Each of the works above and below are, as the title suggests, made with permanent marker on paper. Each of them shows a bunch of video tapes or other cartridge game or video. What kind of realism is this? Some sort of modernism. When I first happened upon this project, I saw one of the tapes pictures and assumed it was a photograph. This was interesting, as collections of anything that involves packaging AND a dying or dead format of media, well, that’s gold to me and the WFDJ community! But lo! It was an illustrated image! And what’s more, it was permanent marker, which of course you know is heavy kitsch.

And kitsch is the magic word for 2010 modernism! Isn’t it? I think so. Each of these, marker on paper, (except for one, the vertical tapes with Kodak in the middle, which is just acrylic on canvas,) makes for a masterpiece of translated reality into artwork. Design artwork if I do dareso say myself.

Details (not in gallery order):

VHS (vertical tapes)
acrylic on canvas
01-31-10
10 x 13 inches
hbt10-001

Atari & Flower Wallpaper (wallpaper and tiny tower of atari)
permanent marker on paper
03-17-10
22 1/2 x 30 inches
hbt10-p018
Private Collection

VHS (massive array)
permanent marker on paper
04-10-10
22 1/2 x 30 inches
hbt10-p020

VHS (three stacks)
permanent marker on paper
01-15-10
22 1/2 x 30 inches
hbt10-p002

VHS (small stack)
permanet marker on paper
12-21-09
8 1/4 x 10 1/4 inches
hbt09-p087

Atari & Jellyfish Wallpaper (aqua wallpaper, three stacks of atari)
permanent marker on paper
06-07-10
8 1/4 x 10 1/4 inches
hbt10-p027

To contact the artist, Hollis Brown Thorton, email at info@hollisbrownthornton.com or visit the portfolio site at http://www.hollisbrownthornton.com/ — you’ll be interested to know that there’s a range of these tapes drawings and paintings going back years. The drawings and paintings you see here are all from the year 2010.

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies deconstruction category.