Changing to other media sites.

There are only so many blogs i can hold onto. Tumblr and behance are good mediums for me to promote my work. I decided to focus on those publications. Goodbye Blogspot.

My Tumblr  --------My blog, finished works, sketches, fun experiments.

My Photo Tumblr    --------------My photography blog, learning a new medium

My Website      -----------------------------My Website.

http://www.behance.net/sishir -----------------Behance.


thank you.

Déjà vu

The first Déjà vu I remember was back when I was 6 or 7. I was in India, and I was playing with my friends. I walked into their kitchen, and had this sense of already reliving that memory, this memory is still clear in my mind, which is why I have a fascination on phenomenon’s like this. Déjà vu means, already seen. Its that weird feeling where a certain instant in time is relived, or felt as if its relived, and sometime it feels like seeing the future. There are many theories as to why this happens; one is the possibility that the information traveling from one eye is delayed, causing you to “relive” a memory. Another possibility is that your mind might be going through a memory “loop” of some sort.

I kept thinking of instances as a starting point to my illustration. I wanted to juxtapose the same figure but in the instance of turning. I wanted the background to be seamless, but repeating. Essentially I have a figure in the instance of turning. The landscape is repeating. The girl’s face is split, with the left side staring at the viewers, while the right side turns to see what’s already been seen. The process for this illustration was a bit intensive; I was experimenting with film camera around this time, and wanted to play with the idea of having film negatives overlap. I don’t particularly enjoy accidents in film, but from an experimental point of view it offers some interesting aesthetics. Overlapping images or double exposures inspired me to juxtapose the same figure in different poses next to each other. The final was much more subtle than the original idea. There is no reference to film cameras or negatives, but instead in involves the background image being repeated as a function for showing the same image again, and having two poses juxtaposed next to each other to represent an instant in time where the figure moves. 

Paranoia

I thought of paranoia in a symbolic manner in this illustration. In my process I thought about the definition of paranoia. It involves irrational thoughts caused by fear, anxiety, insecurities and miscommunication. The paranoia is created by the person. And exerted onto the world. The feedback of this action is that the person then thinks of all the possible and different ways that a decision goes. Choices are elements that build up, the more one thinks of the choice, the more doors it opens, leading them to think about all the other possibilities caused from one possibilities. Paranoia is the very negative aspect of this idea. Every choice or decision running through the mind leads one to think of all the negative outcome that could possibly happen. The victim of this state of mind can get so involved in this process, that they jump to the most ridiculous notions ever. Such as thinking the entire world could be against them. Through my process I thought about cause and effect. I drew a circle that represents the mind, and arrows pointing away and towards the mind. The paranoid thoughts exerted into the environment all lead back to the person. Essentially all fears, misinterpretations, prejudices and insecurities projected onto the world come back with a violent force. Unfortunately its all in the head. It leads the person to doubt his surroundings and have an overall sense of distrust towards his peers. I wished to be as unorthodox as possible with this illustration. I enjoy painting old Angkor and Mayan sculptures, in this case the stone sculpture represents the mind. Its “set in stone” in its views and is exerting fear and disgust towards the environment.  The Spanish conquistadors represent the delusions and fears of the stone faces, out to destroy and ruin the sculpture. 

Body Dysmorphic Disorder

When talking to a friend a while ago, I learned that he had Body Dysmorphic Disorder. In essence this disorder causes him to obsess over specific parts of his body. Some days it might be normal, other days he felt he looked “ridiculously distorted”. This caused him to compare himself to other people. He would often trace the lines where he wished his bones were structured, and often wished that his body was made out of clay, so he could remold himself. Taking the idea of remolding and tracing lines, I thought about sculpting and molding. A sculptor would have drawn lines where he would need to cut the stone. This led me to play with the idea of sculpting. The Greek, Roman and Renaissance sculptures were all based on ideal proportions, and considered perfect. When a painter tried to paint the perfect figure, over and over to make it perfect, and fails, he ends up with a odd looking painting that was half way sculpted into the world and then abandoned.

Those with this disorder look at them self, thinking of all the way they could remold their very physical makeup. This inspired me to think of the hypothetical sculptor, which would who constantly chips away at the marble to reveal something perfect, only to assume that their work was ruined, lacking or distorted. I wanted to show a figure, sculpting himself out of rock, only half done. He is building his own perception of his image.

The painting was done in acrylics and copic dyes ad isopropyl alcohol, which created a very strange decaying stone like pattern. This was juxtaposed with careful drawing around the arm area. The warm represents where the stone becomes flesh, and the cools represent the unfinished stone. The figure holds a hammer and chisel, which are the tools use to carve rock. A figure, carving, tuning and perfecting its image over and over and over…

ADHD

The research on this subject was a bit easier to work on. As I have a friend who suffers with this disorder. He also knows a lot about the subject, helping me better understand the subject too. Adhd is something we hear about a lot, scientifically its symptoms involve problems with attentiveness, restlessness, impulsive behavior and organization, to the point of it inhibiting the person in daily life.  Throughout my talk with my friend, the words blur, attention, distraction, restlessness, moving and hyper kept reoccurring. The entire concept of ADHD brought up the ideas of vibration and fluttering, distortion and being unable to focus. The medium used was oil, as I approached overlapping figures before with the oil mediums. Oil paints help me blend and mold figure easier. It also help me simplify my shapes as opposed to acrylics or watercolors, which forces me to be very specific. I spent 4-5 session on this painting until it had enough texture and was build up enough to feel like a hyperactive, moving figure. I wanted the composition to have to no real focus, to feel like an instant in time, and the sense of fluttering thoughts. The eyes floating through the composition represent the lack of attention and restlessness.

When doing the process for this painting, I was thinking a lot about double exposures to remove any sign of focus. I was also scribbling haphazardly with my crayons, which evolved into ideas for overlapping faces. This evolved into shapes of faces overlapping. I took reference of a friend and overlapped it on Photoshop. This reference was hard to work with, as it really destroyed the figure and the faces. However it also forced me to think of the painting abstractly.

Like the other images, the final was finished digitally, with symbol of eyes  collaged onto the painting. moving through the entire composition, like butterflies fluttering by.

Hypnagogia

Hypnagogia:

            Dreams have been an interesting subject to me for a long time. Specifically lucid dreaming, sleep paralysis, auditory hallucinations, and the cycle of sleep. Ive been practicing lucid dreaming for four years now. Although my skills in lucid dreaming are very inexperienced, I can become aware of the fact I am dreaming. However I end up in a sleep paralysis and have some weird sense of auditory hallucinations, where a certain pattern of sound gets repeated over and over again until I wake up from the sleep. However, when I do lucid dream, it often a interesting experience.

Hypnagogia is a limbo state between sleep and consciousness. Its where lucid dreaming, hallucinations, out of body experiences and sleep paralysis happens. Having a good working knowledge of dreams inspired me to design a piece that involved dreaming. It’s a state of mind where ones travels into their own mind, it’s the only time you really get to see information being process in your mind, in a very abstracted way.

 I started out with nightmares and the science behind it. Its a specific form of dreaming that involved strong feelings of fear and distress. This led me into sleep paralysis, which I experience on occasion. Instead of focusing on allegory of dreams, I went for the effects, symptoms and feelings one feels while in a dream or induced in sleep paralysis.

The universal mythology or folklore in ancient scripts on sleep paralysis involves the victim not being able to move, due to a monster, or creature and in come cases a witch or old hag placing pressure on their body. In Japanese cultures it was bounding metal pressed down by a ghost. Instantly I started working with the idea of a floating figure wrapped in wire. While legs are forcing pressure on the chest of the figure. The color palate is also warm, sepia to give the impression of being in a dream like world.

The final was painted in acrylics and copic dyes. Then finished digitally to give it a more blurry dreamlike state. 

Headaches

Headaches:

This painting was originally a test piece made during the break when I experimented with the process during the break between semesters. I was introduced to the concept of the Black Box by a friend. Essentially the concept was that a black box is a device that inputs information and outputs information. Its called a black box because one would not necessarily have the knowledge of its internal workings. This idea can be applied to computers, programming and of course the mind. I had a splitting headache one night. Unable to sleep, I established a concept of a “skull-splitting headache”.  Based on old images of skulls, collaged on Photoshop. Essentially the painting involves a skull splitting apart, which represents the skull splitting headaches. The red box in the middle of the composition is the black box, but inflamed, with a headache. This illustration was revisited a month after and processed digitally for the project. This assignment was the most liberal illustration I created, as it involved a loose group of elements in a composition over a careful collage of process and symbols and images. 

Dementia

Dementia was a subject I was researching during the Fall semester of the school year. I already had knowledge of dementia, as I was researching on synergizing the words entropy and atrophy together for an assignment. It was hard for me to approach any individual about this disorder, because it involved family members dealing with seeing their loved ones literally fading away and losing total sense of self.  This incepted the idea of “fading away” or “going away” as a foundation to work with. The human just becomes a body than a perfect balance of body and mind. When things fade away they could melt away, or crack or peel away like paint on the walls. The decay and rotting occurs in the mind than in the body. Old faded photographs also inspired me to add to the “decay” of this illustration. In old photos, such as old daguerreotypes. The scratches and dust on the surface cause the image to slowly fade away. Finally, when you start to lose the face you lose the identity. In the illustration, I faded the face away, and created a decaying environment in which the figure is slowly fading away. The painting was carefully rendered, and on occasion scraped out on areas to give it an old feel. The final was digitally composed, with collaged elements.

Bipolar Disorder

To start the first image of the series, I needed to establish a process I would use through the entire project. Each project started with the written word. I researched what I could about Bipolar Disorder just to understand its symptoms and to inspire ideas. Instead of writing down paragraphs or statements, I wrote words, letters, ideas from my research and interviewed a friend who suffers with this disorder. After soaking in enough information about this subject, I started making symbols out of my work lists. These symbols would translate into shapes, the shapes are given form to become volumetric illustrations that contain both a concept and a narrative.

Because the brain is the center of the nervous system, it generates all of the nervous functions including the mind. However this disorder creates duality of being either manic or depressive. Relative to the science, I used the idea of ying and yang or black and white. In this case, manic represented something warm, breezy and alive and bright. Whereas depressive represented something sterile and cool. The function of this design was to present a strong duality in just seeing the emotions of each face. The Manic face on the left represents optimism, happiness and euphoria. The left face represents sadness, hopelessness and pessimism. The process was complicated, exhaustive and involved a bit of note taking and academic research. However all that was towards reaching a better understanding of my topic. The image was rendered on Bristol and then transferred onto watercolor paper, each face was painted separately and then collaged digitally. 

Monotypes

More Monotypes, the focus of these portraits is to create as much form and shape of a portrait, without showing much of the face itself. I was inspired by images of disfigured World War One soldiers, and early plastic surgery images. Out of ten images created in two weeks, these five survived….

Sketches

 Child "Acrylic and Ink"

 Wasp "Acrylic and Ink"

 Blue "Acrylic and Ink"

Classic "Acrylic and Ink"

I was at the Ringling College of Art and Design booth at Megacon this past weekend, pretty productive weekend. 

Victims

These are successful test monotypes for a project im working on. it derives a lot of design and inspiration from old daguerreotypes and war victims.

More to come.

States of Mind

A quick preview of my thesis. Things are going on!

Headaches

"Headache" 2011 Acrylic, Watercolor, Oil Washes

Did this when I had a horrible headache, not being able to sleep, i used the concept of "skull splitting headaches" as a catalyst to create this image. The red box is a play on the concept of the black box, which is a body that inputs and outputs information, like the mind. When something in the body is inflamed it usually turns red. I used this idea to show the mind simply as the red shape, inflamed and in pain. I also really like working on this watercolor paper. 

Friends and Monsters

Here is a small portion of some of the works from Friends and Monsters.  They are fun, its a good exercise, and if successful i make something awesome. i try to do one a day, after experiencing George Pratt's 30 portraits and 30 days, i decided to do these purely for experimental/ personal reasons. Trying each one to look different from each other. My references range from photos of my friends, online reference, mummies, death masks, ancient sculptures.

Enjoy!

Also if you are around Sarasota on Janurary 21st, drop by for the opening of my Friends+Monsters gallery show!

Facebook Event Link to Friends + Monsters

 Acrylic

 Acrylic, watercolor, copic dyes

 Pencil, Ink, Acrylic, Watercolor

 Pencil, Watercolor, Acrylic

 Ink, Watercolor, Acrylic

 Acrylic, Ink, Color Pencil

 ink, acrylic

 watercolor

watercolor, oil, color pencil

CRASH

"Crash"

My “Meanwhile” Comic for Megacon . We were selected by our illustration department to each create a two page comic. This years “Meanwhile” is much more diverse in approach and design. Cant wait to see it all together. Here are all the cool kids I got to work with!

Alex Beck, Scott Prather, Natalie Andrewson, Bree Lundberg, Isabel Arenas, Matt Howley, Marceli Colato, Andres Labrada, Brett Carville, Roni Koren, Eli Minaya and Bing Liu

Daughter and Mother

"Daughter and Mother" ink, acrylic, isopropyl, copic and watercolor

Sleeping Computers

BitMemory

BitMemory was the first time I utilized glitch, processing and slit scanning elements in a functional illustration. The final product was focused towards branding a certain album with a glitch/beat aesthetic.  This was also an exercise in utilizing textures in an efficient way. Finally i will be selling these prints at any size, just give me a call. 

State of Mind

Graphite and digital and a lack of sleep

Pretend

If people Request, i can sell this as a print.

 

Shape Based

Spaceship (photoshop)

Terror (Inks,Isopropyl and Acrylic)

Isolation (photoshop)

Posters and fun

i made the horrible mistake of doing my own personal work. but i dont regret it. now its time to figure things out.....

astroknots

Friends




Monsters