For me, art is a voyage of discovery. I am as surprised by the art I create as anyone else who views it. Though I constantly strive to improve my skills, I am much more interested in creating something new (and hopefully beautiful) under the sun than in craftsmanship. I feel that photography has superseded other forms of art when it comes to reproducing the external world -it is the interior landscape that I strive to explore and reveal.
BIO
Born in Paris, France in 1950. Moved to New York when I was 5 years old. From an early age, developed an (unhealthy? obsessive?) interest in fantasy, science fiction, surrealism and anything that was beautiful and mysterious. My parents called me "Jean de la Lune" because I was often distracted by things that they couldn't understand. Also had an aptitude for drawing from an early age, but never really pursued it seriously back then. Went away to college in 1967, at the time that the psychedelic zeitgeist was reaching critical mass & got swept up in the maelstrom. Ego disintegrated & a new one rose like a phoenix from the ashes. Began drawing & painting in a stream-of-consciousness mode, bypassing the rational mind. Fell in love, moved to Berkeley, California, and had a son. Took art classes (illustration, figure drawing, portraiture, color theory, etc.). In the late 70's, began playing with computers. Learned to program & wrote simple applications for generating visual patterns. Having no real aptitude for marketing my artwork, I instead embarked on a career in information technology, which lasted 22 years, at which time I quit (in May of 2003). My current incarnation as a digital artist began with the first release of Fractal Design Painter. I experienced a breakthrough with the first release of Bryce, which was the medium that enabled me to finally satisfy my creative impulses. I use many other supporting pieces of software (Amorphium, Poser, & several others), but they only provide me with input for Bryce. All of my images are rendered only in Bryce, with no post-processing at all. Each of them starts with a bare-bones idea or model or texture which I then attempt to allow to evolve in whatever direction "it" decides & which I have never been able to predict. I obsessively tweak shapes, colors, textures, & visual relationships until the image seems "right". If the final result is somewhat disturbing and disorienting, yet at the same time beautiful, then I have succeeded...
Comments (11)
ralphwarnick
Most excellent!
giulband
Very fine effect !
Hubert
Kinda mandala. Nice!
Cyve
Beautiful creation.
Faemike55
Very good work
Kratoonz
Super cool
hewee
Wow so much going on in this one and it looks GREAT.
peedy
Beautiful. Gorgeous colors. Corrie
anahata.c
I really like that quote, it's enlightenment for the 'rest' of us...even the zen masters (who said that enlightenment came in a 'flash') had to go through years of honing and opening before they saw that flash...You know, I feel a kind of similarity between my map/diagram art and your mandala art, because both deal in creating a whole out of many small parts, connected one after the next. I think of your last image's "symmetry," and how---when one looked close---you'd varied each side in the subtlest of ways. So, while it looked symmetric (duplicated), you actually created two very different sides...Well, you did that here. This is symmetric---I mean, it's a mandala, there is symmetry all over the place. (I don't think mandala makers reach the "modern age" very often, with asymmetric shapes, chunks of the mandala drooping down the wall, things like that...) But when one looks closely, there are many variations that don't meet the eye. The darker circles---closest to the second-to-the-last circle---that is, second-to-the outer edge (forgive the terms! I don't know what to call things, lol)---they have variations in each circle. And you've not only changed the color of the panels that come out of them, but also the patterns. And those "panels" (more hard-to-find terminology) are uniform in shape---like big V's---but they have different patterns on them, and the colors change in them, too. Ditto for the four corners of your image. Even the "fruit slices"---ie, circled in deep dark reds, behind the pink lacework connected to the inner mandala (am I clear here, have I lost you utterly lol?)---those fruit-like slices have different colors in them too. Why is this important? Because this piece is a lot more than repetition across repeated patterns: It's a collection of subtle, morphing shapes and hues throughout. It's another of your mandala creations that's highly intricate, very visceral, varied, and illuminated. And the four corners are like beveled marble, or a fine china in which the mandala has been placed (as in a very large serving dish). I love this, as I do the other works in this gallery. The hues and patterns are marvelous. (And the "wheel-spokes"---which is what the center of this piece looks like---are like the buddhist wheel of law that keeps the whole universe going...the 'dhammapada' maybe...And your deep darks make the rest feel like night-lights. An illumined mandala for any time...Quite a fine piece.
BryceHoro
A marvelous mandala, indeed symmetrical but just not quite. It is this wanted "imperfection" that makes it perfect.
cvrad
nice work