Hidden Meanings
Around seven years ago artist Andrew S. Conklin had the chance to visit a motion capture studio with fellow artist Mary Qian, who worked there at the time. The company in Chicago, where Conklin lives, was home to the creators of Mortal Kombat and other popular video games. At the studio, he met a number of people including the animators who worked on computers and the athletes who would perform the stunts using motion capture, and he realized there were many parallels between fine art and the technology they were using.
“All [of the designers] had the same training I did—figure drawing, anatomy, painting—and they were using these skills to make the characters. It was an alternate universe; they were figurative artists but working in a different realm,” says Conklin. “I thought it was so strange, but then I realized what they were doing was re-creating figures from desire and imagination, just as a painter does. They look at the model and interpret the form.”
When Conklin visited the studio, an older method of motion capture was still being used where the athletes would have glass markers placed on the landmarks of the body that then are identified through the software. Once that happened, a skeletal frame appeared on the screen and the animators used their background in art to build the figure around it. “There was a lot of artistry that went into it really early on,” says Conklin.
This technological, but artistic, world captivated Conklin who after the visit decided to develop a series of paintings around motion capture. It’s an interesting juxtaposition to see the behind-the-scenes look at what happens in the studio—a nod to Degas, according to the artist—because Conklin’s own art is done without any technology. “I use techniques from the 16th century,” he says. “The models pose for me,
I draw it all out, transfer it to canvas; it’s done in a very old-fashioned way.”
Conklin will meet with the models individually and make sketches and paintings of them, but since his works often contain groups, his wife will pose with the model if he needs to work out relationships between the figures. “I draw them on translucent paper and overlap the drawings and move them around to get the poses just right,” Conklin explains, adding that it can take several months to complete just one painting.
Among his newest pieces in the series is Motion Capture #8, which is an update of an earlier painting he did while living in New York City. The earlier work was from a series of artists and models, with his newer piece showing the artist as the computer tech and his model as the female athlete. Another piece, Motion Capture #9, is allegorical in nature, which is something that happens often in Conklin’s works. This piece illustrates the five senses, similar to one he did of the Fulton Street subway station, in that every figure represents a different sense. For instance, there is a woman that symbolizes sound wearing earbuds and a man who is a representation of sight through holding out a bottle opener to another person in the image.
Through April 24, Gallery Victor Armendariz will present approximately 20 works by Conklin including these new Motion Capture pieces, studies from the series and others from different bodies of work.