The Photomanipulation Legends series seeks to bring you up close and personal with outstanding artists who have blazed trails in the photomanipulation community. Their galleries are bold and unique, newsworthy and trendsetting. They are often imitated but never duplicated. Tonight, and without further ado, I am really honored to present fensterer.
Hi, Phil! So, I feel like you’re one of the best kept secrets in the photomanipulation community! You’ve been with us for more than 7 years, but I’ve always found you to be quite modest and supportive of other artists rather than tooting your own horn. I really wanted to give you an opportunity to tell us some more about yourself. So, do you want to give us a quick overview of who you are?
Thanks. Yeah, I have been around a while. I am a graphic artist in Dallas, TX. I have been creating digital art for over a decade now. Professionally, I work for a company as a graphic designer and I also freelance for various clients. I am a digital artist and photomanipulation is my primary method in creating art, but I also do illustrative work more for gig posters and t-shirt designs as well. I’ve done some art for The String Cheese Incident, Widespread Panic, Slightly Stoopid, 311 and others. I have had my digital art published in various books and art magazines such as Ballistic Publishing’s Expose and Imagine Publishing’s Fantasy Art magazine. Personally, I am sort of in introvert really. So at first I am mostly the quiet guy in the room and until you get to know me and my sense of humor, there will be a lot that people won't know about me or how I am until they are around me more. Though I have found that I am not so much the introvert as I used to be, I guess that would be due to the birthdays starting to pile up behind me!
And how would you describe or categorize your work?
Not sure really. I guess the majority of my work would be considered dark/surreal/abstract. It isn't always photomanipulation either; I also would combine 3d elements, traditional painting (usually watercolor) and digital painting. But the majority is me manipulating my own photography.
Do you ever look back at your work and go, “Oh, I wish I had done x, y, and z,” or are you pretty pleased with where you are as an artist these days?
I am never pleased with where I am as an artist. I am always looking to expand or try new things. I was doing that with vigor a few years ago until I reached a plateau creatively and life in general slowed down the creative progress I was trying to achieve. But that's just what happens sometimes. I chose to focus more on my family especially after the birth of my daughter and then freelance jobs started coming in which was a good thing, but at the same time those jobs weren't in the same style as I am more known to do so my personal art development slowed down a bit. But now I am getting refocused and will see what this year brings.
What is the most common mistake you made as a beginning artist?
Being too impatient. I always seem to rush through my ideas and get to that point where I say "good enough"! That is such a wrong way to try to develop your skills and turn out decent works. I still do it on occasion. But the best work comes when you spend your time being thorough from concept to completion the best you can.
Dark art is a bit underexposed on deviantART, especially in the photomanipulation community. I would like to see that turned around. One of the problems that I see is that, when I say “Dark Art,” I may be referring to something completely different than you are. So, what do you think the underlying philosophy of dark art is? In other words, what makes something dark?
To me, dark art is an overall tone and not just the visual style, to the image. That's including concept, atmosphere, subject, lighting and hues. I think it's different than macabre or horror. It doesn't have to be bloody to be a dark image. An example would be, and I know I am dating myself here, but if you look at the album cover for Rush’s “A Farewell To Kings”, the rubble all around, the “king” sitting, hunched over to one side in the throne in an exaggerated manner…smiling, plus the muted colors overall, to me at least, that is a dark image and without using real dark colors or bloody parts. But personally, I love darker hues but they are not always needed. I like to go for more of the strange and creepy factor with some story behind it more than anything and if I use darker hues, I try to display some color, which you may notice in most of my work. Though I have to admit some of my images have muted tones throughout, especially my earlier style.
How can we go about promoting dark art and horror/macabre on DA? What are some key groups/individuals who should be involved?
Not sure how we could do what hasn’t been tried by many groups already on DA. I thought Dark Arts Asylum had done a great job for a long time promoting dark/horror/macabre. They were open to all types of skill levels too. A group like that needs to keep putting out things like contests or challenges that is open to all skill levels. Just really promote them heavily. I know there are groups that do it, but I don’t think they are aggressive enough.
Another group that I belong to, though it hasn’t had a lot of activity recently, is The Illusory. A real high quality showcase of artworks. A premium type of gallery. I always thought it could become this premium showcase with a branding that has a sort of mystique to it. Get really aggressive with that end of the spectrum too and promote heavily.
Let’s not oversaturate with all the groups out there, there is so many now. Go with the less is more approach, to promote a couple groups that are diverse in the type of dark/horror group they are and promote them on the front page. Expose them. The same for other styles as well. Just an alternating promotion on the front end. Need to create a stigma if you will to make a couple groups stand out as THE places to be. Then after a while, bring in a new group. There will be many but if DA could divert attention to a couple at a time and create a brand for them, I think that would be a good start. But the group has to be really bringing something to the table.
I think the marriage of concept and technical skill is missing in a lot of art these days. You work really well with symbolism and have a knack for bringing art from concept into reality with technical precision that we don’t see every day. “Homewrecker” is a great example of a concept that was expressed in imagery and made real. “Missing Peace on Earth” is another example. This may be an unanswerable question, but I’m going to try anyway: How do you take a concept and transform it both literally and symbolically into a piece of art? I guess I am asking, what is your process and where does the inspiration come from?
I normally have three different paths in which I take to create something. The first one is that I listen to a lot of music and either the music evokes a mood or I hear a lyric that creates a basis of what I am going to do. I start going through a library of photos I have taken over the years (a long process at times since I am the worst at organizing my photos) then I start pulling images that I think will work and start putting them together in Photoshop. This is where I usually have a rough idea that I just keep molding until I am happy.
The second path is a lot more structured. I go through some ideas I have written down, usually influenced by music, news or just a story I have recently finished, and once I pick the concept, I start sketching on paper what I want to do. Sometimes those sketches get scanned into the computer and I work a lot using the sketch with my photos, then start some digital painting to achieve a desired effect or create some new geometry. An occasional use of 3D elements come into play so I would spend some time in Poser or Lightwave 3D to create the needed elements if I don’t have them in my arsenal already. I also may come to the point where I need some actual painting with watercolors or using house paint, glue and things of that nature to create some desired backgrounds or effects. My layers get out of control when I work this way but for the most part, I can get my complete thought out of my head and into the image where I am more satisfied with the result than other images I created.
The third path is actually the method I have the most fun with. I start with one of my photos and just stare at it for a while until I see things happening. I don’t limit myself so much doing this and I just start more of a random collage of things, and then try to make forms out of a base shape and see what happens. Think of it as a Pollack painting, just throwing splatters together and see what happens on the canvas. It is very free and fun. Sometimes it doesn’t work out to my liking but most of the time it does. When I was in grade school, I remember the teacher giving us a little squiggly line on a piece of paper. She then would tell us to make something out of it and I would go to town and let the imagination run a little crazy and get a lot more elaborate than I know I should have. But I had a good time doing it because I never knew what to expect. I remember the teacher looking at what I have created, smile and shake her head as to say she never will know what I will come up with. So I still apply that principle today. It’s fun!
Why did you choose photomanipulation as your art form? Why do you think it is so irresistible to people at all different skill levels and styles?
I just started tinkering with something on the computer one day and just latched on to it. It’s like a drug to some, an easy way to get started in art, and you dabble in it, then you start seeing the endless possibilities you can achieve and the next thing you know you are full blown addicted to it! It’s addictive to me. I think photo manipulation appeals to a lot of people because as a whole, we all like the idea of manipulating the day’s reality of what is front of us at that particular moment and changing it to something new and different to keep things interesting. It’s a natural thing that a lot of us do in our heads anyway whether we realize it or not. Photo manipulation is attractive in the sense that it seems like the quickest way to get results (human nature now is to have instant gratification). And it is, at first, but as we grow into the techniques we use, you find out there is a lot of discovery happening in how you approach putting something together. Soon you are figuring out that you need to understand traditional art principals such as lighting, composition, color, perspectives, mood, textures and so on. It becomes a whole different animal and you see how far you come from the first time you try it. Then you have a sense of accomplishment and knowing you just went down a path that will open a lot of windows to new areas in the art world and you may find yourself willing to try new things. All because you wanted to turn that bathtub into a steampunk-vw bus-boat with an elephant trunk snorkel.
Where do you hope to take your own art next, and how do you plan to get there?
I hope I can just keep taking steps forward to further my art. Honing my skills in design is high on the agenda as well. My ideas and methods changed since I started doing art, a lot, and I hope they do again. I hope to be doing this professionally for a long while and would love to get it to a self-sustaining stage. I enjoy doing cd, book cover and poster illustrations so I plan to continue on that path and see how it goes for a while. But I also want to improve in overall design work (logos, page design, marketing...etc.) and just get focused. Get back to studying tutorials, books and magazines to help me get to where I need to be.
Want to share 3 incredible pieces of work from artists you admire and tell me what is amazing about them?
One of my favorites from damnengine. I just love the color tones and of course that tongue screwed into the book! Very cringeworthy!
I just love this piece by Shinybinary. It gives me a shot in the arm every time I see it so that I keep plugging away to improve my craft! The dynamics and detail is amazing!
So clean for a dark image. I love the style and creep factor!
I've become a fan of Gloom82.Thank you so much, fensterer! We wish you the best of continued luck with your work.
