2014 Procreated inspirations
air, land, water and other
Ian Bateson, art director, designer and graphic artist
2014 Procreated air Ian has worked in Vancouver as a book illustrator, conceptual artist and active graphic designer for 30 years and in 2012 re-activated his conceptual artistic roots using digital tools. Review samples at: ianbatesonstudio.com Contact Ian at: tel: 604 984 9283 cell: 604 809 8409
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land
inspirations water
and other Celebrating 2014: I wanted to publish the works I produced using my iPad and the Procreate painting app that are in addition to the second book produced showing the early 2014 work entitled; Fossils Skulls and Bones produced in July. The following pages are a review of 28 pieces—by no means the entirety of output— from my remaining 2014 volume of work representing the themes of air, land, water and other. As with my previous Procreate art, many are derived from my travels in England, the US and Canada using photo’s taken then adding drawing, painting and effects for the multi-layered art work. The ongoing debate about digital art—does it constitute real art?—remains difficult to argue but I believe qualified destruction of original digital files of sold work may go some way to allowing the new mediums to gain acceptance. We shall see as the debate continues and the art world evolves v All works are Copyright Ian Bateson©2014
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air Revealed, fig 1: Through a hole in the sky the wonders of the crystal clear, cascading waters of Lynn Canyon and the reflective quality of the sun hitting its surface are revealed. Radiated, fig 2: Mutated salmon flying inland toward Steveston in Richmond, British Columbia Canada.
Revealed, fig 1.
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Radiated, fig 2.
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air No longer soaring, fig 3: Crow who fell from the sky and melded into a pile of man made garbage. Death flight, fig 4: Pigeon road kill on the Mountain Highway in North Vancouver, exits our world.
No longer soaring, fig 3.
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Death flight, fig 4.
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air Mid-flight, fig 5: Reflections on my constant trips across the Atlantic since my Fathers death in 2012, to care for my Mothers needs. Feeling in a state of twilight, migrating east then west leaves one with a perceived loss of time and space. Slow personal growth and on many occasions a misstep in possibilities. Moon face, fig 6: Or man in the moon as commonly referred to by humans for as long as recorded history, The phenomenon of seeing faces where there are none is a form of information-filling called pareidolia. It’s something all humans do.
Mid-flight, fig 5.
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Moon face, fig 6.
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land Fall triptych, fig 7, 8 and 9: A freshly fallen Aspen leaf found in North Vancouver during late October. I waited for some weeks to see it slowly dry and wrinkle. The Aspen is a beautiful leaf to watch swinging in light summer breezes, then litter the ground with dazzling colour in the fall, dazzled with lightly fallen dew.
Fall 1 October 14, fig 7.
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Fall 2 October 30, fig 8.
Fall 3 November 20, fig 9.
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land Buried glass, fig 10: Images from the underground city in Seattle combined with a mystical almost ghostly buried glass bowl overlaid with images of North Vancouver. Prior to spring 2014, fig 11: Fall leaf, carrying morning dew create a short period of beauty and colour on sunny days. It is also a time of impending decay with the promise of another cold, dark winter.
Buried glass, fig 10.
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Prior to spring 2014, fig 11.
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land Shadow #1, fig12: Hiking and walking the North Shore trails and streets present so many opportunities for capturing inspirational images. Shadows, rivers and pools of light went into this piece. Many layers of paint, deletion and smudging helped the image along. Mystery in Lancaster, fig13: May 2014, I planned my twice yearly trip to visit mum in early June. In May my wife, and I visited New York primarily to take in the art galleries and museums then returned to Vancouver where I would leave on the pre-planned trip to England. Whilst in New York we learned my mother had taken a bad fall and broke her hip and femur. Friends said she was in hospital and would be fine until I arrived. So we finished our trip and I collected some amazing images, one being the Aztec mask emerging from the Lancaster Canal . Once in England, mum had recovered and the background shot in this piece is of the Lancaster Canal from her first trip—in a wheelchair—away from the hospital. Shadow #1, fig 12.
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Mystery in Lancaster, fig 13.
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land Watch your step, fig 14: Wandering the city of Vancouver I find so many opportunities for capturing its textures and dangers. This could be a metaphor or simply an expression of those textures. Transition, fig 15: Fall presented some wonderful opportunities to view the decaying process this time of the year. On one of my local walks through Loutet Park on a fantastically early sunny morning, I passed a decaying log, upon which frozen, fallen leaves had been glued to the bark.
Watch your step, fig 14.
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Transition, fig 15.
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land Wired, fig 16: On walks along the West Vancouver Sea Wall, I’m captivated by the mature plants, shrubs and trees that line all the properties. This was a mature Japanese Maple devoid of foliage shot last fall and it conjured a danger spreading from light and leading into the dark—a mystical tale of melancholy and questioning. Reflection, fig 17: During our May trip to New York I took many photo’s in the Museum of Natural History of the amazingly realistic marble sculptures of Roman dignitaries. I saw this as history receding in the fast moving torrent of the future.
Wired, fig 16.
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Reflection, fig 17.
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land Recycled #1 and 2, fig 18 and 19: The vivid colours and forms created by our composable waste were the insipiration behind these pieces. North Vancouver—where I live—started the process of having residents separate real garbage from orchanically compostible material in late 2013 and it has achieved a huge saving in reducing material traditionally headed for land fills.
Recycled #1, fig 18.
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Recycled #2, fig 19.
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water Coal Harbour, fig 20: An excursion through Coal Harbour on a bright summer afternoon provided me with an exquisite shot which I enjoyed painting, smudging and introducing other reflective photography. Meeting, fig 21: Meeting of tropical fish in Ingleton Falls, West Yorkshire, England. What a fantastical story.
Coal Harbour, fig 20.
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Meeting, fig 21.
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water Steveston reflections, fig 22: While waiting to pickup fresh salmon at this popular village in Richmond, British Columbia, the underneath of the piers caught my eye. With a little help from paint and smudging tools and another image of frozen leafs the end result was produced. Water and air, fig 23: Combined images taken at Lynn Valley of the pure cascading river and cloud and sun reflecting off Coal Harbour and lots of painting, smudging and layer manipulation allowed this representation of water to come into view.
Steveston reflections, fig 22.
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Water and air, fig 23.
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water Iced, 1, 2 and 3 figs 24, 25 and 26: Iced are a series produced in November 2014 during a very cold number of days. The underlying images where all taken outside the North Vancouver City Library fountain. Children had broken some of the pond ice but the fountain remained solid. These look simple, but required a fair degree of care in painting, colour correction and added effects in Procreate.
Iced 1, fig 24.
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Iced 2, fig 25.
Iced 3, fig 26.
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other Manchester modern, fig 27: In June 2014, Manchester presented me with a view of the northern Lancashire city I hadn’t experienced having lived there for a short time in the 1970’s and spent as an intern during the last year of my art college and well before the Irish bombings in 1996. The city required most of the centre to be rebuilt and large modern skyscrapers, late 20th century monoliths now shared space with the older Edwardian structures that the city kept and renovated. Wreck vibrations, fig 28: My good friend and old business partner, David Lach, and I often share a lunch in the east end of Vancouver then head off to see the offerings of latest art at the Winsor and Equinox galleries close to where he lives. As we exited the Winsor, we both noticed an incredibly banged-up wreck of a car. This was the catalyst for this piece and I saw vibrations that the occupants must have felt emanate from its body after impact.
Manchester modern, fig 27.
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Wreck vibrations, fig 28.
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other Portrait 7, fig 29: Towards the end of 2014, I began a series of acrylic paintings on paper. These were my reintroduction to traditional methods of painting and drawing—something I’ve done throughout my career—but required a simple and inexpensive way to get reacquainted with the medium and process. Portraite 7, is a combined artwork of drawing directly in Procreate and then introducing aspects of a scan from my acrylic artwork to complete the piece. Hanging, fig 30: Doors and windows— particularly ancient ones found in Europe—have always been fascinating to me. They speak to the past and the countless footsteps passing through them through ages. The hanging represents the process of passing through a period and leaving something behind.
Portraite 7, fig 29.
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Hanging, fig 30.
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About Ian Bateson Education
Influences
1970 – 1974 Lancaster College Of Art. Graduated with Honours, Illustration and Graphic Design.
During his extensive travels, lan has visited some of the major world galleries such as; the Hermitage in St Petersburg, the Tate in London, the Lourve in Paris, the National in Washington and Biennale in Venice. Through these collections, from the 18th Century William Turner to Picasso in the 19th Century and Willem de Kooning and the American abstract expressionists in the 20th Century, Ian discovered wonder and amazement when in the presence of such exceptional works of art.
Experience During the 1970’s and early 80’s Ian showed passion and dedication in the field of illustration and graphic design, having built a solid reputation with the publishing industry as an illustrator of children’s books and a designer and illustrator for academic publications. Ian worked with Douglas & McIntyre, UBC Press, Harbour Publishing and various other international houses. From 1986 to 2012, Ian helped build Baseline Type & Graphics Cooperative into a thriving creative design studio working for major corporations, businesses, government agencies and NGO’s to tell there individual stories through well crafted design and marketing solutions. Ian uses the skills he gained over 27 years, to apply his thoughts and imagination through personal, interpretive art. Ideas expressed through sketch books and pencil and finalized as digital art, output to either giclees or limited edition laser prints.
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The art of typography is also of keen interest to Ian. Influenced by William Caslon, John Baskerville for their wonderful type designs and Ian Hamilton Finlay, Dom Sylvester Houédard and Edwin Morgan, for their amazing concrete poetry.
Artistic
expression
Ian creates an impression, mood and emotion through use of colour and form. He takes from his immediate environment and reflects a visual metaphor. Something as banal as an electric meter for example will turn into an expression of questioning or perhaps anger or maybe a moment of reflection on the environment. v
2013-14 Procreate Art
from
Book One This series of skulls were created after a trip – September, 2013 – to Alaska, and are from photographs taken at the Fairbanks Museum and also during an amazing five day tour of the Denali Park. They were included in my first ISSUU book of work, completed in 2012-13 using the iPad and the Procreate app.
Ian Bateson’s Studio Book Two My second book – using Procreate in 2014 – are whimsical interpretations of fossils, skulls and bones, positioned within environments I have visited and photographed over the course of two years.
You can view this book on ISSUU here:
Nineteen spreads provide you with a view of the original photographs and a description of the process to achieve the final art using an iPad and Procreate app v
http://issuu.com/icreate/docs/i_procreate
You can view this book on ISSUU here: http:// issuu.com/icreate/docs/2014 iprocreate2b
All works are Copyright Ian Bateson©2014
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Ian Bateson, art director, designer and graphic artist tel. 604 984 9283 cell. 604 809 8409 mail. ibateson@baseline-graphics.com www.ianbatesonstudio.com
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