THE VISITOR

THE VISITOR – exploring process (music by Run The Jewels)

A lot of changes in my life over the last decade have had an impact of me as a person and as an artist. I recently finished up my first gallery show in a decade. SOLILOQUY, a collection of digital+analogue prints and several photos ended its run in late June. Mostly made up of work I’ve done in the last five years, which is the digital+analogue part. After some health issues that caused hand tremors and post-covid autoimmune disorders rearing their ugly psoriatic heads, I’d had problems carving and just before all that, I was becoming a regular carver of linoleum, a printmaker by training and trade.

After my hands changed, I started using an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil to experiment. Years later, I use a mix of hand drawn sketches scanned into digital, then digitally painted, sometimes printing and reworking the physical pieces and then rescanning, and a variety of other methods: digital + analogue. The show focused on many character designs of The Misfits Parade, my pumpkin-headed friend called Clancy, and some rural exploration photos. I’ll link to a video walk-through of my show and prints will soon be available of all the pieces in the show in editions of 7.

My first series post-SOLILOQUY is THE VISITOR, four prints brought together by a large red moon? sentient sphere? alien friend? foe? cheese? (gromit)

gallery here: https://timmhoff.studio/current-work/

THE VISITOR:

FIRST CONTACT – a mountain goat dreams of a moon looking back at him

OBSERVATORY – high atop a fire watchtower sits a lone red chair, far below is THE VISITOR, this time submerged in the water? energy? watching the fire

SANCTUARY – THE VISITOR seeks cover beneath the daisugi (footnote 1), a refuge from the darkness of the sky above

SYNERGY – floating high above the earth stares THE VISITOR, a lone tree grows forth from what remains, seeking the sky above, and the static continues

These pieces started as hand drawn sketches in my journals and made their way to digital and a variety of apps I use to make my work, the most common are Concepts, Procreate (with some of the wonderful brushes and paper textures from True Grit) and occasionally Hipstamatic. It’s amazing to have such great tools to make art with in new ways. I love my pencils and chisels and rulers and my press, but it’s also great to have these portable ways to work and for people, like me, that have issues with their hands to still be able to work with accessibility. No AI is used in my work.

The video for THE VISITOR is made up mostly of Procreate recordings of my illustration process. It’s interesting to see where things go and my occasionally outrageous additions or corrections. (dogs?! Ominous Crow God brings the cold wax backgrounds?)

Moving forward, video plays a larger role in my work.

Inspiration for these pieces comes from the looming shadow? spiral? of Junji Ito, lots of Thelonious Monk, lots more Run The Jewels, some Samurai Jack in an Aku the shapeshifting master of (not really at all) evil kind of way, and as always, Ashley.

A lot of THE VISITOR came from remnants of ideas in journals that suddenly worked together with a story to tell. This is the evolution after SOLILOQUY. The next phase is EPISTROPHY, a new show in development, but that’s for the next time. Print sets and individual prints will soon be available for sale, along with prints from my SOLILOQUY show. Photos below.

Until then, be safe out there

T I

Footnotes:

1: daisugi is an ancient, but still practiced, Japanese technique of sustainable tree farming involving grafting young cedar onto a larger, mother tree. The smaller trees can be harvested every few decades and allow the mother to continue to grow.

Blue Scholars is summer music for me, a great jazz-infused hip hop duo with interesting beats, unique samples and I dig the production a lot. An old reliable favorite heard on KEXP long ago…