Illustration

Unseen Realities

December 5, 2011

Illustrations by the Freise Brothers.

Contributors

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Unseen Realities (Play). 2006.Digital mixed media, 30″x25.75″. © The Freise Brothers.

The Freise Brothers describe Unseen Realities as “a visual story about a community of artists inhabiting an abandoned industrial landscape. Rather than redrawing and re-planning, they retro-fit. The renderings are meticulously crafted as a combination of traditional hand media with digital media to reflect the dual aesthetic of salvaged structures.”

In BLDGBLOG, Geoff Manaugh describes this series as “perhaps Andrew Wyeth meeting the U.S. interstate highway system in a world art-directed by Guillermo del Toro.” Certainly an interesting combination.

These hybrid illustrations combine multiple forms of media–ink, graphite, photography, and marker–with computer graphics. Their representations of utopian worlds question our current conditions of suburban sprawl and urban master-planning.

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Unseen Realities (Dwell). 2006. Digital mixed media, 29″x29″. © The Freise Brothers.

The illustrations for Transient come from a collaboration with Philippe Barrier Collective. Rich organic textures provide a contrast to the bleak urban backdrops, suggesting renewal through the implementation of a nomadic living pod and docking tower.

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Transient (Decay and Renewal). 2007. Mixed media, 24″ x 13.5″. © The Freise Brothers.

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Transient (The Nomads). 2007. Mixed media, 17″ x 11″. © The Freise Brothers.

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