Dim Media will be exhibiting their latest series “Birthmarks” at 2nd Moon Coffee shop on Franklin Ave in Minneapolis from March 1st through April 30th. Come check out the series if you have not seen it yet and grab some delicious coffee.

“Birthmarks” is Dim Media’s premier non-representational abstract
series. Denying their popular aesthetic of stylized subject matter, Dim Media’s
artist ensemble instead emulated the textures, pallets, and patterns of
naturally occurring abstract imagery. This series references geometric reptilian
skin, sedimentary mudslides, and the alien visuals of microscopic cells.

The process for creating “Birthmarks” was aggressively collaborative.
Four artists worked on multiple paintings simultaneously, painting over each
other’s brush strokes as they alternated from canvas to canvas. After many
layers of paint, the finished paintings succeed in creating ambiguity between
the individual’s marks and cohesion between the collective marks.

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Psyche

I am a child of the early 80’s and I had a television. Because of this, I’ve been seduced by Saturday morning cartoons and their sponsors. They persuaded me to collect plastic figurines and form emotional bonds with their ethical storylines- mere fronts to sell more plastic. This upbringing left me cynical, yet alas unable to break my connection to the animated aesthetic or the concept of duality.

Dualities are motivating: nature versus technology, fantasy versus consumer lifestyle, caricature versus portraiture, and comedy versus horror. Duality is humorous because it tends not to be mutually exclusive. Technology stems from nature, and advertisements use fantasy to sell a consumer lifestyle. It is an ideological concept in a dim world where “good” guys are seldom always good, and “bad” guys rarely admit they are bad.

Some of my favorite and current artistic influences include Naoto Hattori, Dr. Seuss, and Hieronymus Bosch. They all paint imaginative creatures rendered in their individual styles. I appreciate this other worldliness, and aspire to emulate a personal window to a foreign realm.

Process

I have a repressed surrealist vision that subtly leaks out through aggressive abstraction. This vision is filtered through improvisation and reiteration. If I find something interesting but unintentional develop in my work, I embellish it. Like highlighting scary faces in wood grains I explore the canvas, searching for clues that lead to its final appearance. If something is alluring in one digital painting, I will copy and paste it into another. It becomes an experiment in how transplanted imagery can adapt to a new environment.

The Dinosaur Sequence is a great example of how I toggle these processes. First I created a somewhat symmetric black and white collage using a photograph of a dinosaur skeleton. I increased the contrast creating the first in the sequence. Then I duplicated Dinosaur Sequence #1 and improvised over select parts, creating Dinosaur Sequence #2. Like interpreting an inkblot, I searched for imaginable characters hidden in the first sequence and embellished them in the forefront of the second. For Dinosaur Sequence #3 I improvised over Dinosaur Sequence #2 and so forth. I continued this reiteration process for 15 unique digital paintings, each interconnected by source material.

Reflection

The best part of digital painting is actually painting. That is when the mind is active and possibilities rapidly appear and disappear. Once the work is printed it becomes like a trophy, the head of some wild beast. Aesthetically pleasing, but no longer threatening.

Yet aesthetics are what entice the viewer, the lure of dialogue and I value an honest interpretation. The experiment is to test what I can see in a work versus what someone else can

Come check out the DIM Media boys painting live again. This time we’re painting to the soothing tunes of singer/songwriter/folkrocker Ash St. John at his CD release show at the Uptown bar. We’ll be doing artwork inspired by the music so come enjoy some tunes, some artwork, and a little DIM.

Infos:
Uptown Bar (Album Release)
First album release show w/ Mayda
Host:Ash St. John
Time:9:00PM Friday, July 31st
Location:The Uptown Bar and Cafe; Uptown; Minneapolis

Uptown Bar and Cafe

Related Links:

• Ash St. John’s Facebook Page
• Ash St. John’s Myspace Page

Joe Lipscomb is a working artist living in Northeast Minneapolis. He attended University of Wisconsin Marathon County before earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. During college, Joe Lipscomb co-founded Dim Media with Charles Denton and self published children’s story “Fortune Afloat”. In 2005
he became president of the board of directors of Adamantine Arts, formerly Art Attack, a non-profit Minneapolis based arts community.
He continues to collaborate and exhibit with Dim Media and Virtual Warrior Ink. Joe toggles between painting and digital media.

As a Wisconsinite, moving to St Paul, winters don’t get any shorter, this endless snow to road construction weather.

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This isn't a camera affect, this is just how my head looks.

Blaine Garrett grew up in Northwest Wisconsin and moved to Minneapolis to attend the University of Minnesota where he graduated with a Bachelors of Science in Computer Science and a minor in art. Art was his passion from an early age but he developed a strong interest in software and Internet technologies in high school. Having long been a drawer and painter, he has more recently been experimenting with other mediums such as concrete, fluorescents, as well as digital mediums.

As the founder and former Executive Director of the non-profit Adamantine Arts and as a member of Dim Media since 2007, Blaine has been a part of numerous exhibitions and worked with a variety of organizations including Articulture, Virtual Warrior Ink, Stevens Square Center for the Arts, and
Gallery 13.