These designs were built as I followed fashion trends while attending SURTEX, a design show held in New York. The collage is a composite of the images such as wild animal skins, tribal motifs and a flat fabric painting design using blocks of solid color in animal shapes. Where the news of the day focuses, be it China and the Olympics, the Middle East or our own recent election, fashion will look to the area of interest to reflect the styles and trends. These reflections are found in the news paper headlines, magazines, on-line, on the college campuses, and whether the economy is up or down or nowhere. The emphasis seems to turn on a wheel that can even become predictable in cycles of something like 10 years, give or take.
The animal skin designs which are in style today were also very much in style about 10 years ago. That was when my skin designs were built. So what goes around, comes around. When the Olympics were held in Sidney, I began to be focused on the primitive design of the Aboriginal. These designs fit perfectly in my mind with Pointillism and evolved some interesting works in my everyday portfolio that were directly as a result on the dots in Aboriginal design. Approximately 8 years earlier I had become most intrigued with primitive design because of the cave exploration in France and the prehistoric art which were found on the caves. I was inspired then, early 90’s, to create art work with an Aboriginal feel. When it returned I found that I was using it in brightly colored designs which used the animals and the dots but in a most modern manner. So the cycle was 1994 then to 2000 and now strong in 2008 fashion trends with animal skin and the accent use of primitive design.
As I edit these designs and configure them for products such as cards, tiles, accessories and apparel, I will blog their progress and shop locations as I place them. WILD is a shop dedicated to this area and will contain all the images as they are released. Another shop, a la Mode, will also contain many of the designs but will also contain Keds shoes with matching designs. My overall plan is to have the shop SHOES DU JOUR (Coming July 2009) carry Keds shoes which match many of the designs in all of the shops.
These designs are a representational grouping of the WILD portfolio.
ETHNICAL DESIGN
EXOTIC FLAT COLOR DESIGN
EXOTIC ANIMAL & SKIN DESIGN