Christmas 2.0 (or the Digital Story Of The Nativity)

source: wykop.pl

Digital & Real Worlds Collide In Shawn Smith's Pixelated Sculptures.

above: detail of Shawn Smith's Falcon

Game heads, birds, fish, other animals and fire are just a few of the subjects of Shawn Smith's contemporary artwork. But unlike the many artists who choose to interpret these same items in realistic or impressionistic manners, artist Shawn Smith chooses to take them a step further. He combines the digital world with the real world by constructing his sculptures of wood blocks, creating three dimensional pixelated representations of animals and nature.

The artist uses both plain woods such as balsa wood and plywood, and painted woods in colors with ink and acrylics. Here's a look at several of his pieces.

Some of his mounted game heads:




detail:




detail:



Other animals:


Fire:



Birds:








Fish:



Rugs:



The Artist's Statement:
My work investigates the slippery intersection between the digital world and reality. Specifically, I am interested in how we experience nature through technology. When we see images of nature on TV or on a computer screen, we feel that we are seeing nature but we are really only seeing patterns of pixilated light.

For the past few years, I have been creating a series of “Re-things.” These whimsical sculptures represent pixilated animals and objects of nature. I am specifically interested in subjects that I have never seen in real life. I find images of my subjects online and then create three-dimensional sculptural representations of these two-dimensional images. I build my “Re-things” pixel by pixel to understand how each pixel plays a crucial role in the identity of an object. Through the process of pixilation, color is distilled, some bits of information are lost, and the form is abstracted.

Making the intangible tangible, I view my building process as an experiment in alchemy, using man-made composite and recycled materials to represent natural forms.

My conceptual and material practice explores identity, color, labor, technology, and science. As an object maker, I am interested in relating these concepts back to the symbiotic connection between the hand and the “thing.” This relationship is a basic principle in the development of the modern human--biologically, technologically, culturally, and scientifically. I want my work to serve as a conversation starter as to the importance of the “thing” in our history and how this relationship is changing with technology, as we become more removed from first hand experience by observing the world through a screen. (courtesy of Craighead Green Gallery)


About the artist:


Shawn Smith was born in 1972 in Dallas, TX where he attended Arts Magnet High School and Brookhaven College before graduating from Washington University in St. Louis, MO with a BFA in Printmaking in 1995. Smith received his MFA in Sculpture from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco in 2005. He has received artist-in-residencies from the Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, CA and the Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris, France. In 1996, Smith was a recipient of the Clare Hart DeGolyer grant from the Dallas Museum of Art. In 2006, he was commissioned to create a monumental public sculpture in San Francisco, CA. Smith's work has been exhibited throughout the United States and in France. Smith currently resides in Austin, Texas and is represented by Craighead Green Gallery in Dallas and d. berman gallery in Austin.

Shawn Smith

Steampunk Meets Architecture: Habitat Machines & Factories by David Trautrimas

Canadian artist David Trautrimas has a series of digitally enhanced composite photographs entitled Habitat Machines. A little bit steampunk, a little bit post apocalyptic and a lot of drugs (just kidding), and you've got some very imaginative art. These are compositions of residences made from everyday machines like coffee pots and sprinklers. Prior to the Habitat Machines, he created a collection of factories (as opposed to residences) called Industrial Parkland, those are included in this post as well.

Habitat Machines, 2008

Waffle Iron Heights:

Iron Apartments:

Sprinkler House:

Oil Can Residence:

Vacuum Tower:

Hole Punch Flats:

Coffee Pot Towers:

Space Heater Place:

Stand Mixer Mews:

The Fishing Complex:

The Measurement District:

Razor Cooperative:


Industrial Parkland, 2006-2007

Film Projector Factory:

Cooler Factory:

Organ Factory:

Match Factory:

Lamp Factory:

Drill Factory:

The Sewing Machine Factory:

The Bicycle Factory:

Automobile Factory:

Oscillating Fan Factory:

Stapler Factory:

Toaster Factory:

Television Factory:


The artist, who just last year received the Ontario Arts Council Emerging Artist grant:

above photo courtesy of Ion magazine

Habitat Machine prints on archival paper are available here from Photo Eye Gallery. Others can be found at Arteriors and you can purchase most all of the above as prints here at LE gallery.

You'll be able to see David's work in VISUAL MORPHOLOGY, a group exhibition at KlompChing Gallery, Brooklyn New York opening tomorrow, Thursday March 5th, 2009.