As the most recent artist to take on the ConceptD D-Doodle mantel, I decided I really wanted to do something special for my piece which would reflect the moveable feast offered by the ConceptD 3 Ezel laptop and its movable display.
This idea of motion — the laptop screen moving and then fixing in position within a creative act — brought to mind a kind of ballet. Rising, falling — the idea of suspension within all this — played a huge part in my creative process.
I knew I wanted to create something poetic but strange. Something with a certain dream-like quality to reflect the type of creativity which ConceptD tries to get across. I turned to my usual artistic inspirations in Rene Magritte, Salvador Dali, and Pablo Picasso — I love the surrealists and the modernists, I find them a constant source of ideas and inspiration.
To paraphrase one of the masters above though, ‘Ceci N’est Pas Une Homage’ — and I wanted to bring elements of my own into the piece. I have been obsessed with creating dancers in an abstract landscape and thought this project would be a perfect fit to add to that obsession.
In that sense, this project can be seen as a continuation of what I have already been producing artistically, and I saw it as a natural progression of my style. I used the same color theory for this which I have used throughout my work (bold primary colors) and I think this, paired with consistent subject matter, is a great way for creators to evolve a recognizable style.
Adobe Illustrator was the most important software I used for ‘Detourné’. All of the coloring and texturing was put together there; the brightness of the balls reflecting the light, the decaying doric-arches which form the ballerina’s jewelry-box, and the nighttime desert wilderness.
The hardest part was creating the D-structure itself, with those aforementioned columns propping up this surrealist ballet. I had many potential ideas and it was a little frustrating to figure out which direction
I wanted to take — but eventually I was pretty happy the way it turned out. I hope to have created something which is strange yet instantly relatable due to the submerged references and motifs I implemented; a piece which has all the latent, elegant power of its title, ‘Detourné’.
