[multimedia / cut paper assemblage] Daniel Stuelpnagel 2013
This tech-inspired fish prowls the depths, its electrified skin rapidly evolved to display a camouflage of companions also affected by radiation and chemical soup in the changing ocean waters.
[multimedia / cut paper assemblage] Daniel Stuelpnagel 2013
Painted with watercolor, this beautiful mutant offers a glimpse from the coral reef up through clear yet cluttered shallows.
[multimedia / cut paper assemblage] Daniel Stuelpnagel 2013
This funky little guy doesn’t mind being radioactive, in fact the techno-fish is sort of like the cyberbot of the future, thriving in the marine environment created by global industry.
When the fish pictures with sharp details, high contrast and color saturation and interesting composition are put together in a vignette, they create an understated yet highly-charged dramatic situation, with connotations of evolution and survival.
[multimedia / cut paper assemblage] Daniel Stuelpnagel 2013
Same fish with a different head, the colorful paper circles are meant to symbolize the nuclear reactor components, radioactive fuel rod assembly, and other pieces of technology introduced by humans into the ocean environment. Hot stuff.
[multimedia / cut paper assemblage] Daniel Stuelpnagel 2013
This was a scan of miscellaneous materials that will lead to more such pieces, since the pigment soaked paper towel yields a realistic fish-scale texture.
The map fragment and stencil with dried ink make it seem kind of raw and strange, though it’s still very subtle and kind of simple, the overall appearance manages to convey the slightly disturbing tone that haunts many of these fish, makes me think of those books by Nick Bantock.
Why disturbing? Because their habitat is disturbed by pollution, radiation, climate change, sonar testing, increasing salinity, industrial waste and pretty much everything human society can throw in there, so this whole series is kind of a visual commentary on the beauty of the undersea world and the changes happening there.
GONE FISSION #192
[multimedia / cut paper assemblage] Daniel Stuelpnagel 2013
Incorporating processes of painting on paper, photography, print-making and eventually a stop-motion video using numerous stacks of these pictures, I will also make some prints for exhibition.
There is something inherently intriguing about the journalistic quality of the images, after working through these various techniques for several years and closely studying the multimedia work of Matt Muirhead, I have moved into a set of processes that facilitates making a lot of iterations, which lends itself to both the still photos and the larger video project (coming soon).
This is the observatory at the top of Haleakala volcano, Maui. Near dusk, I thought it looked like the lair of a James Bond villain.
Spring, 2006
[cut paper assemblage] Daniel Stuelpnagel 2013
I started off the series including some cut out maps and photos, which really helped get the project off the ground, then I chose to focus on simply hand-painting with watercolor and other media, so there is an eclectic mix of different appropriated image and photo-fish in this first batch of installations.
[cut paper assemblage] Daniel Stuelpnagel 2013
Now I will just paint or cut out a photo for a new fish and put a circle of blue tape on it and find a spot for it on the intermittently empty wall next to my desk, then as I keep looking at it and enjoying the tranquil feeling of scuba diving, I’ll pick another fish painting that has a relationship with the first one, and let them sort of group as they would in nature.
Then this is a geometric abstraction from the turn of the millennium, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 30 inches – now I am recycling some of these images and layering them into the paper cut-outs in the shape of fish.
