Place Into Being

 A New Book collecting 80 pages of my comic art is COMING OUT in April 2019 published by At Bay Press ! Here below is the cover - kinda cool that there is no title on it, just the art.

Place Into Being cover art

Two selected pages from Place Into Being. 

CANZINE 2017 & NEW STUFF

JOIN ME at CANZINE & the ANARCHIST BOOK FAIR this SATURDAY at the MILLENNIUM LIBRARY in WINNIPEG!

I always have NEW STUFF!!

INKLINGS is a new book of INK doodles 8.5 x 5.5 in. printed on heavy green card stock.

COMXSTRIP is a set of 4 comic strips each individually boxed - 2.625 x .75 x .75 in.
Each strip is 2.25 in. wide and unrolls to 14 inches long.

MEANWHILE... this past spring I printed up (at KROMAR printing) a collection of my abstract & surreal comics called Meanwhile...
Looks like a city map until you unfold it.(see above image)

There is a poster on the other side as well. One large comic with a few smaller ones.

Part of my table display at last year's Canzine.

Here's The Thing

HERE'S THE THING

(working title and cover art)

At Bay Press has agreed to publish a very large and exceptional collection of my new graphic/abstract comic work! 80 full color pages of art. 8.5 x 12 in. Scheduled release date is tentatively Fall 2018.

ZOiKs KaBlaMo ABstract-O-RaMo !  I can't wait.
In 2013 after moving out of my studio of 22 years and contemplating on being a City of Winnipeg Transit driver, my comics, if they were not already abstract enough, took an inevitable wider left turn,  then up and sideways. It'll be quite a diverse collection. I've really been having a lot of fun exploring and experimenting. This book will be mostly single page pieces along with some 2 and 3-page comics as well.

MIGHTY SPIRIT

I know. I'm a bit late, even for the Ukrainian New Year, but for All of YOU, there is still time! I hope you all a wonderful new year, whenever you wish to start. Businesses can start their fiscal year at any time on the calendar and so can you. You can mark a new start on your life with any event that is significant to you. Maybe you stopped smoking or drinking. Maybe you got married or you find that you are finally in your dream job and position or just simply you feel that you are finally being.  It all circles around you!

WUFF & THE 90 SECOND

WINNIPEG UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL....
JUNE 5/6/7, 2015

.....recently selected my observational abstract moving picture short, title 'untitled TV Fuzz No.1' to be screened in The 90 Second program which will kick off this weekend long festival of Alternative Film & Video friday night.

You can check out all the programed Films and Schedules here. WUFF

 Stills from Untitled TV Fuzz No.1 by PAS.TER.NAK

SAYSOME No.8

OUT NOW!

Saysome No.8

FREE at participating shops.

....or write to me.

8 pages inside with fold out cover.

Includes the continuing Meanwhile strip and Super Secret Abstract Man.

Inside page with spinning optic disk

Red River Books - Winnipeg
Comic Factory - Winnipeg
Montasiraki - Montreal
Silver Snail - Toronto
Magic Pony - Toronto
....and soon at Quimby's in Chicago

NEW-NAK-DOC IN GIMLI

THE WONDERFUL WORLDS OF NAK

will be playing at the Gimli Film Festival this year.

Friday, July 25th, 2014

12:30pm

Aspire Theatre

This 30 Minute Documentary originally produced for MTS On Demand Video and directed by Patrick Lowe with an original music by score by brother Greg Lowe, this film explores a weaving of my artwork and philosophies from some of the diverse areas of my practice.

This documentary played at the Yorkton Film festival and was recently the opening film at FIFA, the International Festival of Film on Art in Montreal.

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SAYSOME NO.6 ...

...has already come and gone....been out for some time....sorry you may have missed it.....I'll print some more.....still Free!.....write me for a copy.

Saysome No.7 is all finished and just needs to go to the printers.

SAYSOME more....No.4

New issue of Saysome is out! Available for free at Comic Factory in Winnipeg and a few scattered locations in the Exchange area. If you are out of town, e-mail me (nak@mts.net) your postal address
and I will send you a copy!

8pgs. Mini comic format. Mostly abstract-ed ink drawings/doodles...INklings! A couple Meanwhile...strips, and the continuing visual adventure of Super Secret Abstract Gadget Man.

Some Say Little Books Are BIG!

Winnipeg Free Press, April 20, 2013

See previous post for more info about the Treasury Of Mini Comics.

******* NEW *******

Mini Comix / New Title by NAK
SAYSOME  issues No. 1, No. 2, No. 3 are now available.  Each issue has continuing drawings such as Super Secret Abstract Gadget Man and a new comic strip called MEANWHILE...
8 pgs. each
Copies are available for FREE in various locations in the Exchange District and Comic Factory at 306 Notre Dame (Winnipeg only). Or e-mail me to order through the mail for postage & handling costs.

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ALSO NEW is the newest issue in my continuing series of the Acid Man Society. Glossy color cover with 8 pages inside of black ink drawings similar and fantastic as the cover. Makes a great coloring book!

TABLE SPACE

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.

  

REAL POLLICKS

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!

 

WIDE OPEN SPACES

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.   

New Book Of Drawings

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!