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| “Neuropugilistica" Property: Rocky Medium: Acetate Print in an LED light box frame Size: 24” x 36” Paper: Acetate |
Anthony Petrie, accomplished artist takes us on another trip through cinema and pop culture. Anthony Petrie's Charts 2 will be opening for public consumption Sept 3 at Gallery 1988. He finds a way to make a film seem like a stylized infographic like no other. Dropping bits of info in a beautiful looking piece that must adorn any cinephiles screening room.
You've probably seen his work at Gallery 1988 before or for advertising name brands. We interviewed Anthony, way back in early 2015 for his first solo show and are happy enough to get to ask brand new questions about his life, but more importantly on his art.
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| Anthony Petrie |
TTDILA: What
a great show, back in 2015, were there any major events in your life
since then? Should we really even dwell on that or go right into
questions about the art?
Anthony Petrie:Biggest
major event after chARTs1 was the beginning of work on chARTs2 [lame].
Aside from that, I started showing my work at conventions in the past
year, starting with New York Comic Con last October, and most recently
San Diego Comic Con in July, both of which were exhausting but really
lucrative and fun.
Ya bastard,
you did the art for the special edition Snatch Steelbook Blu-ray?
That's like my favorite movie visually. I don't know what happened to
Guy Ritchie after that, Madonna, but he sure can't make'm like he use
to. How did that come about? Look at the Blu-ray cover online for
the regular version, it looks like they cut-out the cast and put them
together. So nerdy about that right now, I know, but please go on.
The
project came about from a marketing initiative between Sony and Gallery
1988 called “Project Pop Art” wherein artists were commissioned to
re-design the DVD Blu-ray covers of popular movies for sale exclusively
at Best Buy. I got lucky with Snatch and Kung-Fu Hustle, and it was
awesome seeing that artwork in a commercial space for such big movies.
You
bring up a good point about the regular DVD artwork and most movie
marketing materials in general. It’s terrible. It’s always been
terrible. And it’s the reason why the surge of underground pop culture
inspired artwork has become so popular. It’s a response to the
cut-and-paste generic and uncreative imagery that studios employ to
advertise the movies we all love. I think this project in particular
shows that studios are finally starting catching on to that creative
response and are now providing opportunities for artists like myself to
infuse creativity back into a lot of the artwork used to sell movies.
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| “Flight Plans" Property: Up Medium: 3-Color Screen-Print on Stock White Size: 24” x 36” Paper: Stock White |
On
fandom and I hope you can agree, most cover art looks like garbage, you
know as well as I, the studios is like, "Get the actors faces on the
cover!" Ughhh, I hate that! Now buying physical media for me has to
deal with not only extras, but the cover art. Your thoughts? If
Blockbusters existed anymore would you make mock covers and tape them to
the front of DVD’s?
For the
most part I agree, movie key art is there more to fulfill requirements
of actor’s contracts and so people know that “oh this is the Bradd Pitt
movie”, and a lot of the time key art and marketing materials suffer for
it. However I would also say there has definitely been a noticeable
infusion of “alternative subculture” art concepts and aesthetics into
the mass marketing of pop culture brands and movies.
Production companies and design firms look to the sub-genre
of alternative movie posters for inspiration in mainstream marketing
projects. Additionally, the more popular and skilled a
traditional/freelance artist gets, the more mainstream
work opportunities they will
When
working on your pieces, how hard is it to really design and finish
them, because they're quite intricate. I'm going on two levels or more
than that: time it requires, forethought, I mean planning them out must
require many skills. If it's too long to explain in general you might
want to go over one piece and it's development.
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| “Carte Concierge" Property: The Grand Budapest Hotel Medium: 2-Color, Double-Sided Screen-Print on Pop Tone Pink Lemonade French Paper With Metallic Shimmer Size: 24” x 36” Paper: Pop Tone Pink Lemonade French Paper |
For
chARTs, the work is 90% research, 9% execution and 1% cursing out loud.
I don’t usually sketch them out beforehand. Instead, I do a lot of
writing and researching and lay out all the information I’ve gathered
onto my computer screen. Then it’s just a matter of connecting the dots
and composing. I don’t usually know what the final piece is going to
look like in my head before I start. I let the information come together
organically through the research process, or until it just looks
cool...
Last time, we saw a
lot of older favorites, do you mainly stay in very beloved titles, no
cult stuff. will any of the films used be from the last five years? Is
most of the modern slate of films just not that great? I would disagree
and would love to see you do a Nurse Office's sexually transmitted
disease chart for It Follows.
Ha,
and It Follows chART would be great, I’m going to steal that. I think
the first chARTs show was a proof of concept more or less. I stuck with
properties that had really iconic and recognizable elements so people
would understand what the point of these posters were. They don’t have
the convenience of having a big title block and character faces on them,
so that the viewer immediately knows what the movie is. Because of
their subversive nature, they rely heavily on iconic elements and color
palettes for immediate recognition. There’s still a lot of those “ conic
movie moments" in chARTs 2 but there’s definitely newer properties
being explored as well. I think at this point, people understand what
the concept of chARTs is, and are able to pick up on the visual clues
that are hidden in each poster.
Given
the chance now, we seemingly only went over the surface of the genres
you like in film. Is there any films you love, but just can't figure out
to get down in your style. Are there some films you love that shouldn't
be tackled, you said last interview, "I like movies that most normal
people hate.”
I think it’s less
about movies that are difficult to nail down in this style, and more
about how to make the poster unexpected. If you heard I was doing a
chART for the movie Star Wars, you might assume that it’s a technical
drawing of the Millennium Falcon, or a map of Tattooine. I don’t think
anyone would have guessed a star constellation chart of Star Wars
characters. I think the best chARTs are from movies that you wouldn’t
expect...
I'm looking
at more of your production design side of work and see some breakout
action design for Nickelodeon. Aw, Ninja Turtles! How is it designing or
re-designing classic characters?
My inner
7-year-old freaks out while working on TMNT. Come to think of it, my
inner 34-year-old freaks out while working on TMNT. If I had to think of
a “dream job”, aside from working for myself, this would be it. I
haven’t given TMNT the chARTs treatment yet, but hopefully one day I can
get something official off the ground.
Do
you draw anything from you design gigs? Do you ever think of the piece
more for the masses than just your eye? Has it helped create pieces for
your show?
Absolutely.
Posters are products. They are objects with 3 dimensions, and I think
the great thing about chARTs is that they are not exclusive to any niche
of people. In a market that’s dominated by over-masculine
representations of movies, I think chARTs are
pretty gender neutral, and I feel that because of this, they are able
to appeal to a larger audience. There’s no deeper meaning to them,
nothing to speculate on. They are maps and diagrams, easy to understand
and digest, but at the same time fun, non-aggressive and immersive. You
don’t need to be a stuffy art critic to appreciate them, and if you love
movies, you don’t have to have some actor’s giant face on your wall to
decorate your house with that movie’s memorabilia.
On
that, are you giving some love to TV, cartoons or gaming this time?
I'll ask, but I'm sure you weren't given enough time. Is Stranger Things
in there? * Black Mirror gets brand new episodes this October, thanks
Netflix.
I totally meant to.
There is one TV show in there. And a cartoon. There was a really long
list of all kinds of properties including video games and books, but as
work went on, and things got boiled down, it ended up being mostly
movies [again]. Stranger Things came along too late to make it in, but I
love Black Mirror, I’ll keep them both in mind for sure. I think TV
shows and video games are SO expansive and encompassing, it’s really
difficult to capture every Easter egg and detail into one poster,
whereas a movie is a little easier to “package up” in a single poster.
How
long were you given this time, last solo show you said it really helped
you get your ideas together. Anything you want to discuss that you
couldn't finish?
I started
working on this one as soon as the last one ended. Actually there’s
special a piece in this show that was started before even the last show.
I feel good about the number of pieces, but there are definitely some
concepts that I didn’t get to explore for this one. I don’t think
there’s going to be a chARTs 3 anytime soon [I need a break], but
I’m hoping to be able to continue this concept throughout the year
intermittently, so I think a lot of those unrealized concepts will start
to emerge.
Andrew
is awesome , we met at the Star Wars event at G88. We’re in the
same genre, but our work is so different I don’t think there’s any
overlap. There’s a lot of mutual respect there, and I’m a huge fan of
his work. Where as his Plotted work is solely based on his mastery of
maps, I try to broaden the definition of what chARTs is and what it can
be, so that maps is just one part of the definition. I think it’s part
of a bigger story that is being explored in the ‘infographic’ space, by
not only myself and DeGraff, but Tom Whalen and Kevin Tong [Info-rama],
and a lot of other artists who are starting to pick up on some of those
more graphic and informative themes.
How
about your relationship with Jensen Karp, co-owner of Gallery 1988, we
all know him now with his book, that I'm not going to plug. How's that,
how did he get your work to his gallery?
Jensen
and I are friends, and he and Katie have both been amazingly supportive
of me and my work at Gallery 1988. He had been following my work
online, and literally just called me out of the blue to work on a
gallery show back in 2011, which quickly led to the official Breaking
Bad show, which quickly led to the official Avengers show. And his book
is great, I actually went to a book event he had in NYC, so if you’re
not going to plug it, I will: Kanye West owes me $300 by Jensen Karp,
available now! Oh, and chARTs2, September 3rd at Gallery 1988!!
As Anthony so casually plugged it his show:
Anthony Petrie's Charts 2Opening Reception Sep 3, 7-10pm
G1988(West) 7308 Melrose Ave
