Imaginarium Highrise: Crossing Over

This piece is actually the first Imaginarium Highrise composition I started for a new exploration in my studio work.  I have had some strong reactions towards the pieces in this series from the small group of artist friends I have let see them.  I promised my friends that I would make three of these and leave them just primed before I dove any deeper in their progress.

Gotta spend some serious time cutting out cardboard and wrapping it with fabric to make the structures.

This structure is part of lock and dam #15.  It serves as the initial inspiration for the top of the structure.

A couple of them side by side in the studio.

While I had these pieces up on cans, I played around with pairing them with some other works I had in the studio.

Skipping forward a bit in time, here is what my Imaginarium Highrise pieces looked like at my Construct/Destruct show at Bereskin Gallery back in the Spring of 2021.

More on this in a future post...

Imaginarium Highrise: Discount Hotel Vista

 You never know what kind(s) of inspiration a weekend trip to Chicago can yield.

Out of our hotel room we had a direct view of another hotel - not the most stunning vista I've ever had, but for my purposes, kind of useful.  Here's the view.

This is a rough idea of the silhouette of the hotel with the negative shape of a local bank building removed from the lower right corner. 

I played around with/tested several configurations

Trying to find a configuration/composition that moves and breathes.

The final composition even pulled in a window from another bank building along with doubling down on a repeated negative shape and a sign.

It's now ready for a solid coat of color.

Imaginarium Highrise: Backyard Stroll

 So I have been working on a few relief pieces which in general I think I'm going to call Imaginarium Highrises, with some additional/more specific moniker to denote the individual pieces.

These relief pieces are a combination of shapes/structure inspired by actual real-world locations and elements of my own imagination brought together for one composition.

The following example piece is called: Highrise Imaginarium: Backyard Stroll.

Cardboard covered with fabric.  Cutting out each window one by one.

Phew!  That was a lot of 'windows'...

Here are the actual structures that served as my reference(s):

I compressed this bank building by a few rows of windows in the final piece.

This is how they look brought together.

Paired with another piece I am working on, Imaginarium Highrise: Crossing Over.

Now in (off) white!

These are fairly new and I can already tell I will be incorporating aspects/lessons learned from these two pieces in other upcoming works.