It may surprise people that the home furnishings company, IKEA, does not use photographs in most to all of its catalog images. IKEA admittedly created all of it's inventory of its entire catalog images using Computer Generated Images or CGI.
René Magritte painted his iconic pipe and aptly labeled the painting to express truth and purposeful perplexity; The Treachery of Images: This is not a Pipe, (translated into English.) Do computer-generated images, CGI, propose another truth? Or, do they simply represent an image based on familiarity of experience; like another painting? The uncanniness is surreally real.
Using the original Magritte (not a) pipe as a reference, I created a Computer Generated, CG image of the experience, printed on primed canvas with outdoor quality archival ink to within an inch of the actual size of Magritte’s painting. I call it a proxigraph an invented word to describe something that looks photographic but stands in proxy for a photographic object. The pipe image was created in 3D software. The type was recreated by pen and digital scan to allow for the high-resolution lighting and purposeful (CG) studio light shadows.
What does the viewer really look at? Now that IKEA can represent nearly all of their entire catalog of products as CG renders, not photographs. Click on any online catalog image in the Bedroom, Bath, Kitchen, (even the food props,) or Dining set are not photographs. Not chairs, not cupboards, not pots, not pans, not something. For this artwork, this is not a pipe; aptly named, (again,) This is not a pipe really is; not a pipe.
A CGI artwork where I contend the most offensive human mascot in the United States and we bring it home and consume it. [finally changed in 2020!] I am a voting First Nations member; Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. I grew up on both the Kutenai or Flathead Nation and also the Fort Peck Reservations in Montana.
Note: Even while Washington's NFL team is changing it's mascot and Cleveland is too, eradicating racist mascots is still not finished. There are still the Chef's and even Buffalo Bills! As a generalization, some people aren't thinking unconditionally anti-racist. Example: The Buffalo Bills are a mascot based on Wild Bill Cody who was an indigenous murderer. As a civilian scout in 1876, on a revenge excursion against Cheyanne, Cody murdered Yellow Hair in a 350 to 6 ambush then desecrated his body by taking his scalp! What sort of action was that? He was awarded the Medal of Honor for this! [rescinded right around the time he died but restored in 1989.] Cody was also hired by the U.S. government to slaughter Bison; using domestic terrorism to disrupt indigenous people's food sources. Is that your mascot; a revengeful murderer and showman of colonized indigenous people? Ask yourself how racist is that?
Read why certain human mascots are racist in an article I wrote and presented to SVA Conference, NYC 2016 and University of Texas, Permian Basin, 2018 and CAA conference, NYC in 2019. Paper Link
This work is commentary of commercial package design as CGI pop art. Much of our images that we view and assume to be high-end photos are actually Computer Generated Images skipping the camera altogether. For this art, I used the model of the Campbell's soup can by Andy Warhol as he too used photography as a reference for graphic shadow. I received archival label scans, by permission, directly from Cambell's soup of their 1964 label design for the UV mapping onto the CG can. I rendered two versions of this; the iconic Tomato and also the Chicken Noodle can under different lighting. This was one of two artworks shown at iDMAa, 2016 International exhibition.
For the most part, I am a print designer with some other tricks up my sleeve. Logos, signage and these very nice lables are only a few examples of what I can design. All of that artwork you see above is original artwork for the labels, including the pen and ink illustrations by me and even some of the typography is original. You see the words, London Style and Dry Gin and Vodka on those labels?; I created those letters from scratch, they are not stock fonts. I make fancy labels, great logos and pretty much anything that can be printed.
I am Graphic Designer and an artist that works in 3D media and a graphic designer that can make a damn fine logo or label design. I was an early member of the small team of people that dreamed to build a fully accessable children's playground. I advised on Idaho's first ADAAG Accessable playground named Adventure Island located in Meridian, Idaho, USA.