Aaron Fowowe

Aaron Fowowe - Curatorial Rationale

For my exhibition selection, I decided to match my theme of self discovery and journeying, and went over all the pieces I've achieved in finishing, and the ones I'm most proud of. I feel as if they show the true highlight of my journey through art making and my forthcoming evolution.

Since the beginning of the year I've been following an ever evolving theme of adventure, self discovery and evolution. It's been a harrowing but rewarding journey, and my art skills have evolved along with this journey. Showcasing my best work in terms of realistic human computer generated imagery, I continued to progress in making them as absolutely real as possible while maintaining a stylistic flair of my own.

I spent notably more time on my Rain animation test. As animation is a hugely time consuming process, there was tons of preparations to do, and several hours of backbreaking work. My animation process is in line with most processes in animation itself and the animation industry as a whole.

I usually start with blocking, planning out the key poses of the animation, after filming reference of the exact motion I want. I then move onto blocking+, which is adding more key poses to the animation to get a better idea of what the final motion will look like. Lastly, I do a spline pass, which is mainly making the animation smooth and nuanced. I also adjust the frames to take into account spacing, timing, and arcs.

The animation in all was an exploration of my skill and improvement, lining up with the theme of self exploration and discovery that I've been following for so long.

For my more realistic art pieces, I spent a year developing a digital human pipeline while studying human anatomy and what makes us, well, human. I took into account several attributes and applied them to my art pieces to make sure they looked as real as possible. But at the same time, I wanted to add a stylistic flair to the images that would make them mine. That was one of the biggest challenges and milestones in my journey of self discovery as an artist.

I researched lighting and toyed around with exaggerating the proportions slightly to feel slightly not human, but not to the extent where we'd reach the uncanny valley. After many unsuccessful attempts I realized if I wanted to make these art pieces mine, and have my trademark on them. I wanted to really make them pop, and have striking visual language on said images.

Mainly for my "Different Colors" art pieces, I heavily experimented with lighting and made it my goal to have it become one of the center focuses of the pieces. I also experimented heavily with the visual language of the pieces. When you look at the series, they all change perspective, as if it's a turnaround of the character. It's seeing different sides of the same person, while that same person is also expressed as different people. It showcases that we are not just one thing on the inside, but rather complex, deeply complicated individuals with more sides and dimensions than we let on. The lighting and the characters themselves heavily push this message.

When I think about my theme of self journeying and discovery. These pieces come to mind, as they are the hallmarks in my journey as an artist. They are checkpoints, milestones, that I reach and improve on. This is only the beginning. This exhibition is my evidence of such. When people come to view my work, I want them to feel like they are going on this journey with me. I want them to feel the passion and time I put into the work as they go through my pieces. My goal for this exhibition is for it to feel like a bright path that ascends.