Wednesday, January 22, 2014

A new 'Artist You Should Know' entry! MU PAN!

Hi all! Welcome to another installment of the 'Artists You Should Know' series we occasionally run. Today's artist is not a artist long since dead, but a current working Illustrator, also a graduate of my alma mater; SVA (NYC).

Many of my favorite illustrators working today coincidently came out of the same program I attended at SVA. I did not know this before entering into my undergraduate studies, that was not my motivation for applying to their BFA Illustration/ Cartooning program, but it just coincidently worked out that way. As it turns out, many of these artists studied under the same professors I did, so I know many of the techniques many of today's big names employ, and whom they specifically learned said techniques initially from. These techniques are no big secret or anything of the sort, not exclusive to SVA, but there a few professors in the program there that are pretty consistent in their curriculum. This totally draws on the classic tradition of Master teaching the Apprentice. Professors share their knowledge and then encourage their hatchlings to fly with that information for themselves. That's what we Art Educators do. At times this can be difficult, because in a way, you are helping to train your competition. But this tradition is hundreds of years old. We are a community, us Artists. But in this specific case of one of this Artist's main approaches to work in my opinion is…(I'll just say this, as a hint):

                       P R A C T I C E    F A I L U R E




'Rob E.Lee as 47 Ronin', 2009,  40" x 30", drawing on paper, Mu Pan.

With that said. You should be knowing the work of Mu Pan. His work fits the above mentioned bill. Long story short, we studied under the same teachers, that is how I initially discovered his work. I have been following his development over the course of the last few years, and I admire his work greatly. His attention to detail astounds me. In addition to this, dude's imagination combined with historical narrative and text creates a really interesting aesthetic. Please check out his full portfolio @ www.mupan.com

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