Celebrate Valentines with Street Artist Lonac and his Heart Animation
I recently discovered Lonac, the street artist (graffiti artist, vandal, infidel?) and have quickly fallen in love with his work. His style is a hyper-realistic, yet satirical… his paintings are funny and yet awe inspiring.
Lonac (a native of Croatia) recently spent a few days in an undisclosed location in Lonac’s home town of Zagreb working on an imaginative pre-Valentines piece. By mixing spray paint, hyper-realism, Lonac has created a mind blowing ode to Valentines Day. The results have born fruit as his piece is racing about the web and has even garnered interest outside the art world.
Lonac’s heart animation is of an anatomically realistic human heart pumping blood through the nearby air ducts. Each and every frame is a brilliant work of art unto itself. Which is probably the only let down to the project was that he had to paint over frame after frame to get his desired animated effect! But the good news is that Lonac is currently working on a print release, his first, which will be on it’s way in due time. I for one will be looking out for it.
Here is the piece in it’s full animated glory:
Like I said… amazing. I’ve included a number of process shots below which show more of the detail of the painting, pre-cover up. (No I am not crying at all. None.)
It would be a blast to see Lonac work in real-time. I wrote about the opportunity I had to watch El Mac work in real time. And to have the ability to control the paint like that? Yeah, I’m more than a little jealous.
I’ve started working on a highly detailed morphing, jacking, photoshoping of the Golden Gate Bridge, and have, so far, put something like 20 hours into it. I had the idea after seeing recent perspective morphing artists doing something similar. But I wanted to attempt the effort, though I didn’t realize just how hard it would be. But I’ve enjoyed the attempt all the same. I’m sure I’ll post about the experience here if I am able to wrap up the piece.
What is sad though, is that I have this feeling like one is not enough. In order to be worthy of your attention, I need like 20 of them. (800 hours later, sure.) I think Pinterest has made us en masse consumers of art. One quick scroll and you have consumed a person’s life work, and not only that, but you’ve judged them on their thumbnails without ever having seen a full single full size piece. (I’m talking to myself here.) Which is sad, because that artist has spent sleepless nights and extended effort pouring their heart (pun eh?) into these pieces. Who knows how long it took Lonac to create this animation. Days? And we consumed it in what? 30 seconds? Movies are similar. We consume them in an hour or two and then judge them – and their 3 years of effort, without so much as getting off the couch.
So yeah, 20 hours on my bridge isn’t a ton of time. But it’s about 19 more hours than I would normally spend on a piece. Maybe I’m a little touchy as a result. That when I post it, it’ll probably be glanced at by 20 people for only a brief moment. Yes, yes, you create because you have to, not for views, or eyeballs, or what have you. But you get what I’m getting at. No? Anyway, Lonac is why we are here. So do him a favor and sit here and stare for at least a solid day. Ok? hahahah.