Thursday, December 20, 2012

Hiatus

Hello all!  I haven't updated my blog in a while...  Many life things have been going on lately and time is flying by!  Hopefully the world doesn't end tomorrow and we make it to 2013...  Well here's a few of pieces from 2012, enjoy!  **Thanks to Alan Bader at Omni for these sweet photo captures-
Negative space brick pattern, welded steel rods...

One way sign, CNC cutout graffiti arrow.

Entrance only/No trespassing, CNC cutout graffiti arrow.

Handmade wooden box, acrylic paint, pastel markers, found metal sign, nails and screws.

 Type rest of the post here

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Room with a View


It's almost November...  The leaves are changing, the air is cool, soon winter will be here!  I broke down and finally joined #Instagram, I won't post a lot from the app on my blog but please feel free to look me up @stereoabstract.  Anyway, this is the view from our new studio in downtown Denver!


Thanks to the photo filters on Instagram it looks pretty cool, I could have done this with film if I had the time...  Our studio is located at 2222 Broadway, if you're in the area and would like to see what we're up to, shoot us an email! We plan on having shows in the space in 2013 so keep in touch-

Monday, October 15, 2012

Tetris on the Brain

I was invited to show at the second annual 8-Bit art show at Family Affair this year. I did a collab piece with Delton Demarest last year that set the bar high for us as individual participants this time around... Because my solo show at DVSN West was only 2 weeks ago, I wasn't sure how much time I had to devote to a concept, but I knew I wanted to elaborate on the brick patterns I already created. At first my heart was set on making a dimensional Super Mario Bros brick/block, but I couldn't decide on which version to use. Then after floating around on the web I found photos of an awesome Tetris Art installation in Sydney, Australia called "One More Go One More Go". Seeing that gave me new inspiration, and although my piece would be created on a smaller scale, the spatial possibilities of the shapes from Tetris became more intriguing.

"One More Go One More Go"  photo: ellabarclay.com

I have been collecting metal remnants and things from my friends and while walking around in odd places, so all of the material I used the fabricate my Tetris block (tetrimino) was free. The shape I chose could be considered an "s" or a "z" shape, depending on the way it's displayed. I gave the piece full xyz dimensionality so it looks like a cage or skeleton, it begins to create additional geometric images than what would normally be there if it was just flat, I enjoy angles and geometry. Over the course of 10 hours of cutting and polishing and welding, I created "Anatomy", its just under 2ft tall and will make a nice piece for someone's home in the future... It will be on display at Family Affair (denver) for the rest of the month, 2049 Larimer St.


There is a very informative Wiki about the origin of Tetris, it's worth a read!

Sunday, September 30, 2012

Thanks!

Photo by Steve Pamlenyi
My show was last night at DVSN West, and I am pretty happy with everything I put on display! It sounds weird but only because I've never shown art like this before... I had mounting complications with my neon pieces, but everyone was excited about my new dimensional works. (**For folks out there that plan on showing art in a space, make sure you know how you're allowed to hang work in advance, so you can plan accordingly!). I really appreciate everyone that was able to make it to the opening, I think everyone had a fun time!

Me
The Westword did a blog post prior to my show, that was really nice, and thanks to Amber Taufen for the write up. Here's the link if you would like to read it: http://blogs.westword.com/showandtell/2012/09/harrison_nealey_on_beauty_is_d.php

Steve Pamlenyi
That guy, Alexi High, once again changed the whole vibe of my pieces by making the time to help me by cutting parts on the flatbed CNC router at his work... I know it was my concept, but that's worthless sometimes without someone else's expertise! I raise my glass to you

Alan Bader
I did two late night photo sessions with my friend, Alan Bader, we produced a nice set of photo prints of the neon pieces and series of used mops (graffiti markers). I'll eventually add those for sale on my art page, by the end of October I assume. I think Alan did a supreme job working outside of his normal photography settings and his ability to adapt and shoot was captured in the photos he chose to print. He is actually getting close to starting his own business called Omni Creative Development, doing professional product design and product photography from his residence in North Denver. He is currently an employee at Omerica Organic, where he operates CNC machinery and takes photographs of the organic wood jewelry and accessories the company produces. I have to show a lot of love and gratitude to Alan and I hope he does well moving forward with his solo endeavor. Thanks!

Steve Pamlenyi
Thanks to Matt Feeney (Magnet Mafia) for bringing those trick silicone baking molds for a sweet set of fridge magnets. Sorry you missed the opener but we'll hit it up soon!

Thanks to Joel DeJong and Todd McMurry of DVSN West for giving me a show in their boutique and I hope they enjoy the art as much as I do... Sell some pieces fellas!

I want to thank my girlfriend and my son for putting up with my late night sessions of working on all of the pieces and parts of this show. Thanks to the rest of my friends and family that encouraged me and offered their support. And thanks to my studio mates, Dan Castillo and Delton Demarest for making sure I succeeded on my mission with this show...

For those that want to see the work, it will be on display until the end of October. Have a good weekend everyone!

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Neon peek

I've got plenty to do before next Friday, a few folks have seen the progress photos I've posted in different places, but its time to blog about it!

I've designed 3 pieces made out of neon lights, neon is a specialized subcategory of the signage industry that I've never worked on personally, so I had Acme Neon Signs bend glass to my specs. I'm really excited about all of the work, but neon is just cool! So here's a sneak peek of my glass-

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Pass it on!

Here's the flyer for my show at DVSN West...  It's a little late in the month, but I'm still pushing.  DJ Musa will be playing records and if all goes well I'll have an afterparty celebration at Black Shirt Brewing.  I look forward to seeing folks there, any repost/shares of this flyer are appreciated!

Please RSVP on Facebook if you are attending...  Special things will come of it!

Sunday, September 9, 2012

19 days...

I'm having my solo show at DVSN West at the end of this month (Sept 28) and I've got a lot of work left to do!  My show is title "Beauty is..." my objective is to transform the act of graffiti vandalism into beautiful objects.  I have a past of walking around the city, and there were always specific things that fascinated me about graffiti and street art, so I'm going to share those things with everyone.


"Beauty is..." will feature mostly dimensional objects which I have fabricated or designed, I am welding a lot of metal pieces to show, painting others, and I'm even going to do 2 or 3 neon pieces!  Neon lighting has been an obsession of mine since I started designing furniture and things almost 10 years ago and this will be the first time I will use it in an artistic format.  I don't want to give too much away, but I'm really excited about the show!


I've been slacking on getting flyers printed, but I did manage to get some sweet stickers printed to promote, so look out for those around Denver and RSVP on my Facebook event if you feel so compelled!  DVSN West is an urban clothing boutique located at 250 Fillmore Street in Cherry Creek North.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Quick and dirty

I've been messing around with paper and resin this week... Resin was pretty unsuccessful this go around, the mix set up before releasing all the bubbles. I was planning on showing it this Saturday at Indy Ink's 10th anniversary show, but I'm back to square one at the moment! Less than 24 hours to turn out another piece, so we shall see what happens. I did take a bunch of photos before pouring the resin, I'll share them soon once I grab them off the camera, but here's a quick phone pic-

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Perpetual circle of creation...

It's been hard for me to get motivated to do my personal artwork, I know everyone has their own pace and schedule and responsibilities outside of art, but I feel like I should be producing more... It has been months since I've felt the interest to create anything new. I think part of that is due to my studio space and it's quirks. A lot of weird things have happened there which are completely beyond my control, since then the vibe hasn't been the same and I've lost my drive... I'm currently searching (with my studio mates) for a new space to reclaim my artistic sanity, right now things are a struggle.
I have been working a bit with Delton on one of his projects for Breckenridge Brewery, just a little woodwork and laser etching but I enjoy helping with technical parts of gigs, plus lasers are fun!



On other fronts, my day work is going great. I've been staying happy and productive at Demiurge, we are still doing "nail birds" along with other artists' projects around the country.


Work with my fabrication partner, Brian, is going well. We have completed our railing project for Common Grounds Coffee, a set of stair stringers for a private residence, a sign package for an office building in the Denver Tech Center, and another sign package for a new food establishment on 15th and Platte called eat+drink...



Oh yeah, we made a few things for the cooks at the new Squeaky Bean also!

Future things have almost become the present... Last week was the groundbreaking ceremony on the GreenBox property at 3310 Brighton Blvd, a Focus Propery Group project. That is where our 60ft public art wall will be installed! We had a chance to speak to the developers and contractors involved on the project, and we brought a sample of what our wall will look like and do...

 
Hard hats and neon vests were abundant, along with coffee and bagels... We can't wait to fabricate and install this piece!

 

So overall my productivity has been up, but I need more improvisational creation in the mix... I'm thankful for everything I have going for me right now, so I'll just keep pushing forward-

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Updates

Hello folks! long time no see? I've been active online (mainly twitter), but blogging can be a pain sometimes... But my friends have been telling me it's time for an update.

First things first, I got a jobby job working at Demiurge, which some of you may or may not be familiar with. It's a sculptural metal fabrication outfit that has done some pretty awesome work in their days... I was hired during the second production of "nail birds" for New York artist, Will Ryman, and for my first month on the job I spent my days preparing thousands of nails for the bird. Here's me learning how to TIG weld...


 I don't think I have permission to post photos of what I do exactly but please feel free to do some research. It's really nice to work on art of this scale, although it's not mine with my name on it, this kind of creation keeps me satisfied during the day.

My studio (Studio 72!) mates and I made the decision it was time to get a bigger space in March. We stayed in the Wazee Union building, tripled our square footage, and have stayed extremely busy! Please come visit us on May 12th for our monthly Second Saturday's open studio night, we will have new work on display from Delton Demarest, Karma Leigh, Alexi High, Dan Castillo, Alex Tischner (no link), and myself.



I sold another large painting in Feb/March, one of the paintings (The Traveler) I originally created for the Rackhouse Pub when they opened their doors. "Beneath the Surface" which I previously thought had sold at the Heart Art Auction, did not sell because nobody paid for it at the end of the night... So that is still in my possession.
The Traveler


I created 10 new pieces for an April show at the Yellow Feather Coffee shop on Santa Fe. None of them caught anyones fancy, but I blame it on the lighting... I really just think the pieces were the wrong color for the walls.

@ Yellow Feather

Luckily I have a May show at The Laughing Latte which has different color walls and different lighting that are more complementary to the same work. I hate to recycle my pieces so quickly, but if they get seen more it can't be bad! I did begin working on a new series that was originally meant for Laughing Latte, but I found myself running into the same situation with wall colors not completenting the art and vice versa... I think I will start researching wall colors before creating art for a space to avoid this in the future. I feel color is more important to my work because it is abstract and not imediately accepted or relatable or whatever makes less abstract portraits fit in more places. I felt bad at first that I couldn't hang my newest piece up, but the fact is it was simply wrong for the environment, and I think it would disrupt their business.

Progress photo of the latest.  Acrylic, aerosol, and oil pastel on wood. (found object)

Cast iron border. (found object)

I showed it to a boutique in LoHi that was very interested to have it, and I posted photos on my FB page, and I'm pretty sure I sold it to one of my friends over the phone today!

The public art project (wall thing) that my fabrication partner (Brian) and I landed is beginning to pick up a bit of steam. We are working up color samples and material samples that will be used in the fabrication of the wall, they need to be presented to the client and to the city for approval and probably permitting. More on that when it goes down!

I have been busy making signs and fabricating other cool stuff with Brian, our latest clients are DVSN West, The Pour House, Rackhouse Pub, Arts Street, Go Lite, and AIS Industrial & Construction Supply... Please visit our website to see some of our older work: Monolith Fabrication Studio

Painted logo graphics on brick.


Other updates? I think my son may become a sculptor... After he's done conquering the world, of course! he likes to make things out of my scraps, pretty amazing things, so look out for him- 
Rusted steel and glass. 2"x2"x1/4" (found objects)

Thanks for visiting and sorry for the hiatus!

Friday, February 10, 2012

A title that means something

So I do abstract art, right? And it's hard to title abstract stuff, right? Well for the first time, the title of one of my paintings told me what my painting was about...

"Beneath the Surface"


I painted this almost two years ago, but for some reason last night I fully processed it's meaning... A journalist from BurnAfterReadingMag asked me about the piece and what it meant to me, all my abstract-ness aligned into words and I could suddenly describe the piece, to my own surprise! I have made conscious efforts to title my pieces with meaning, but I had no idea I had been successful.

To me the piece describes the heavy armor that an individual uses to shield themselves, a steel suit of coldness and exaggerated self. People don't want others to see their true self, their complexity, their vulnerability... It's easier for one to stay inside and let their hard shell take the abuse. In the painting, the shell is lifting up and away from the organic beauty that lies beneath, like a butterfly liberating itself from a cocoon. Bam!

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Score!

Remember when I mentioned I was working on a concept for a public art piece in Denver? Well I just heard back from my partner Brian (@Monolith Fabrication Studio) that our concept won! I'm not quite sure when we will begin fabrication, but I would hope to start in the next few months...

The piece will be installed in front of a parking lot where headlight glare is a concern. The client wanted to solve the issue from an artistic approach; functional, pleasing to look at, recognizable. Our concept is a 60ft long wall that produces a low-fi animation (similar concept as a zeotrope) when driving by, and a static image when one stands still. Here's a few photos of the 1:5.6 scale concept:



^^^Detail of the business branding portion of the wall. Vector files were made to scale of the wall for pricing out our materials and also to laser-cut a bunch matboard to make a physical mockup... Lasers are fun btw!



^^^This is scaled down dramatically from what the real wall will be, but it's still 11ft long and tricky to move around. Shown here with red matboard to simulate rusted steel.



^^^Video cameras on skateboards... If I ever get it edited, I'll post it.

I wanted to thank all of my friends that encouraged me during this last month of agony figuring out the inner workings and research for this project... There's a lot more to this idea than I had originally imagined, but now it's one step closer to reality! Good job Brian!

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

My art at I♥DENVER store

Please support me and all of the local artists by shopping at the I♥DENVER Store. I have original pieces and prints for sale there now! The store is on 500 16th Street, second level of the Denver Pavilions, right behind H&M.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Wow... 2012

I can't believe it's been over a month since I posted anything! Having a full-time job can make blogging difficult... I've been tweeting and all that other stuff, but taking the time to sit down and purge hasn't happened until now! So just to clarify, I don't have a job at the moment...

I spent the first half of December working with my girlfriend Jen on her holiday event at Kaze Gallery, home to painter/tattoo artist Sandi Calistro.

13 artists showed work: Alan Bader, Chris Huth, Delton Demarest, Karma Leigh, Lui Ferreyra, Magnet Mafia, Matthew Clark, Rafa Jenn, Sandi Calisro, Sandra Fettingis, Scot Lefavor, Zachary Kuhlman, and Myself. The show was extremely successful, $990 was raised for the local non-profit, Slow Food Denver.


I sold an individual piece and also a handful of Magnet Mafia magnets with Matt Feeney.


I spent a week or so working on magnets and producing the arist plaques for the show, which came out awesome! The plaques were made of old fence planks and smoke acrylic pieces, cut on a flatbed cnc router... Thanks again to Alexi High and my son.



We had some fancy grocery bags printed up for the show too, Delton Demarest did an awesome caricature of my girlfriend standing in front of the 16th Street bridge.


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I have also been working with my fabrication partner, Brian Greer on developing concepts for a public art project, we recieved good feedback on our idea and we'll be presenting physical mockups this month... Fingers crossed, I'm ready to share my work on a large scale! For now the concept is a secret, if it gets a green light I'll post plenty of pics, I'll post pics even if it doesn't get approved.

The site is in the River North neighborhood, a little industrial, a little urban, a lot cool...

Check out more work that Brian and I have done: Monolith Fabrication Studio

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I painted a mural for Root Yoga Center two summers ago, but they have expanded since then so I had the opportunity to paint an interior piece on their new studio door... It was pretty fun to remember how I painted the first mural, which is visible from the north side of the 16th Street bridge. I have also done all of the signage for both of their studios.


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I feel like I'm forgetting something... Oh well, Happy New Year everyone! I hope it's a great year for all of us-