Commandments

Commandments is an on-going series of abstract illustrations that serves as a follow-up to my earlier Simpsons abstracts. Created between July 2018 and May 2019, the drawing employs the same seamless structure of the earlier work, allowing it to be displayed as a horizontally repeating pattern.

Borrowing heavily from both classical and contemporary Japanese illustration, Deep Fake serves as a respectful homage to this work, reflecting a wide range of artistic influences from Shinsui Itō and Tatsumi Shimura to Akira Toriyama and Toshio Saeki.

Built on a 6000 pixel x 8000 pixel digital canvas (at 300 dpi) the central panel of Deep Fake is one of my largest, and most ambition illustrations to date. Originating from pencil and paper sketches and structured around a few key figure-based line drawings, the details and color work slowly filled in over a period of roughly 10 months.

Like most of my large illustrations, the development of this piece was intermittent and included several long breaks. There were also many stylistic shifts and re-drawn sections. The most notable change from early drafts was the removal of almost all Western-inspired content. While a few subtle references remain, they serve only to support the mythology and symbolism of the Japanese-inspired work.

Despite the aggregated “collage” nature of this piece and the reliance on reproductions, the Deep Fake wallpaper shares the same core theme as my other drawings, namely, the process of seeing and being seen, and the impact of these efforts on forming personal identities.  

Similar to Magic Mirror, the self-applied mask is used to symbolize of the process of identity formation. However, unlike that earlier work, this drawing is also concerned with identity formation beyond the confines of physical reality, specifically in the unbound realm of digital simulation.

Veiled behind the familiar aesthetic of Japanese woodblock, this drawing explores the centuries-long development of artistry and technology in pursuit of the idealized human form.