Interview

Jan 12

Leonard Antinori

Leonard Antinori, lifelong instructor and artist comes to Artistcloseup, following a long career as a faculty member and Arts administrator. Most recently, Len was the chairperson at Molloy College, preceded by over 30 years at St. Francis Preparatory School in NYC, where he also served as head of the department. He possesses a PD in Administration/Supervision from Queens College/CUNY, a MS in Communications Design from Pratt Institute and a BA in Fine Arts from Queens College/CUNY. In addition to teaching, Len has been a successful graphic designer and illustrator for a wide range of clients including: the New York Daily News, Publisher’s Weekly, McGraw-Hill, Pfizer, Citicorp/Citibank, Bloomingdale’s, The Juilliard School, and the Cleveland Institute of Music. He has also exhibited his fine arts compositions in various solo and group shows at venues such as: The Front Street Gallery, Greenport, NY, Armstrong Atlantic State University, Savannah, GA, Del Mar College, Corpus Christi, TX, The Kaiser Art Gallery, Rockville Centre, NY, the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, and the Plaxall Gallery, Brooklyn, NY.

What is your background and how did you start your journey in the art world?

“My Fine Arts background is quite traditional with a concentration on figure drawings of the Classical Nude which I studied as an undergraduate. This obviously has a limited demand in our current society, but I refuse to give up a skill that I have practiced for most of my life. Over the last several years a new digital style has evolved using these drawings as the basis for massive pixelated compositions. These high-quality printouts seem to speak of our current society reflecting the ever increasing digital age that permeates every aspect of our lives.”

What inspires you?

“The art historical inspiration for my digital style is obviously Seurat’s Post Impressionist’s technique, Picasso’s Cubism and the other geometric –isms of the early 20th century. Observers of my completed illustrations often comment that they resemble bitmapped, low-tech video games from the 80’s and ‘90’s, which is exactly my intention. By using this “look,” I pay homage to the early digital designs of a bygone era, replaced by the more advanced, high-resolution, raster-based, software programs of current technology. I have a deep admiration for traditional drawing and painting techniques and I use them as they were intended – to emulate reality. But, if I desire a digital image, I want the finished work to look digital, created by a computer, with its obvious use of pixels and geometry. My use of Photoshop bypasses any verisimilitude in favor of creating Fine Artworks composed of millions of tiny, geometric pixels that deconstruct each figure to the point of eroding its reality.”

What themes do you pursue? Is there an underlying message in your work?

“My manifesto is to always recognize the classical foundation of my art while integrating the future into its technique. This statement entails the continued honing of my artistic skills through the delineation of the human form in classical figure drawings from life then updated through the use of current digital technology. The overall concept of my illustrative style is a reaction to the complete inundation of the digital into our contemporary existence, through our growing reliance on hand-held devises and computer utilization. My style seeks to be a new Cubism for this century, by converting the human form into geometric light fragments on a screen. The final artwork is best visualized as an enormous printout that invites the viewer to get “lost in pixels.””

“The concept of my artwork is to somehow depict humankind's position in this digital world.”

How would you describe your work?

“My digital figure illustrations begin quite conventionally, with a live model in a pose that is visually compelling. I then work tirelessly on delineating the form and details in front of me as a human landscape using traditional media, such as pencil and charcoal with special consideration to the figure’s contours, volume, and tonal modeling. Once completed, I digitize the drawing or painting to create a high-resolution jpg file. It is then placed into Adobe Photoshop by copying, pasting, manipulating and deconstructing the digital image using a series of layers, pixilation sizes, opacities, artistic filters, outlines and colors. The resulting layers dissolve the original image into a complex arrangement of overlapping pixels, yet I strive to never lose sight of the original figure as the basis of each work. My goal is to optimize the concept of digital inundation through enormous projections or printouts that engulf one’s visual field into millions of tiny geometric pixels of color and light.”

Which artists influence you most?

“I already stated earlier that Cubism and geometric abstraction is a major influence on my artistic style. But if I was to think back as a child watching my father, an architect, work at his drawing table using traditional drafting tools (t-square, triangle, compass, etc.) it seems that I came upon my own technique as a reflection of the precision of blueprints using the (digital) tools of the contemporary era. In reference to using the traditional subject matter of the classical nude. I think I can credit being greatly influenced by an uncle who graduated from Cooper Union as a Fine Artist. He possessed an awe inspiring portfolio of exquisite figure drawings that I have worked to emulate since my youth. So, about 10 years ago, I devised my current illustrative technique to use the computer to pay homage to my uncle's subject matter with the precision of the mechanical drawings of my father.”

What is your creative process like?

“I described my process earlier but I do have to say that when I begin an illustration I never know how it will turn out. It all depends on the multiple Photoshop layers and pixilation sizes I utilize, the figure ground relationship of the composition and the amount of detail I choose to include which either clarifies or obscures the original image. That being a figure drawing of a live nude model who posed in a studio for a group of artists. Once completed, the advantage of a Photoshop image allows me to create multiple final versions which sometimes makes it difficult to select just one, but in many situations the best rises to the top and is included in my current portfolio.”

What is an artist’s role in society and how do you see that evolving?

“The role of the artist is to use their means of expression to reflect society. I have perceived our current dependency on "the digital" as both a blessing and a curse, in that it affords humankind a wealth of knowledge and artistic techniques that were impossible before the computer age. The downside lies in its mis-use. Too often, I have seen untrained individuals think they can create something of worth, artistically, simply because they can use a software program. True art comes from skill derived from an understanding of composition and technique to create a concept. And the concept of my artwork is to somehow depict humankind's position in this digital world.”