Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Jeff Soto: Mother and Father


Jeff Soto is an artist, illustrator and muralist. He graduated from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California in 2002. His work ties Pop Surrealism and graffiti and exaggerates elements of both. He says that he is inspired by youthful nostalgia, nature, graffiti, hip-hop and pop culture. This work titled, “Mother and Father” was completed using acrylic on wood. What drew me to this piece was the bold color palette. The subject matter is different to what I’m used to looking at and it really made me think what was up with these creatures. I can really see the graffiti and nature influences in this piece. I also like the overall composition; it is pleasing to the eye thanks to the balance of the subjects as well as the colors. It is also quite humorous considering the creature on the left has a mustache to distinguish him as the father and the overall picture is a smiling figure.

5 comments:

  1. This illustration is great! Seeing it scaled down really makes the smiling face stand out; that is the first thing that caught my eye. Upon zooming in, I love all the detail and texture he gives to his characters. The less saturated rainbow color palette of the teeth/stones is a nice quirky contrast too.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This picture caught my attention straight away.I simply love the surreal quality in this. The way each individual component comes together to give us the larger image of the smiling, sort of creepy face is pulled off rather well.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think that this piece is very interesting, having two compositions side by side being pulled together by this rainbow smile; which then makes this a whole new picture. When taking a closer look I could see a lot of the detail that went into this piece.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I really like that this piece can be interpreted on many different levels, both in terms of the visuals and in terms of the possible meanings.. That is not an easy thing to pull off and I have a lot of respect for the artist for making me think about his art.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I love Jeff Soto, I was actually going to post about him this week but you beat me to it! The work he creates is stunning, and it's hard to believe it's done with acrylic because it has a very soft look. I really like how he combines all sorts of textures to make these monster-like creatures.

    ReplyDelete