Pixel Pushing Art Prints
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We are honored to be participating artists at the current Gallery 1988 show "Multiplayer," an art exhibition featuring limited edition posters inspired by video games. We created two prints for the show, Pacman and Tetris!
Both prints can be purchased on the Gallery 1988 website here.
Typically Nathan and I will collaborate on almost every project. However, for these prints we ended up designing each one individually. The Pacman print I created is entitled "Pac-Hero." It's a six color screen print which is the most colors we've ever printed with thus far. The idea came to me after days of frustration trying to come up with a concept that would represent Pacman in a unique and timeless light. Once I decided to start thinking about current video games it clicked. I was thinking about how Guitar Hero is one of the most popular modern games of our generation and how times have changed greatly since the classic arcade game era of Pacman. Once I remembered the shape of the buttons on the Guitar Hero guitar it was set in stone. I decided to merge both games into one print by making the buttons of the guitar mimic the shapes of ghosts and the last button represent Pacman himself. It was serendipitous to also discover that the fret dots of a guitar can also pair as the white dots in Pacman. Thus the fusion of old and new in the world of video gaming was complete. Below are some close up shots of the print.
Nathan's print for Tetris is entitled "From Russia with Love." The idea came from researching the origin of the game. Originally, Nathan researched Tetris as a Japanese game due to it's most popular platform, the Nintendo Gameboy. However, I always remembered the Russian towers in the game's intro graphics and the Russian song that sticks in your head for days after playing. So what Nathan discovered was a very interesting history involving the legal complications of Tetris' ownership. Long story short, there's a Tetris documentary entitled "From Russia with Love," no not the James Bond film, which explains how a Russian computer programmer originally developed the game but through a legal battle with Nintendo, never received royalties for his work. So although subliminal, the print touches upon this legal battle, by showing Russia's towers crumbling into the shape of a Gameboy. The print is made with a split fountain from yellow to white, which also represent the colors of communism (yellow and red) transitioning to the colors of Japan (white and red). You can watch the full documentary here. Below are close up shots of the print.
