Gordon Fitzell, electronics Katharine Bruce, real-time visual art John Funk, real-time visual art Daryn Bond, media installation

Program

XIE (CAN): Live soundtracks – Part 1 (see below) Diana McIntosh/Allen Harrington (CAN): Improv Duo Daryn Bond (CAN): Area Clear Gordon Fitzell (CAN): Metropolis Diana McIntosh (CAN): Sampling the Communication Parameters in the Ambience of Structural Phrasing and Dynamics in Contemporary Music Jim Hiscott (CAN): Tangle Diana McIntosh (CAN): …and 8:30 in Newfoundland XIE (CAN): Live soundtracks – Part 2 (see below)

Live soundtracks to local experimental films: 412222 (2007) by Robert Pasternak, Sitka (2009) by Olga Zikrata, Going going gone (2008) by Carole O’Brien, Chroma-dance (2007) by James Pomeroy, Malaguena (2004) by Coral Aiken, The Great Divide (2008) by Bryan Besant

Cowboys & Aliens

2010-12-30T19:27:00.000-06:00

I found a headless cowboy figure in the sand, brought him home and placed it on my shelf with some other plastic figures all battling and sharing time dimensions. Pan-American athletes throwing javelines at robots, cavemen swinging clubs at googley monsters, Merlin conjuring, Winston Churchill debating with Moses and The Invisible Plan thingys by Mars1 (some of my favorite plastic figures ever!) just hanging out and keeping the peace. One of these Mars guys, I was always disappointed with. It seemed it was missing a head to go in the cylindrical stump protruding above it's body. I kept thinking that a head of some sort will show up one day.

When that day was too slow in coming I made an alternate plan for my little headless Invisible Plan fella. I'll just turn him into a head for my cowboy friend. It was unbelievable how the uniform green color of the cowboy matched perfectly with the top part of the alien. I love it! Somebody told me there was a Cowboys and Aliens movie in the works. Hmmmm.

MONA LISA ART MEAL

2010-11-04T15:30:00.000-05:00

I've just hung up some new work at Mona Lisa Ristorante Italiano here in Winnipeg. When I arrived, I was surprised to find out that my fellow painter friend Luther Pokrant was also hanging work there, so I thought even though it's not 'really' an art show, I wanted to make a poster to mark this occasion. I have shown work on and off at Mona Lisa since 1985!

In this show you will see my first 4 oil paintings ever(!) that I completed just recently for this venue. There are also some new acrylic paintings as well as a few older works. This restaurant has some really wonderful food and great pizza! You can't really go to just look at the art so you might as well make a meal out of it.

CCCOMIC CONVENTION

2010-10-29T13:16:00.000-05:00

I will be attending and setting up a table this weekend at the Central Canada Comic Convention held at the Winnipeg Convention Center. Of course I will have My sci-fi and fantasy posters as well as all my NAKFACTORIUM wares....including my 2$ gumball machine with some new items and my popular 25 cent Secrets Of The Universe gumball machine. Also new are my Nakamojin Guys- little original sculpted fimo figurines in a spiffy crazy package!

See you there!

NUIT BLANCHE - Culture Days

2010-09-20T18:16:00.000-05:00

My experimental film 412222 which originally premiered in my installation Component For A Mechanical Landscape at Plug In ICA will play at The CUBE in Old Market Square with 11 other fantastic experimental films along with new LIVE original soundtracks by the eXperimental Improv Ensemble on September 25th at 8:30 PM. the Winnipeg Film Group has organized this event as part of Winnipeg's first Nuit Blanche. it's FREE

ZINE SHOW

2010-07-28T13:10:00.000-05:00

At Freud's Bathhouse & Diner opening Thursday, August 5th is a new Zine Show offering up all sorts of DIY publishing from a whack of crazy hooligan popes.....including myself with my BOOKLETS® and flip books and other Printed Matter. The show continues untill August 29th.

42 Albert St., Winnipeg in the Exchange.

MY STUFF

2010-07-07T14:03:00.000-05:00

I was in the Winnipeg Free Press again on Saturday June 19th in the Detour section. Check it out here.....CHEE.....ZY....lovers. Questions and Answers. Photo below courtesy of Joe Bryksa at the Free Press.

Spaceship Five

2010-07-07T13:54:00.000-05:00

Here is a recent pencil crayon drawing for fun. A couple posts back there is a pencil crayon drawing that I did which was the first in a long long time. I have another spaceship sketched out that I hope to do soon. The original is 9 x 12 in.

SHE CHEWS BOOKLETS

2010-06-18T18:47:00.000-05:00

Booklets has been selected to be part of a group show at the Irvine Fine Arts Center. The opening is Tonight!

PENCIL CRAYON TIME

2010-06-17T17:09:00.000-05:00

Here is a recent pencil crayon drawing I finished to display at a Science Fiction convention held here in Winnipeg every year in May. I had not worked in pencil crayon for many many years. Most of my pencil crayon drawings were done in the eighties alongside my painting. I'm excited now to do more.

I am showing the process at which i do these. I sketch directly on the black paper with no other preliminary drawings. This is a 9 x 12 inch drawing. Every step is a thinking process as to what colors are going where and how I am going to fill the space. Sometimes I spend more time thinking about my next move than actually drawing. In the past I would sometimes do the drawing with all it's shading with white then go over that with the colors.

AERO EVOLUTION

2010-06-16T17:20:00.000-05:00

UPC bar codes began widespread use in the beginning 1980's.

52-50-066 This is an Aero Chocolate Bar wrapper from around 1987. This same design had been used since the 1960's with virtually no changes. Aero was originally made by Rowntree (since 1935) but merged with Mackintosh in 1969. The bars were previously 36 grams.

L5-50-115 In 1987 Rowntree Macintosh went public and in 1988 was bought by Nestle with an offering value at 4.55 billion dollars. We now see the Nestle logo up front on the wrapper. In the following wrappers watch how the logo changes.

If you look at the top of the wrapper there is a 7 digit number. The last three numbers seem to change with every slight change in design or alteration of the printed wrapper. I have a Caramilk wrapper where there is a single increment number difference and the only foreseable difference was a switch in the order that a couple of the ingredients appeared in. So since the time of the wrapper shown above this one, there has been 49 changes to the wrapper. I am only showing a sampling of major changes in the design appearance of the wrapper.

Oh yeah, the Aero lettering design had finally changed after all those years and Nestle cut a gram of chocolate out.

Is there a difference between Milk Chocolate and Pure Milk Chocolate?

L5-50-129 Here we go with the Bubbles in the phrase Pure Bubbly Milk Chocolate.

L5-50-177 The newer Nestle logo and Aero is Big on Bubbles

L5-50-242 I just love how the bubbles have now exploded throughout the design. I absolutely love this one. Why the pause after Big........? Again a new Nestle logo.

L5-50-242 (Why is this number the same as previous wrapper?) There are many changes again. The bubble slogan has changed and the Nestle logo has changed again! This wrapper from March 2010

Huge overhaul of Aero lettering style. (April 2010)I was not a fan at first, but it's growing on me. The number at the top is a whole new ball game. The slogan 'Have you felt the bubbles melt' has been shoved to the sidelines. Will it be totally gone next time around?

PECHA KUCHA NIGHT

2010-05-14T18:52:00.000-05:00

How does it get from here to there?

This Thursday May 20th I will be one of about 20 presenters for Pecha Kucha night Vol.2. Everyone gets 6 minutes and 40 seconds to talk about whatever they want and using no more than 20 slides at 20 seconds each. I will show images of work from my recent show Visual Chew but the main part will illustrating the evolution of the AERO chocolate bar wrapper. COME ONE AND ALL FOR DRINKS AND DISCUSSIONS!

INTERMIXA-MANIA this weekend

2010-05-07T10:40:00.000-05:00

I will be attending the inaugural Intermixa-mania event this weekend that is being held at Plug-In ICA and I will be selling my art multiples and books and many of the novelty items I had my recent Visual Chew show and and and and....

.....here is one of my newest works that I will have there as note cards.

Visual SMASH!

2010-04-07T11:42:00.000-05:00

I'm excited about the wonderful success I am having with this new show. It was fun to create all this stuff and it's turned out to be a fun show.

There have been a number of reviews and articles which I am including here.

Eye Candy - Winnipeg Free Press - March 13, 2010

Looking At The World Through X-Ray Specs - Winnipeg Free Press - March 25, 2010

Chew On This - Uptown - March 25, 2010

Chew On This - The Manitoban - March 24, 2010

Food For Thought - The Uniter - March 25, 2010

Akimblog - April 1, 2010

Visual Chomping

2010-03-23T13:54:00.000-05:00

The show VISUAL CHEW at Martha St. Studio is a wonderful success. People are really enjoying it. Here is a preview article which appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press. The Opening was very very well attended and people seem to be coming out in numbers during the length of the show.

I hope to post some shots of the opening night soon. In the meantime here are a few shots of what you first see when you come through the doors. Then there is much more!

VISUAL CHEW

2010-02-23T22:42:00.000-06:00

It's Time for a new Show of craziness and fun and multiple visual packs of Whollop. ZAP!

I've been super busy getting this show together. New products and Novelties will be unveiled as well as many new silk screen prints and one-of-a-kind prototypes. You've seen some items here like the Sgt. Smokes and Bacon Bookmarks. Well there will be plenty more as well as a 25 cent gumball machine dispensing Secrets of the Universe and a 2 dollar capsule machine with a variety of novelty fun. Read more below.

Opening reception Thursday March 11, 5:00 - 8:00 pm

WOW! BIFF BANG POW! ZOWEE! ZING! SOCK-A-MA-GEE! All of this totally RULES!

Don Bailey - Writer, Music Historian, Collector

Pasternak’s VISUAL CHEW:

Original Novelties, Art Multiples and Packaged Thoughts

March 11- April 23, 2010

Martha Street Studio

11 Martha Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba

Robert Pasternak's debut print-based show now at Martha Street Studio

POPS with inventive new visual twists and turns: featuring novelty art

multiples, imaginative packaging and eye-popping graphic design. The

show titled VISUAL CHEW - brings together for the first time ever - a

diverse selection of Pasternak’s imagined products from the past ten

years. Martha Street Studio will be selling these Pasternak products

including prototypes, silk-screen prints, colorfully-crafted boxes and

sculptured-novelties - from Bacon Bookmarks, and Micro Dot

Monsters to Pollick Lollipops produced by the Jackson Candy Co.

THRILL in amazed puzzlement behind the questionable urge to create

tangible toy titillations that actually work wonders like Oh you think

it's funny? But it’s Snot! - Which are pre-packaged novelty boogers

“ready to roll and flick.”

Gaze at comic-book inspired curiosities filtered via hard doses of

modern wartime reality in nicotine time! ZAP! How about a pack of

Sgt.Smokes? Fully poseable, used cigarette butts that look like a

cheap packaged toy found at a dollar store - but WHAM - the novelty

idea of kids actually using these to mimic the army sergeant as he

blasts a few rounds of ammo is totally absurd!

Maybe you have restless fingers? Well what you need is Robert

Pasternak's FUM GUM - Fun for Your Fingers - a Bubbled Double-sized

novelty chunk of modeling clay that comes with Ummm… a Bazooka

Joe-ish, proto-Pud-type insert! Fun activity for your fingers! So real

- or rather surreal - that if you did not look twice you would just

POP it in your mouth and start chewing.

“All of this started with making mini comics,” says Pasternak as he

tinkers over the next possible addition to VISUAL CHEW. “This was a

very economical way of publishing your art, and making it accessible

to give away or sell inexpensively. I then started to think of other

ways to package my art, and this led to creating brand new ideas for

Pasternak products. Being a surrealist, I love the absurdness of

taking a ridiculous notion and finding a way to package it. To make it

look slick, as if it exists in the thousands and it would only carry a

39-cent price tag. I also love candy, and candy packaging, so you will

see many references to both existing, and nostalgic candy-inspired

packages at VISUAL CHEW. My NAKFACTORIUM turn-style toy capsule

gumball machine will even be dispensing some of these art items for

only 2 dollars a POP!”

ROBERT PASTERNAK

Is a Winnipeg-based, multi-disciplinary pop surrealist who moves

seamlessly from metaphysical paintings and science-fiction

illustration to hand-processed film, collage with found materials, to

imaginative product-design. From High-Sci-Fi to Low-Scrounge comix,

Pasternak has exhibited his work extensively in his 26-year art

practice, and Nak’s illustrations have graced album covers, science

fiction magazines, and literary book jackets. His exhibits are always

different in that they usually highlight one of the multitude of areas

of visionary visual work that he is continually juggling and adding

to.

In addition to his art practice, Nak has worked as a production artist

for silk screening and cresting shops, as an art director for Zygote

magazine, as a digital colorist for a multimedia firm, as a creator of

hundreds of posters and product fliers, and as a freelance graphic

designer. Guided by a mix of new age philosophy, comic book ambition,

and a fundamental belief in the interconnectedness of events,

Pasternak creates an exciting makeshift universe filtered by a type of

comfortable visual osmosis where his work and audience can meet. His

personality and his art studio both reflect this practice; filled with

salvaged material, vintage memorabilia, and a zillion projects waiting

their turn on the Pasternak production schedule.

SHATTERGLIT

2009-10-08T17:55:00.000-05:00

This weekend here in Winnipeg is the wonderful and incredible Annual WNDX FILM FESTIVAL and also starting this weekend and going through the whole week is the ANTIMATTER FILM FESTIVAL in Victoria BC. I have the same short film SHATTERGLIT playing at both festivals.

Film:Experience with Humans

2009-07-23T23:05:00.000-05:00

As some of you may already know, I create short "art films" or ambient films with themes of humanistic transformations of some sort. This weekend at the Gimli Film Festival I have two such films being screened. Both of these were made using a Super-8 film camera and both are stop motion animations.

DeVisible

A stream of consciousness stop motion animation about a sci-man's transformational waking up and his morning ritual before leaving his apartment in Sci-City to go for a walk. This 8mm film was shot in one afternoon and was originally made for the One-Take super-8 event held in Winnipeg. Just a few digital effects were added later. The soundscape was made without any visual reference and with only the memory of what was shot and remains unedited from the original viewing.

Drawing Totemica

A meditational stream of consciousness stop-motion drawing with underlying figurative and totem elements. Originally made on the deadline afternoon of the One-Take Super8 event of 2006(Winnipeg), the whole actual film lasts about 13 seconds and goes by so fast that I wanted to allow viewers the opportunity to soak it in by showing multiple viewings of this process. The music was found in 13 seconds flat in an i-movie application and I am still amazed at the timed syncronycity of it all.

GALLERY SHARES PIECE OF THE PIE

2009-04-23T21:05:00.000-05:00

I am back from L.A. and I bring back to Winnipeg my experience and memories that will stay with me forever. Los Angeles is a wonderfull place. I would live there. It was a bit weird because I was constantly reminded of back home. I kept seeing people and places that made me think of Winnipeg and the feeling......the feeling of something so familiar. I need to go back.

The art show I had at La Luz de Jesus is about to draw to a close and I feel was a tremendous success! Thank you Billy Shire for your support and kindness. (I am glad we were able to spend some time together and eat some pie- I really liked the apple) People loved the work at the show! Rob Clayton of the Clayton Brothers made it out as well as Matt Groening. I also made a couple new friends that I believe will stick with me along my journey. Thanks Matt and Chris for loving and understanding.

Two Shows

2009-03-31T00:48:00.000-05:00

Oh Boy!

I keep forgetting that I have two art shows opening on the same day this Friday April 3rd. One is a 2-man show with Martha Rich at La Luz de Jesus in Los Angeles and the other is at APW Gallery in New York. This second one is a group showing with 200 artists. I have 5 small drawings in this show- a couple Breath Drawings, a couple Conte Drawings and one Pencil Drawing.

I have a ton of work I'll be showing in L.A. I'll be there for the opening.

Oh Boy!

New Book Of Drawings

2009-03-29T12:03:00.000-05:00

I just put together a new book of some drawings that I've been doing since I started a full time position (Sept 08)at G/L Designs - a textile screen printing shop. Often I did not have much time to paint so I spent minutes at a time on this series of "doodles". They are in a style that I have been doing since the 80's in my SF illustration days but these are much looser and abstract. They are also similar to my pencil phone doodles and a "mechanical cousin" to the breath drawings. There are 23 drawings plus a short introduction in this collection. I will be premiering the book at my show at La Luz De Jesus Gallery this Friday April 3rd!

Spirit Celebrations

2008-12-28T19:22:00.000-06:00

Aside from being my 45th birthday today, I am also celebrating 30 years of being an artist. I always drew as a child and especially I liked to copy other drawings. But it was after copying a Frank Frazetta poster I had called The Snow Giants, that I realized that this is what I wanted to do and from this moment on I called myself an artist, with an intent to create fantastic worlds. Today I am not only celebrating the birth of my physical body of 45 years, but also the birth of my astral body & spirit.

This is the drawing I did. December 1978, pencil on paper, 20 x 26 in.

La Luz de Jesus Gallery

2008-12-07T15:59:00.000-06:00

FANTASTIC NEWS

I will be showing new work at LaLuz De Jesus Gallery in L.A - OPENING April 3rd 2009

This is a two person show with MARTHA RICH - a wonderfull fun Illustrator!

I'm excited! There is so much I want to show.

I'm thinking of my Metafigure paintings and GeoFigures (the digital metafigures as above).

www.laluzdejesus.com

www.martharich.com

Portraits

2008-09-29T19:50:00.000-05:00

This is a recent portrait that was commissioned by the little girl in this picture, though now she, along with her twin brother just turned 30. This was a gift from her to her brother on their birthday. I have not done a portrait in a long while and forgot how much fun it was. I've done all sorts in a number of styles and mediums from acrylics, pencil or ink. Would you like a portrait done for yourself or for a gift? nak@mts.net

16 x 20 inches pencil crayon on matt board

One of the things I really enjoyed in this commission was the construction of the crazy hair these two kids had and how my play-full abstracted doodling came into the drawing by way of having to make up the details in this mass of hair as the photographs I had were quite vague.

Emerald Heart

2008-09-17T19:29:00.001-05:00

I love painting in an automatic and intuitive way. I have to do this to counter balance the heavy realities of straight lines and linear time. This is one of those paintings. It can be viewed in any direction probably because I am always working on it in every direction Vertically it is very figurative where the head becomes the heart. Wouldn't it be nice if we all could think a little more with our hearts.

acrylic on canvas 22 x 28 inches

Right Braining

2008-09-17T19:29:00.000-05:00

One of my least all time favorite things I like to do is draw. For being an artist, I'm not sure if that is a good thing. In fact it isn't a good thing. I think everyone should engage in the act of drawing. It's simple really and requires next to no art supplies.....a bic pen or a stub of a pencil. I think it is important to draw because it engages your mind in the world around you and allows for some critical right brain hemisphere touchy-feely-spacial associations that are so much lacking in a lot of people. I pretty much have to force myself to draw.

Ah, but then there is my favorite way to draw..... through doodling. This way of drawing opens up your untapped right hemisphere as well as your heart. These drawings I have here are some of the hundreds that I have done over the years that show what I draw when I am on the phone talking to friends of mine. Because I am concentrating my effors in listening to the conversation I am not as aware of what I lay down with the pencil. I'm looking but I am not controlling. My drawings have evolved over the years to a form of language containing the symbols of beings or people that I believe mirror the movements and actions of my relationships and communications with my friends and my self.

Sgt.SMOKES

2008-08-28T21:17:00.000-05:00

My newest novelty item. The butts are real for now untill I can figure out a way to make fake ones. ( but I will always have the 'real action' ones because that was really the whole idea )

Like most of the novelty items I come up with I really get excited about designing the right kind of package and making the design fit into a certain era. I had the idea 4 years ago and started to collect butts for it. I was waiting on creating the art because I was waiting to find that classic image I had in my head of the teeth-clenched seargent with the broken dangling cigarette in his lips, but could never find one. So I finally bit the bullet and just drew it myself. I was planning to ink the drawing traditionally, but for the heck of it I tried to see how it would look if I drew out the black inks on the computer in Adobe Illustrator with my mouse.(Its all outline vectors) It happened really fast. The lettering is Dom Casual and the colors kinda instantaneously appeared. I think I captured that cheap toy plastic dollar store (drug store in the old days) look. I am really happy with how it all came together though I've only been able to make two packages so far as it's hard to find good butts these days.

Soon available at the NAKFACTORIUM on my website.

Definitely OUT THERE

2008-08-28T20:45:00.000-05:00

This is a new drawing done in Conte pencil. It is 8 1/2 x 11 inches and is part of a series of 9 other drawings I did last summer. This one never got completed until I started to chip away at it throughout this past month. Like most of the other ones it can be viewed multi-directional, but I like this one as a vertical most. I'll let you think which is best for you.

Bacon Bookmarks

2008-08-28T20:31:00.000-05:00

New Bacon Book marks are Here! Shaped and looks like the real m'coy. It also opens up like a note card. You can purchase them on my website. www.robertpasternak.net

Nobody Writes Anymore

2008-08-06T15:32:00.000-05:00

Loose Leaf No.3 22 x 28 in acrylic on canvas

Loose Leaf No.4 30 x 36 in. acrylic on canvas

Here are a couple paintings from a new series of work that I just started and am super pumped about. Though I have 7 completed so far I have barely scratched the surface of all what I foresee that this series could entail. All of them will be titled Loose Leaf No.1,2,3,etc. but the overall series will be titled Nobody Writes Anymore. This series is an offshoot of my Still Life (moving life) paintings where I have sometimes had loose leafs placed on a larger table surface.

By using the graphic platform of the Loose Leaf note paper these paintings are basically about communication on a few different levels. Through symbols and writing I want to instill a sense of mystery back into the hand written note or doodle. I want these notes and fragments that could be from a child, student, scientist, writer or artist to imply that there is a larger dialogue taking place that we can partake and share in to ask a question and investigate further into what I have presented in fragment. In time I hope that more people will look upon their own doodles as something important to look at.

These paintings are all meticulously designed. There are no actual doodles or pieces of notes that really exist of these paintings. In time I may search out past notes of mine to copy what already exists in miniature but this I feel would be a simple thing. I am after something a bit more and want to create a larger arena of dialogue through various levels in the paintings that I foresee to come out of this series.

Transformer

2008-07-08T17:21:00.000-05:00

Totemical Stop-Motion Drawing

2008-07-08T16:14:00.000-05:00

This is a stop motion drawing I did in 2006 for the One-Take Super-8 event held in Winnipeg in conjunction with the WNDX film festival. It was recorded on a Super-* film camera then shown sight unseen before a live audience with all the other participatory films. This year I transfered the film onto digital video and edited it for some reverse and slowed down motion. Other than that it appears as it was with no other editing. This work is part of an ongoing series of drawings, paintings and films that visualizes the spiritual and energy fields that surround, permeate and communicate with the human body.

Terracelestial

2008-07-07T18:29:00.000-05:00

This is a digital art piece that I started in 2001, picked it up again in March this year and finished it last week. Usually a digital work such as this is done in day or two but sometimes you get to a point where you either just don't know what to do with it or you have run out of time for the day and it gets put on the back burner because you have to do some 'real' work.

This is a real interesting piece for me because it comes at a time in my life that helps me confirm my place in the world and allows me to know and be who I am. I really think of this piece as a self portrait and in a generalized way also a portrait of most other human beings. We are all terrestrial beings living within a higher celestial self.

Pranic Journey

2008-07-03T19:43:00.000-05:00

Its been a pranic journey in getting this painting to you all. I thought I was near completion a couple weeks ago but now many hours later, I've also added a lot more thinking time. Thinking about what this painting is telling me about myself. Because my paintings are self reflective and come from a well deep within me, there are always things I learn as a result of painting them that were not part of the original plan or thought process of the painting.

The artist/obsever/recorder in this painting is seeing something different in the atmosphere. Its is not different in form but in the heightened sense of color. Everything in this artists world seems to be curvulinear and in limited color tones. But here exists a structure more startling. Can everyone see it or just the artist? Through something within the heart of this being, it is able to touch upon it and see even further within the structure and is drawing it on the table surface. This structure is a Star Tetrahedron and is a major elementary particle of light and energy fields and is a component of pranic energy- the life force of all heart breathing entities.

Before I was aware of Pranic energy I often meditated and one of the things I did as I concentrated on my breathing, was to notice color formations in the blackness of the space through within my closed eyelids. But before seeing any real color swooshes there was always a period of these sparkles of light twinkling like stars in the sky. Sometimes I would look at one and focus on it. I called each of these lights a globule. As soon as I focussed on one I was able to zoom in to this light and draw it nearer to me. Then it exploded in a ring of rainbow light. It was a portal with a voice accepting me to join in on a journey.

Globule

2008-06-17T12:54:00.000-05:00

I am on the verge of finishing a new painting and thought I would share the process with you. Here is the almost finished work above in my studio. I thought it was finished at one point, but after giving it a few days, I see a number of things that don't quite jive with me. These are a few things that seem out of place such as areas of color, tone and balance of light and dark areas. I will post the finished piece when it is done so that you may compare the two.

Here is where it all started, with this little sketch idea I did a few years ago in the kitchen. There are a number of paintings that I want to do that illustrate different lines of communication which take place during our interaction with one another. These are unspoken forms of dialogue such as body language and the exchange of energy information or what I would term the 'higher self dialogues'.

This drawing done last year is an interpretation of the first drawing, done not necessarily as a preliminary for a painting but just as a drawing. But it was after this that I really wanted to do a painting with this image.

I had a board that I had already primed that I thought would be a good size fro this painting and as it was sitting on my easel, I saw an interpretation of one of the figures in the brushwork of my gessoed ground. I was now torn between this new perspective or to keep to my original drawing layout. I decided to do some small sketches with this new figure and various combinations of placements to help me decide. It was not an easy decision.

You can see here that I decided upon the new perspective. I thought that there was a reason why this figure showed up, so why fight with it and I knew that I could always go and paint another picture with the original drawing. So, with brush and paint, I sketched out the figure I saw in the gesso. You can see it on the left. Then after sketching out the other figure, on the right, I started to paint with color.

Being There

2008-06-13T22:53:00.001-05:00

This is one of my newest paintings.

Well see if the title stands the test of time. I'm pretty excited about this one as it seems to be a hybrid of my surreal and metafigure paintings.

Up to now, the meta figure works stayed in their own time and place or setting, that being the figures setting. But this one is into our known world.

The idea is of this person sitting in a chair, or rather he was sitting in this chair and possibly staring into space or just thinking or meditating when he was then able to shift his perspective consciousness and now exists 90 degrees to our known reality. When you tilt your head sideways you will be able to see the figure within the bubble.

Originally there was to be a person sitting in the chair, but then the chair itself was enough to represent the person. But then when the painting was done, except for the chair , I really wanted to leave the chair out because of the ambiguity of scale and of what was actually happening. Also the painting worked in any direction without the chair. The chair acts as a anchor quite literally.

Happy Birthday

2008-06-06T14:25:00.000-05:00

It's my son's birthday tomorrow. He's 14 now! Man how time flies. Those times when I was his age was pretty tough for me all through school. Annachie though is well adjusted and will coast along pretty good. He has his humour to loosten him up. I think I was pretty stiff and serious all the time which allows for the stresses of the day to stay inside you. You have to make sure you laugh and shake things off.

Later this year in early December I will be celebrating my 30th anniversary as an artist. Yes it was after this drawing (a copy of a Frazetta poster I had in my room) that I decided at age 14 that this is what I wanted to do, create fantastic worlds and experience new visions.