No one has said a word about them online, which is a pity because they are slightly darker than some of the other ones and I am REALLY curious about what people think of them. This one in particular was a tricky one, conceptually for me. It's actually about ad-blockers that people use in the real world. My understanding is that one wears a pair of robot-goggles or something that "knows" where ads are and places a white rectangle over the picture.
Setting aside the whole issue of designers and people who make those ads (and you know, that delicious opportunity to critique bad ads, and thus deprogram yourself from the ad's message,) this sort of thing really bothers me. I understand that there are those ad-saturated places that are too noisy, visually. But something in me rebels at the idea of simply blocking those out with a white square. Or even with a painting. It's just...I don't know. The feeling is similar to that reaction towards Photoshopping models. We live in the world and you need to be able to take it, lumps, weird shapes, different colors and all.
It was a garbled visual journey that lead me to this metaphor, but I think this sums it up really well. It's not a binary one is right one is wrong issue, it's a debate. And yes, ads messy up our worlds, but also censorship is something we really shouldn't take passively, and certainly not something we should inflict upon ourselves without careful, careful thinking. Do not wear, as Peter Sagel once called it so poignantly, a "rose-colored blindfold".
The other one is pure cheek.
I am in love with this concept and if I had my way I'd have another month to paint it more realistically and carefully. But there we are. "Mundane Science-Fiction" -- only "mundane" to differentiate itself from the sort of science fiction that involves death stars. It's actually a fairly compelling way to confront some of the Big Problems we have, only as far as I have seen most of the "real" "mundane" sci-fi chiefly falls back on the weird and paranormal stuff. Earth itself is pretty interesting, and all its inhabitants are distinct and strange, so I've never understood why this is. But then I am no real connoisseur of sci-fi, so what do I know.
Just a few more on deck. I am really excited for these last few. Paint paint paint.
