Joana Garrido

untitled, digital,  2012

untitled,  digital,  2012

from a series "Buildings Have Feelings Too",  digital,  2011

"#4 Optiker"  digital,  2010

Sometimes digital art can be dismissed by people like me who still get their hands (and clothes and everything else) dirty with actual paints and brushes. But that's simply unfair. Every medium is it's own thing and new ones have as much to offer as the old. What is sometimes frustrating is how often digital artists try to mimic other media. Joana Garrido never makes that mistake. She loves the very noature of digital manipulation and although the pieces I've selected may not show it (I just grabbed what I ;liked the most) she tries a little bit of everything, pushing boundaries and finding out what kind of effects she can get, what works and what doesn't. In other words, she's an artist. And when her stuff works, as it usually does, it can be fairly breathtaking. These are not just backdrops for fantasy flicks and sci-fiction video games. They're images that stand alone, drawing the viewer into a singular visual experience. Enjoy.
You can go to her website at joanagarrido.com but it will just tell you to go to www.flickr.com/photos/onomatoh/

Aris Moore

 

Aris Moore's drawings are a bit like collage and it's no surprise to discover that she does a lot of that as well. Her endless fascination is the face. Each piece is a portrait, although not in the proper sense. These are not real people. They are invented. They are cobbled together from disparate elements; a mouth, eyes, etc.,. The disjointed and disconnected nature of their features lends them a curious vulnerability, and a peculiar kind of life. It's as if they desperately wanted to be real, like Pinocchio. Sometimes the amalgamation of features can take on a shocking aspect, akin to characters in a freak show, which we are drawn toward out of morbid fascination. But even then there is deep sympathy in the portrayal. In Aris Moore's work, that line between real and unreal is a vast twilight zone in which she creates an endless cast of characters that all seem to have their own stories to tell, as rich and complex, as sad and sorrowful, or as full of joy and simple pleasures, as any of our own.

Sometimes the artist will experiment with simple variations. For example, take a head of hair and toss in  the facial features in various combinations and styles and see what happens. Somehow each one begins to speak. Here's a terriffic example below. And this is just the tip of an iceberg. Go visit her blog and just spend some time scrolling back in time through her enormous body of work at peekadoo.blogspot.com

And congratulations to the artist for being included in the latest edition of New American Paintings.

Lyla Duey

Bathroom (2011) • oil on wood • 6" x 8"

Doubleroom (2011) • oil on wood • 9" x 12"

Kitchen (2011) • oil on wood • 11" x 14"

A Nice Wall Piece (2012) • oil on wood • 11" x 14"

Broken Chair (2012) • oil on wood • 14" x 18"

Lyla Duey's recent work has a tremendously enjoyable premise. She makes simple line drawings of various places and objects in her home. Then she cuts out the objects in the drawings and reconstructs the scene in three dimensional models. The paper models reflect the distortions of perspective in her original drawings. Then she makes a painting of the model. So she starts by looking at three dimensions, re-interprets it in two, then re-interprets that back into three, and finally re-interprets that into two dimensions once more. It is a fairly unique exploration of what the illusion of depth in two dimensional art means, how it communicates to us both accurately and inaccurately about the real world in which we live. But it is an exploration of such ideas without pretension or self-importance, a relieving balm amid innumerable artists trying to make profundities out of inanities. Here we are simply witnessing an enthusiastic meditation on and fascination with the act of observation. She has other work as well which she tackles with the same careful attention to detail and amusing wit. You can look through it all on her website: www.lyladuey.com
Thank you Lyla! And congratulations on being included in 104th issue of New American Paintings.

(just a warning though; her images are hi-resolution files so if you have a slow connection they may take a little time to load).

Hsiao-Ron Cheng

"Weeping" digital painting 2012

"February Afternoon" digital painting 2012

"The Child and the Fox"  digital painting 2013

"November"

"Stuck" drawing

Hsiao-Ron Cheng is a Taiwanese artist exploring the world of pop-surrealism. She works primarily digitally, so for once I don't have to fret too much about not being able to see the work in person. This is it, if not at the highest resolution possible. Her themes are focused squarely on childhood and nature, how the two naturally intersect and how they are all too often separated. I think there is longing in all children for a deep connection to the natural world. For those that grow up in dense urban environments, that longing can turn into a bittersweet heartbreak of fantasy and despair. The lost presence of nature "out there" is internalized and comes to represent the sense of isolation and and separateness that most children experience as they near maturity. It is a poignant emotion both universal and intensely personal. Each experience of this sort is likely to make a person ask, "Am I the only one?" The answer of course is no, but sometimes it is only art that really can communicate this truth with any meaning to those who feel on the verge of despair. I suspect that her art has touched more than a few young people out there.
You can see more at her website: hsiaoroncheng.com or on her Flickr page.
thanks to booooooom.com for posting her work before me.