(if you wish to see the bigger images in full, you may click on them)

THE CHOICE

I have been living a very lonely life ever since I immigrated to America. I've shared very little of my life with another, yet my loneliness has given me a lot of time to reflect on my relationships with others. The Choice is inspired by this experience: would you rather be high up in the secluded darkness of space, alone with the stars, or would you rather be down low, but in a shared experience?

A DEER'S MIND

I created this painting during wintertime in San Diego. The catch is that San Diego doesn't really have winter the way a person from the North would see it. I grew up with seasonal weather, and it inspired not just  my art, but me as a person. It was the natural cycle by which everything else was structured. And I miss it. The deer represents this longing - the desire for seasons, and everything else that comes with them.

THE GODS AND US

All religious bias aside, this is a secular artwork. With this one, I'm trying to visualize the relationship between humanity and it's gods. The picture is separated in two halves - up and down. Up you can see devils, angels, pagan gods, Abrahamic gods, and other spirit-beings. Down are the humans, naked in nature. They look to the sky and see the same image that you are seeing. But they do not know what thunder is, so they envision thunder wielders. They see rain coming from the sky, but is there a river in the heavens? The question I'm posing here is: are these visions that we see real, or are we making them up? They are real in our eyes, but is that enough, and does that make us their creators, or vice versa? That's the tip of it.

ART AND THE VIEWER

Rough reasoning: There's three elements - the diamond, the hand, the baby. The diamond is art. It's an art object, a vessel for artistic meaning. It's independent from the other two elements. The hand is of a grown up, and it gestures a question. The hand is an expression of how adults communicate with art - they employ their intellect in order to understand it. The shild, however, communicates with art differently. The baby doesn't intellectualize, it experiences through emotion. So all of this is a metaphor for the experience one can have with art - he/she either thinks about it, or feels about it. Here I express my belief that the purpose of art ( as an experience) is to provoke both our minds and hearts.

RAPID EYE MOVEMENT

At this point in life, I had no idea of what was happening. Half of this was created in Bulgaria, half of it - in California. Seeing, learning, failing, exploding and then extinguishing. Rapid eye movement ( REM ) is a physical state that occurs during sleep. One's eyes start shifting swiftly in his sockets, and it is during that time that dreams take over. When seeing this piece in real life,  the viewer's eyes start jumping rapidly form one section to another, due to the purposeful lack of any overarching leading composition. Everything that is drawn is fragmented, incomplete, being constructed or deconstructed. That is how dreams are - a constant, random flow of symbols and scenes, that despite their randomness, are still connected. 

THE US - MEXICAN BOrder

The black and white image is of the digital vector I made. I then made a large 12x24 decal sticker that I used to make my second image, which is a piece of glass with the positive space being mirrored, and the negative - transparent glass. The piece speaks to border issue of the two countries. People talk about the two states as if they are different, however, both are North American empires that go to war together, poison the same oceans together, and are much more united than divided. Mexico and the USA are the children of the Roman empire in culture and nature. Both countries speak Latin languages, both are Christian, both use Rome’s War Eagle in their insignia.

Cactus mom

A cactus is releasing polen, but and acidic fire right next to it tries to take her future children down. A dramatic dance ensues.

THE HERO'S JOURNEY

Joseph Campbell wrote ' The Hero's Journey'. In his book, he looks into humanity's greatest myth, legends, stories, and finds that they all have the same basic framework, and that the protagonist in each of them walks the same path as the others. Campbell distills that path and represents it as circle. This is the bottom of that circle. It shows the hardships of the journey. It shows the moment of absolute sharpness, the point of failure, agony, and darkness. All of the heroes Campbell studies have this period of hardship while they're in a distant, unknown land. I deeply connect with this narrative, thus this piece.

THERE AIN'T NO REST FOR THE WICKED

A typographical poster illustration, based on Cage the Elephant's song by the same name. This piece is more formal than the rest, because my primary goal was at developing and sticking to a visual system. A very basic binary system of positive and negative space, drawn in such a way that black dictates where white goes, and white dictates where black goes. 

THE FOUR THINKERS

In my opinion, there are 4 types of thinkers. The philosopher is in the foreground - his/her thoughts shape one another. They are systematic, yet chaotic. The philosopher extracts meaning from the process of abstract visual thinking. To the left is the scientist - his/her thoughts are much more linear, and the system of thinking is guided by much more rigid rules (the scientific method) than that of the philosopher. Behind the scientist is the emotional thinker - there is not much structure too his/her thinking, yet this person brings an example of strength and passion. Then, in the farthest distance, is the artist - he/she observes from a distance, takes all modes of thought and brings them together.