Tsutomu Nihei and Blame!

Thanks to Laura Hewitt, who I have been assisting this semester in her Beginning Drawing class, I have become aware of many new artists and genres of art/drawing.   One of these artists is Tsutomu Nihei and his cyberpunk manga Blame! that was produced from 1998-2003.   The manga, a 10-part adventure series drawn in black ink, focuses on the journey of a mostly silent loner named Killy, a young male character who traverses the underbelly of a post-Apocalyptic, technological and vast world called “The City.”  The scenes drawn are beautiful, aggressively hatched tableaux that emphasize the chaos surrounding – and angst felt by – the solitary protagonist.  Industrial and electronically mangled settings give way to dark tunnels and violent encounters with cyborgs and tribes of trans-human warriors.   We loose our sense of place and gravity often as Nihei’s angle of view changes page after page.   Just as the main character is on a rather unclear journey, the mostly visual manga is not so much a narrative as it is an ongoing visual experience for the viewer.   I encourage everyone to check out these incredibly drawn illustrations.   Click here for a link to the series online.

All images in this post are © Tsutomu Nihei

Snake oil

Untitled (Snake oil), 2009, a ruby ambrotype

Binh Danh’s wonderful chlorophyll prints

I recently came across the work of Binh Danh.  His projects, conceptually focused on his heritage and ethnicity, almost always employ a method of exposing images on plant life – using the sun as his enlarger and the natural chlorophyll present in each leaf as his photo-reactive substrate. The images are profound and beautiful. I encourage you to check out his website for more information and images.

Untitled (meadow), 2008

Untitled (meadow), 2008

Andrew with his crane

Untitled (Andrew with his crane), 2009

Self-portrait tintype

Self-portrait, 2009 - tintype

Skull, stigma, and bone

Untitled (Skull, stigma, and bone), 2009 - a ruby ambrotype by Adam Ottavi-Schiesl

Liam

Untitled (Liam), 2009

Nick

Untitled (Nick), 2009

Nick

Untitled (Nick), 2009

portraits from Alaska

For those I have just met, and interested in seeing more of the portraits from Alaska series, please click here.

Salmon

by Jorie Graham

I watched them once, at dusk, on television, run,
in our motel room half-way through
Nebraska, quick, glittering, past beauty, past
the importance of beauty,
archaic,
not even hungry, not even endangered, driving deeper and deeper
into less. They leapt up falls, ladders,
and rock, tearing and leaping, a gold river,
and a blue river traveling
in opposite directions.
They would not stop, resolution of will
and helplessness, as the eye
is helpless
when the image forms itself, upside-down, backward,
driving up into
the mind, and the world
unfastens itself
from the deep ocean of the given. . .Justice, aspen
leaves, mother attempting
suicide, the white night-flying moth
the ants dismantled bit by bit and carried in
right through the crack
in my wall. . . .How helpless
the still pool is,
upstream,
awaiting the gold blade
of their hurry. Once, indoors, a child,
I watched, at noon, through slatted wooden blinds,
a man and woman, naked, eyes closed,
climb onto each other,
on the terrace floor,
and ride–two gold currents
wrapping round and round each other, fastening,
unfastening. I hardly knew
what I saw. Whatever shadow there was in that world
it was the one each cast
onto the other,
the thin black seam
they seemed to be trying to work away
between them. I held my breath.
as far as I could tell, the work they did
with sweat and light
was good. I’d say
they traveled far in opposite
directions. What is the light
at the end of the day, deep, reddish-gold, bathing the walls,
the corridors, light that is no longer light, no longer clarifies,
illuminates, antique, freed from the body of
that air that carries it. What is it
for the space of time
where it is useless, merely
beautiful? When they were done, they made a distance
one from the other
and slept, outstretched,
on the warm tile
of the terrace floor,
smiling, faces pressed against the stone.

Brian

Untitled (Brian), 2009

Kevin

Untitled (Kevin), 2009

John

Untitled (John), 2009