Surrealist French Photographer/Collage Sculptor/Installation Artist Gilbert Garcin died in April of 2020 at ninety years old. He spent his life as a factory manager, and it wasn't until retirement that he took up photography. His work reminds me of Tati's films; a light-hearted take on the dark subject of an individual's alienation from the living environment. Whimsical and absurd.
I had never heard of him, but I was thinking about tally marks for some reason, possibly simply as an exploration of texture in pattern, and this photo came up - Garcin in a room, surrounded by tally marks, with tally marks on his hand (not in the reproduction in the second frame of my cartoon). I am unable to find the details of this image, but it appears here, in a an article of a 2009 retrospective of Garcin's work:
The first frame is of a close up of a movie theater seat cushion that I have in my home. I had photographed a letter on the chair, and - through the miracle of the very high res iphone camera - realized that the fabric was engagingly layered. I had been meaning to incorporate the patter in my strip for some time, and this month it happened it fit in.
The balloon. A failing transport balloon has been a recurring motif in my life for years. I grew up with a Victorian print of of a deflated,falling balloon in a small, dusty frame with a pointless, desiccated "authentic antique" sticker on the reverse. I still stop to ponder the fate of the fellow in the basket, waving his hat in an enigmatic fashion. Goals.
And so the fourth frame here is about the pattern of the netting on the balloon, and my attempt to depict the depth of the shape. The flag flying from the base could be a person, hanging on for dear life.
Interspersed with that image is a meme I had found on Reddit: 'it's simple - it's not that simple', on a scale. I can't venture to understand what the point of the theme is (it takes a New Yorker Article level of investigative journalism to get a grasp of Pepe the frog), but I do relate with the sentiment: once you have a hold of a concept, know that the concept has now changed.
The third frame from Mike Roper and Steve Nomad, likely drawn by William Overgard. There's a deliberateness to Overgard's penmanship that I find clean and enviable. I seem to manage to strip that deliberateness in any attempt at homage. This is a close-up of a frame ... I was taken with the "!?!", if I recall, and the indication that the door swings open on knocking. I have no idea if any of that comes across, here, and I was likely just as take with the sense of shapes that the frame conveys.
Anyway, this week a peering into obsessive repetitive scratching, and the sense of being out of control and far behind the ball that results from having sat for hours trying to reproduce minutiae. I was very happy with it.
Surrealist French Photographer/Collage Sculptor/Installation Artist Gilbert Garcin died in April of 2020 at ninety years old. He spent his life as a factory manager, and it wasn't until retirement that he took up photography. His work reminds me of Tati's films; a light-hearted take on the dark subject of an individual's alienation from the living environment. Whimsical and absurd.
ReplyDeleteI had never heard of him, but I was thinking about tally marks for some reason, possibly simply as an exploration of texture in pattern, and this photo came up - Garcin in a room, surrounded by tally marks, with tally marks on his hand (not in the reproduction in the second frame of my cartoon). I am unable to find the details of this image, but it appears here, in a an article of a 2009 retrospective of Garcin's work:
https://www.designboom.com/art/gilbert-garcin-retrospective-at-espace-jacques-villegle/
The first frame is of a close up of a movie theater seat cushion that I have in my home. I had photographed a letter on the chair, and - through the miracle of the very high res iphone camera - realized that the fabric was engagingly layered. I had been meaning to incorporate the patter in my strip for some time, and this month it happened it fit in.
The balloon. A failing transport balloon has been a recurring motif in my life for years. I grew up with a Victorian print of of a deflated,falling balloon in a small, dusty frame with a pointless, desiccated "authentic antique" sticker on the reverse. I still stop to ponder the fate of the fellow in the basket, waving his hat in an enigmatic fashion. Goals.
And so the fourth frame here is about the pattern of the netting on the balloon, and my attempt to depict the depth of the shape. The flag flying from the base could be a person, hanging on for dear life.
Interspersed with that image is a meme I had found on Reddit: 'it's simple - it's not that simple', on a scale. I can't venture to understand what the point of the theme is (it takes a New Yorker Article level of investigative journalism to get a grasp of Pepe the frog), but I do relate with the sentiment: once you have a hold of a concept, know that the concept has now changed.
The third frame from Mike Roper and Steve Nomad, likely drawn by William Overgard. There's a deliberateness to Overgard's penmanship that I find clean and enviable. I seem to manage to strip that deliberateness in any attempt at homage. This is a close-up of a frame ... I was taken with the "!?!", if I recall, and the indication that the door swings open on knocking. I have no idea if any of that comes across, here, and I was likely just as take with the sense of shapes that the frame conveys.
Anyway, this week a peering into obsessive repetitive scratching, and the sense of being out of control and far behind the ball that results from having sat for hours trying to reproduce minutiae. I was very happy with it.