The Most Inspired Fusograph Ever?
It is freezing cold. Something like 25 below zero. Yet, I'm still experimenting with this medium.
I'm blending all of my experience with photography, painting, and gunpowder into my new fusographs.
I'm sensitive to shape, geometry, light, contrast, and color. I look at things and see them in an abstract way. I like it when the images I take are on the edge of abstraction. A slight blur, but I want them to be timeless. My thin burned lines create movement and energy.
When I look through the lens of my camera I'm not looking for the center of attention, I look more for the layers, movement, and depth that become a bit more poetic. Not so much illustrative.
These artworks are impossible to reproduce. Sometimes the burns work. Sometimes they destroy the photograph. No two are the same.
Firewall: Fusograph by Stick Vega
I just completed my first work of 2018. It is a 20 x 30-inch fusograph titled "Firewall". The base image is of the concrete wall in The Blast Factory that leads to our 60's built bomb shelter. The early morning light was being reflected into the wall when I took this photo. My fuse work was done outside in sub-zero temperatures.
Firewall is my submission to Inspiration Corporation and will be auctioned at their super cool event to help those less fortunate, One Inspired Evening. The event takes place March 10th of 2018.
So now I'm back to experimenting. Creating fusographs that hold more than they reveal is a really hard process.
I like the idea that my art is grounded in reality but that it can transport you to another place. Much in the way that Inspiration Corporation does.
Artist Stick Vega studied mathematics and economics, earning a B.S. in economics from UW-Madison and an MBA from Edgewood College. He owned and was CEO of online apparel retailers WinterSilks and Venus Sportswear. However, upon selling the companies more than a decade ago he headed straight to his studio - The Blast Factory in Madison, WI - to create explosive, modern art with gunpowder and high-speed fuse. Stick's current work includes paintings, drawings, fusographs (exploded photographs) and writing. Please follow Stick on Facebook and/or Twitter.