like/dislike

Dislike: Gaston Caba

Gaston Caba's work, while interesting, immediately made me feel disoriented. His colors are startlingly garish, and his compositions lack a sense of finesse. His piece, "Gaston Custom" seems to be a jumble of his characters thrown wildly into a speckled background created with simple gradients. His drawn work has that familiar feeling of being 'photoshopped.' Perhaps it is the lack of depth in his images that offsets me, for all of the images (although some do overlap) appear to be in relatively the same plane, which detracts from his work (in my opinion). Some of his other piees such as "Brown Office" and "At the Window" combine his cartoon characters with reality for an interesting effect. However, the overall style from his cartoons just comes off as creepy in the new setting. He says that he specializes in bringing strong concepts, but the only concepts I could see from the given work were pretty straightforward. There is so much going on in some of his pieces, that it is near impossible to ascertain what one of these brilliant concepts may have been! It would be interesting to see some of his other work, especially in more traditional mediums.

like: Jason Mecier

When I first saw Mecier's work, I saw beautiful portraits of famous people. It was not until I looked more closely that I noticed the unique manner in which these portraits were constructed. By utilizing hundreds of everyday (and not so everyday) objects, this artist is able to make amazingly accurate portraits, in full color! Not only are the objects very well chosen, they also tend to reflect the personality or accomplishments of the people being portrayed. (Condolezza Rice constructed from different colored rice) There is an excellent sense of color here, especially when I realize that all of these color are being made by different objects. My favorite piece by this artist has to be the portrait of Pink. The jumble of nail polish, buttons, cell phones, pens, tape, feathers, tooth brushes and combs comes together to illustrate this famous popstar. The expression is captured wonderfully and the subtlety of the pink in her hair is beautifully crafted. What makes me love this artist so much, is that he was not afraid to stray from traditional methods of illustration. By straying, he was able to really stand out and make collages that are truly extraordinary.