Explore an Aesthetic – Phil Lewis

All of the artwork shown above is created by Phil lewis.  He creates these pieces using pen and paper in combination with digital design.  This aesthetic includes the raw nature of pen and ink as well as endless possiblities of a digital canvas.  This aesthetic creates images that fell organic, but are also state of the art in terms of our time period with constantly increasing technology.  The organic part comes from the influences of nature and the outdoors, while the technological part includes things that phil has created on his own using his imagination and technology.  Throughout Phil’s life, he has made a great connection with nature and the outdoors.  This has immensly inspired his artwork.  In every one of his artworks you see things in nature such as the red rocks from a great concert venue in colorado, jellyfish animals, the flatirons here in Boulder, fox, trees, wind, mushrooms, owls, and even artwork representing vibration patterns of surfaces.   Incorporated into all of those natural/organic things are repeating geometries created using Phils mind and digital design using a computer. This aesthetic is especially interesting to me becuase of the patterns inside of it.  When you look at the picture you recognize some things that you have seen in this worls, but Phil also brings out the patterns in this world that you may not always see or may have never noticed.  When you look around, it is not immediately obvious, but there are patterns with everything.  These patterns may include the lines on trees leaves, the way the tree branches sway, the shapes of grass blades, the way hairs on animals stand and flow, the way light shines off particles in the sky, the vibrational modes of vibrating plates, and many more.  These are patterns we may not necessarily notice when looking at the big picture of what is this world, but Phil really does a great job in bringing these out and making them noticable in his artwork.  This all goes together to create his natural/digital aesthetic.  Phil was born in Canada, then moved around till he ended up in Tahoe.  He says that this mountanous area greatly influenced his art as well.  Here he learned how to snowboard which also influenced his aesthetic in his art.  What he got from learning how to snowbard was that he was coming up with it from scratch, being fluid and smooth, and creating his own style.  All things that translated into his artwork, and it shows.