Artist Rohitash Rao's Trash Is Most Definitely A Treasure.

If Ralph Steadman, Robert Crumb and Jean-Michel Basquiat ever combined their artistic talents, the result may look something like the whimsical, but edgy illustrative art by California artist Rohitash Rao, known as Ro to his friends.


above: artist Rohitash Rao

Ro is loaded with talent. So much so it was hard to decide what of his I ought to feature on this blog. An art director, film director, animator, illustrator and all around great guy (I speak from personal experience) he has three illustrated children's books to his credit (The fabulous Herbert's Wormhole series ), multiple music videos ( "Speeding to My Death" Official Video by Still Pacific and A Great Big World - "Everyone Is Gay" are must-sees), advertisements for well known brands, his fine art and more. His fabulous 'TRASHart' is what I've chosen to share with you today.




Combining multiple aspects of popular culture - such as the consumption of fast-food, excessive waste, movies, books and cartoon imagery along with graphic design and illustration, Rohitash's work exemplifies the old adage "One man's trash is another man's treasure."  Stomped upon paper cups, crushed cigarette packs, soiled fast food containers, flattened spray paint cans and other garbage serve as the canvases for Ro's illustrated and painted figures, creatures, silhouettes and occasional commentary.






















Since I have the pleasure of knowing Ro personally through both our Alma Mater, Pasadena's Art Center College of Design, and the world of advertising, he graciously offered to answer a few questions about these works for me:

IIHIH: WHEN DID YOU START CREATING THESE?
Ro: Technically I've been painting on stuff I find in the streets since I was kid - mainly because they were free canvases. But I started up again about 6 months when I moved to Venice and discovered all this great trash in the alley behind my studio. The first thing I painted on were these abandoned lottery tickets I found by a dumpster. I painted faces of the people that I imagined angrily chucked them on the ground after obviously not winning. I showed the paintings to a few friends and the response was so positive I did more.

Now i collect trash wherever I go. I was recently in Germany and Malta and I grabbed a few things off the streets while I was there. I am also getting commissions, most recently from Brazil. People are starting to mail me trash from all over the world. I'd love to do series about the geography of trash and collaborate with a litter organization or even someone like Surfrider down the road.

IIHIH: WHAT MEDIA DO YOU USE?
Ro: Everything is a mix of gouache, acrylic and spray paint. It's usually whatever material will work on the different textures. Some fast good cups are plastic coated so water based paints don't adhere to it. It's amazing how much I suddenly know what trash is conducive to what paint product!!!

IIHIH: WHAT OTHER ARTISTS INSPIRE YOU?
Ro: I like gritty, surreal stuff. So I guess the main ones would be Basquiat, R. Crumb, David Shrigley and Francis Bacon.

Let's hope that as long as people continue to make trash, Rohistash Rao continues to turn it into art.

Visit Rohitash Rao's tumblr site to see more.


Buy any of the Herbert's Wormhole Books illustrated by Rohitash Rao here

all images © and courtesy of the artist

37 Years Of The Brown Sisters. Four Sisters Photographed Annually From 1975 - 2012.

Nicholas Nixon, who teaches at Massachusetts College of Art, is one of the most celebrated American photographers of our generation. Among the most compelling of his series of photographs are the portraits he has made of his close-knit family which, taken over time, explore the nature of long-committed relationships.

His Brown Sisters series features an ongoing sequence of celebrated portraits of his wife, Bebe, and her three sisters; Heather, Mimi and Laurie. Taken annually, beginning in 1975, the unpretentious black and white portraits of the Brown Sisters reveal gradual changes in their appearances and shifts in their relationships over the past 37 years.


above: the first formal portrait of the four sisters in which Heather was 23, Mimi was 15, Bebe was 25, and Laurie was 21

Nixon says of the project "I really try hard to make the pictures as interesting formally as I possibly can. One of my clear visual tricks is that I like open sky, cause I love to see the shapes of their heads, and I like to play around with the intervals in between them.

I take probably a dozen each year. They tell me what their favorites are, and what they dislike. But then I choose. I try to be as open with what they say as possible. In fact, I love to know what they think.

Being an only child, it was really gratifying and lovely to be embraced by this family. There's still a ground water of affection, and support. I look back at these thirty-some pictures and it's like they're of my sisters. I can feel myself getting old with them. And I'm part of them; they're part of my love. "

Using a large eight-by-ten-inch view camera positioned at eye level, he always photographs the women in the same order from left to right: Heather, Mimi, Bebe, and Laurie. And will continue to do so.

The Brown Sisters by Nicholas Nixon from 1975 through 2012:

1975

1976

1977

1978

1979

1980

1981

1982

1983

1984

1985

1986

1987

1988

1989

1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012


information and images courtesy of the following sources: MoMA, The National Gallery of Art,

Nicholas Nixon is represented by The Fraenkel Gallery

Nicholas Nixon Photography Books

Bruno Walpoth Brings Wood To Life In His Contemporary Human Sculptures.

Pinocchio would probably have gladly swapped his creator, Geppetto, for Italian sculptor Bruno Walpoth. Walpoth's ability to turn a hunk of wood into a lifelike looking figure is impressive, to say the least. His sculpted and painted busts and human forms are anything but "wooden." They seem to be imbued with emotion, capable of possessing a soul and striking the viewer as pensive, thoughtful - even melancholy.