Art – Recent Work

You are currently browsing the archive for the Art – Recent Work category.

The Year of the Snake limited edition Laser Cut Print +
The Great Cut Paper Creation Competition

April 25, 2013 in Art - Recent Work, Exhibitions & Events, Featured, Japan, News | Add your comment

The Year of the Snake limited edition Laser Cut Print by Patrick GannonLasers are cool. Not to the touch, of course, but ever since I saw a little movie called Star Wars a long, long time in a drive-in far, far away, I’ve been fascinated by lasers.

How awesome is it, then, that I finally get to use lasers in my work*. Introducing The Year of the Snake limited edition Laser Cut Print! Based on the topmost serpent layer of Among the Petals a White Serpent, this lasercut is an intricately designed, delicately beautiful display of the potency of simplicity and the curviness of snakes. Here in Japan, the white snake is a symbol of good fortune – particularly in the financial department. I hope that it will prove fortuitous for you.

The Year of the Snake limited edition Laser Cut Print is available now in the shop, in its own lasercut section. It is limited to an edition of only 200 prints, of which 100 have already been claimed. Each is signed and numbered by the artist (you can almost read my signature), and will sell for $75 US.

*Full disclaimer: Nobody actually let me touch the laser. Or even look at it. That would be beyond foolish – and quite possibly catastrophic for the entire planet.

The Great Cut Paper Creation Competition

Thanks to the kind donation of one cut paper fan from Northern Europe, I am able to gift a few cut papery items to the person or cause of my choice. I could just give the items away, but where’s the fun in that?!?

I hereby lay down the gauntlet and challenge thee to create the absolute best Cut Paper Artwork you are capable of!!!

Why a competition? I’ve had an amazing few years making paper art, thanks to the support of a lot of great people. I’ve learned so much about paper, art, people, and life. Now, it would be an honor to share my obsession with you – to give people who aren’t artists and who don’t usually have the opportunity or the impetus to get creative a chance to try something new. I earnestly hope you fall in love with paper just as I have.

So be bold! Make art! Get Cutting!

The Rules

We at the studio will pick our favorite piece, and that creator will be declared the winner. No professional cut paper artists, please – we’d love to see great work by people who don’t usually have the chance to play with paper.

The winner will receive a copy of the 2013 Cut Paper Art Calendar, 1 open edition giclée print, and a limited edition Year of the Snake Lasercut.

To enter:

Please Post Images to my Facebook Page
or email a low res (72 dpi, 800 pixel on longest side) image to newsletter[at]pgannon[dot]com. (after substituting in the appropriate symbols, of course)

The deadline is May 31, 2013*

Entries will be judged on creativity, adventurous use of the paper medium, cutting skill (neatness counts! a bit anyway…), and awesomeness. We’ll be picking our favorite piece – so, yes, this will be totally subjective. All decisions are final.

*The original deadline in the newsletter is May 15th, but I’m extending it in the hope of getting more people involved.

切絵にチャレンジ！コンペを開催します！

皆さんのお陰でかれこれ10年以上切絵を製作してきましたが、この楽しさをぜひ皆さんとシェアしたく、このアイデアを思いつきました！
初めてだけどちょっとやってみようかな？と思ったあなた、ぜひ、チャレンジしてみませんか？

では、紙を切ってみましょー。

ルール

プロの切絵作家ではない方々からの切絵作品を募ります。その中から、これは！と思う切絵を独断と偏見で選抜し、チャンピオンを決めさせて頂きます！

チャンピオンには、パトリック・ギャノンの切絵カレンダー（2013年）、ジークレープリント作品、干支「巳」のレーザーカットをプレゼントします！

＜参加方法＞
サイズや切絵の手法に制限はありません！紙の切絵でしたら何でもOK。
私のFacebookのページに作品の画像をアップロードするか、下記アドレスにEメールでお送りください。画像は72dpiで長い辺が800ピクセルを目安としてください。
newsletter★pgannon.com (★を@にしてしてお送りください）

締切は2013年5月31日です！どしどしご応募ください。

The Year of the Snake limited edition Laser Cut Print by Patrick Gannon

Among the Petals a White Serpent

February 13, 2013 in Art - Recent Work, Featured, Japan, W.I.P.s | 2 comments

Among the Petals a White Serpent cut paper art by Patrick Gannonsize: 8 x 10 inches
medium: cut and torn washi and chiyogami paper on wood panel

First and foremost, an extremely belated あけましておめでとうございます / Happy New Year!

Also, A slightly less-belated Happy Chinese New Year! It’s fortuitous that I only missed the latter holiday by a few days – it makes my posting of this piece seem almost like it was planned.

Coming off of a year full of dragons, it felt natural to slither right into some snake art. Drawing-wise, there are a lot of similarities. Long and sinuous bodies, scales, curves… eyes. Of course, there are quite a few differences as well. Japanese dragons have hair while snakes are happily bald. Dragons have claws and fingers; serpents have a tougher time with forks and spoons. The biggest difference is one of scale (pun unapologetically intended). Dragons are massive while the Japanese rat snake, upon whom our reptilian friend here is based, could easily hide under your sofa.

In Japan the white snake is considered to be a carrier of good luck – a person who finds one will be lucky for life ( 1, 2 ). Like many Japanese New Years symbols, they herald the coming of good financial fortune. I plan on displaying this guy all year round. The ume plum blossom 「梅」 is a harbinger of Spring, and thus a common theme on New Year’s cards. The pinkish ribbon intertwined with the snake at the top marks this piece as a part of my recent (and future?) solo exhibition, All Runs Together. It is a band of energy, of light, of life or soul which runs through all of the pieces, connecting them into one infinite and eternally evolving whole. But more on that later.

Among the Petals a White Serpent cut paper art WIP by Patrick GannonWork-in-Progress – top layer of scales
Visually, I had a lot of fun here. As with many of my Chinese zodiac pieces, I wanted to do something a bit more graphically flat. The scales are borrowed from a real Japanese white snake, but instead of curving around the body run straight, as if they continue on into infinity in every direction. The plum blossoms are inspired by Japanese pottery patterns with their simplified, representative shapes (the centers are torn bits of many different chiyogami patterns). Look hard, and you will see the kanji character for the snake: 巳. There are actually 2 kanji for each of the zodiac animals; the typical everyday version, and the one more commonly used for the zodiac (as seen above).

Among the Petals a White Serpent cut paper art drawing by Patrick GannonA Snake with many layers shed

Until That Day, Rooted I Shall Remain

July 5, 2012 in Art - Recent Work, Featured, W.I.P.s | 1 comment

Until That Day, Rooted I Shall Remain cut paper art by Patrick Gannonsize: 11 13/16 inches x 11 13/16 inches (30cm x 30cm)
medium: cut and torn paper on wood
private collection

I have commitment issues.

Not with people, mind you, but rather with places. And buildings. Particularly domiciles. Considering that I’ve lived in 3 countries (that I can recall) so far, and currently reside on, more-or-less, the exact opposite side of the globe from which I was born, you would be forgiven for having already assumed this. I like to try on new homes nearly as often as a hermit crab going through a growth spurt. But it’s actually much more complicated, because I also stick around for too long after a part of me knows it’s time to move on.

There’s a constant push-and-pull between the settler and the nomad. Just ask Shane. Our arboreal friend here, like his islandic and icelandic brethren, falls squarely on one side of that conflict. Perhaps even more than those others, he takes sustenance from his environment while awaiting that far-off call.

Until That Day, Rooted I Shall Remain is the second recent(ish) commission in the Until That Day series, and the most likely to engage in photosynthesis with strangers. With all of his complicated rooted goodness and twisting vines, he is a true merging of the more detailed pieces I’m making these days and the less-layered pieces of yesteryear.

Until That Day, I Make My Home Down Here; Until That Day, Rooted I Shall Remain; and Until That Day, My Drift is Glacial cut paper art by Patrick GannonUntil That Day, I Make My Home Down Here; Until That Day, Rooted I Shall Remain; and Until That Day, My Drift is Glacial hanging out in their new home

Until That Day, Rooted I Shall Remain WIP cut paper art by Patrick Gannonpreliminary sketchiness

Until That Day, Rooted I Shall Remain Final Drawing by Patrick GannonFinal drawing on tracing paper

Until That Day, Rooted I Shall Remain, detail cut paper art by Patrick Gannondetail

Until That Day, Rooted I Shall Remain, detail cut paper art by Patrick Gannondetail

Until That Day, My Drift is Glacial

May 9, 2012 in Art - Recent Work, Featured | 7 comments

Until That Day, My Drift is Glacial cut paper art by Patrick Gannonsize: 11 13/16 inches x 11 13/16 inches (30cm x 30cm)
medium: cut and torn paper on wood
private collection

The Winter of ’94, before I moved to Japan for the first time, was the most brutally cold I’ve ever experienced. It began with a week of -40 degree arctic chill on top of our little mountain, not counting the wind. A freezing rain coated the roads with six inches of ice that stubbornly lasted until after I left in March. Driving to work was an exercise in agility, trying desperately to keep the tires on the narrow strips of pavement that showed through. A new layer of snow or ice fell every other day, like reinforcements filling the breach left by their icy fallen comrades. I seem to recall a blizzard at some point too.

All of which left me about as eager to venture outdoors as a hibernating vole. Glaciers, by way of contrast, are always in motion. Just not at a particularly rapid pace. I can empathize. After all, it’s more than easy to become hitched to your environment, to the status quo, to the familiar sway of the everyday tides. Until, that is, the call comes.

Until That Day, My Drift is Glacial was one of two commissioned pieces designed to complement another. I suppose, in the end, no rock is an island. It’s an interesting challenge; returning to a theme without copying it too directly, utilizing all the skills learned since without separating the pieces too much. The foundation paper (the piece I use as the border and the anchor for the artwork) was a godsend which I had received as a gift only a few days earlier. The whitish plants embedded in it reminded me of frost and served as a major inspiration. It was also one of the toughest papers I’ve ever worked with, thick and soft and hell to cut cleanly. Totally worth it.

Until That Day, My Drift is Glacial cut paper art by Patrick GannonIn a frame!

Until That Day, My Drift is Glacial cut paper art by Patrick Gannon

Portrait of Ebb with Kamon

March 21, 2012 in Art - Recent Work, Featured, Japan | 4 comments

Portrait of Ebb with Kamon cut paper art by Patrick Gannonsize: hubcap-sized
medium: cut paper on hubcap (fiberglass?)

To everything (Turn, Turn, Turn) – Pete Seeger, from the Book of Ecclesiastes, as sung by The Byrds

The spinning of a wheel, the spreading and curling petals of a flower, the encroaching and receding tide; patterns mesmerize me. The often-colliding patterns of man and nature are among the most fascinating, pushing and pulling at each other in a constant state of unrest and upheaval.

A few months ago, gifted and magnanimous paper artist, Béatrice Coron introduced me to Landfillart.org, an organization which is encouraging ecological thinking via the recycling of over a thousand hubcaps into original works of art. Given the recurring themes of cyclical nature in my work, I had to take part. Plus, turning an old hubcap into art is just so cool.

The circle of the hubcap-canvas became the primary design element in the work. That shape repeats in the patterns of ol’ Ebb’s clothes, the shape of his hunched shoulders, and in the overall flow of the work. Not to mention the kamon.

Kamon are elegantly-designed, highly-stylized Japanese family crests. There are a lot of them (the website is in Japanese, but that shouldn’t stop you from enjoying it). The only things that fascinate me more than patterns are symbols (and metaphors, and folk tales, and fables, and fuzzy bunnies… but I digress). Marrying the circular symbolic kamon to the cyclical wheel to the recurrent tide seemed a natural (if somewhat polyamorous) union.

Kamon cut paper art by Patrick GannonThe kamon, in this particular case, are the calm and raging sea (top+bottom left), an Ouroboros eel (bottom right), and the morning glory – which has about a million different metaphorical meanings, my favorite being its cycle of endings and beginnings.

The LandfillArt project is still looking for artists to mangle and re-shape old car parts. While you’re there, check out the 800+ cool pieces already completed (mine is on page 17 right now). Some other angles:

Portrait of Ebb with Kamon cut paper art by Patrick Gannon

Portrait of Ebb with Kamon cut paper art by Patrick Gannon

A Brush, a Pen, a Bunny and a Thing-With-Eyes

February 29, 2012 in Art - Recent Work, Exhibitions & Events, News | 4 comments

2012 Cut paper Art Calendar Artist Edition sketches by Patrick GannonEver since taking up the knife and setting off on my quest to slash up a whole lot of paper, I haven’t dabbled much in other mediums. Take pen and ink (and brushes… or at least brush-pens). Back before art school, pencil and pen/ink were all I ever used. Somewhere in the deep places, a vast pile of my drawings sits and seethes, plotting revenge against my fickle self.

I should thank the good people who ordered the Artist Edition of the 2012 Cut Paper Art Calendar for giving me the opportunity to re-learn the pleasures of this kind of drawing, and of having indelible ink dyed into the bottom of my hand. Actually, I should thank them for a heck of a lot more. Without them, and 70-odd other folks who supported my campaign on Kickstarter, the Calendar would never have come to be.
2012 Cut paper Art Calendar Artist Edition sketches by Patrick Gannon

Cooler Minds Prevail

February 21, 2012 in Art - Recent Work, Featured, W.I.P.s | 6 comments

Cooler Minds Prevail cut paper art by Patrick Gannonclick here or the image for a clearer mind
size: 13 x 9 1/2 inches / 33 x 24 cm
medium: cut paper on wood

Typically, I enjoy talking about my work and the ideas behind it. Every once in a while a piece comes along that requires a bit of discretion; that asks for a touch of privacy. This is one such piece. So, let’s softly close the door and hang the Do Not Disturb sign on the knob as we tiptoe away down the hall.

To make up for my rare hush (seriously, you’re going to want to enjoy this calm before my usual verbosity roars back), I thought I would treat everyone to a good WIPping.

First up – a view from inside the mind of our perturbed dark stranger, showing some layered paper construction.
Cooler Minds Prevail WIP cut paper art by Patrick Gannon

Read the rest of this entry »

The River’s Cascade, Under the Blossoming Plum

January 6, 2012 in Art - Recent Work, Featured, Japan | 2 comments

The River's Cascade, Under the Blossoming Plum cut paper art by Patrick Gannonsize: 8 x 10 inches
medium: cut paper on illustration board

There was a time, eons upon eons ago, before the earth had fully cooled or I had graduated from junior high school, when I drew dragons. Daily. In math class. Typically surrounded by broken swords, shattered shields, and bristling with spent arrows. I’m fairly sure this is the first dragon I’ve drawn since those hallowed days of yore.

One of the things I enjoy most about doing the artwork is the research, long before pencil touches paper. Often, pieces such as this, where I know ahead of time what the subject will be, but not the concept or emotion, are the most difficult to get a firm grasp on. I have to ask myself, “What does a dragon mean to me, metaphorically, conceptually, emotionally?”. Aside from my inner (and still very much alive) middle-schooler who just thinks dragons are awesome.

Thus begins the research into the myth, mythology, and symbolism of the subject matter. Granted, it might appear that I’m wasting vast amounts of time surfing the web, but I assure you, that is not so. For example, The Japanese dragon is usually drawn with three claws. The Chinese dragon has five – at least the one which represents the emperor does. In both traditions (and Japan’s draws heavily from China’s, while also making it uniquely its own), the dragon is associated with water.

One of the thoughts inescapably running through my brain for the past couple months has been the earthquakes and tsunami of the past Spring. In my original sketches, I played up the ideas of a more violent clash between earth and water, along with a morally ambiguous wyrm. In the end, it is more appropriate that 2012 be represented by an auspicious water deity.

I’ve been playing alot recently with layering. It’s most obvious in the waterfall, which becomes more multi-hued and complicated where it merges with the dragon. The big lizard itself is an experiment in layers to push and pull certain parts of the creature back or pull them forward. Some areas of scales are above the line-work, while others are beneath.

To rip a page from the incredible Karl Kerschl, here are some of my favorite dragon-y things:

  • The Hobbit
  • The constellation Draco
  • Dragonball
  • My coolest belt
  • this calendar:

The 2012 Cut Paper Art Calendar, interior(you didn’t really think I’d be able to resist the self-promotion, didja?)

This Hunger Shall Not Be Satisfied (Futakuchi-Onna)

December 12, 2011 in Art - Recent Work, Featured, Japan | 6 comments

This Hunger Shall Not Be Satisfied (Futakuchi-Onna) cut paper art by Patrick Gannonsize: 8 1/2 x 15 inches
medium: cut paper on wood

Kechi (けち) is one of the most useful Japanese words you’re ever likely to find. It means cheap or stingy, but isn’t limited to just money. It expands to include emotion, time, and helpfulness among others.

Futakuchi-onna (two-mouthed woman) is all about the kechi. In one tale, faced with a food shortage, she stuffs her own child while letting her stepchild waste away. In another, she withholds food from herself, trying to please either her miserly husband or her own stinginess. Self-denial manifests as a separate ravenous mouth on the back of her head, grumbling and mumbling and, finally, satisfying itself.

It’s difficult not to associate the Futakuchi-onna with modern eating disorders and standards of beauty. Hunger-abstained bursts out from the flesh gibbering and gnawing – a metaphor for either the cause or the disease. All grabbing tentacles and unthinking appetite, the jellyfish seemed the perfect choice for the zoological avatar.

Details: Read the rest of this entry »

Cold as the Winter Wind, Sharp as a Fox (Yuki-Onna)

September 22, 2011 in Art - Recent Work, Featured, Japan | 4 comments

Cold as the Winter Wind, Sharp as a Fox (Yuki-Onna) cut paper art by Patrick Gannonsize: 8 1/2 x 14 3/4 inches
medium: cut paper on wood

Look, if you dare, into the mesmerizing, frosty gaze of Yuki-Onna, the winter woman, the temptress of the snows. Feel the chill creep up your shivering spine. You hands shake from the frozen air and the arctic fear. Will you go to her when she beckons you out into those cold, cold wastes? Will you welcome her icy breath? Will you surrender your dimming warmth as she encompasses you in her pale arms, comfortless wintery lullabies gliding you off to frost-tinged sleep?

Lafcadio Hearn introduced me to Yuki-Onna in his fantastically spooky collection of ghost-stories and yokai-tales, Kwaidan. That frosty mix of mercilessness, loneliness, regret, and love stayed with me, defining Yuki-Onna. Like most folk tales, there are numerous versions of Japan’s Snow-Woman; icy temptress, lost soul, killer, lover, ghost, goddess.

Cut-paper is, by definition, a hard-edged medium. For reason’s I will probably never understand, I always find myself trying to push this very dry, very sharp technique to be wet, oily, and, in the case of Yuki-Onna, soft and translucent. Always a fun challenge. The pale skin tone, with the wood grain visible underneath, was achieved with at least four layers of two different kinds of washi paper.

Detail views follow: Read the rest of this entry »

« Older entries