A Million Billion Things

"All Dreams Come to Pass"
by Dani Selvaggio
2011

in progress

Oh, man...sorry for the radio silence, folks.

There was a while there that I was locked out of this account, for whatever reason. This morning I was finally able to gain access again.

I hope to updating this blog a lot more frequently now. I have so many new projects in the works. Some I'm being paid to do (rocks my socks) and some I'm just doing because it's art.

Here's a little teaser of something I'm working on. You can totally see my sketchy notes if you look close enough. I'm hoping that it will be one that I can introduce in a local show sooner or later. The main part of the design was taken from a thumbnail version of a logo I was hired to do - I maintain copyright for all logo design until a final logo is approved and purchased, so when they chose a different version of the logo for their business, I jumped on this one. It kinda just popped off the page for me (and I'm super glad they didn't use it).

The words on the bottom part of the project are from a poem I wrote and have yet to publish. The unfortunate thing is, in the form the poem takes in this image, it would defeat the purpose of the piece to publish the poem now. Why? Because in the soon-to-be-painting, the poem is scrambled. In the actual poem, it's...er...not.

Ahhhh, art...I feel like I'm breathing again.

Killer

"Killer"

by Dani Selvaggio

2009
sold

It is at last complete!

My favorite sort of media is "mixed," so when I came up with the idea for "Killer," I immediately jumped upon the approach of mixed media.

I'm hoping that this piece will be one of the stand-outs when I have a show. I'm really happy with the way it came out, though I may end up adding more to it in the future. Don't be misled by the 2-D appearance of the work: it's actually inclusive of a lot of 3-dimensional elements. For example, the astronaut in the forefront is not simply plastered to the canvas. He's actually floating about two or three inches above it. The "heart," comprised of tangled thread, is free-hanging between him and the canvas. I used recycled styrofoam as a base for the "floating" appearance (styrofoam doesn't biodegrade for a few millennia, so I try to put it to use when I can).

I'm glad I was successful in making the astronaut float so that you can still see the detail of Kali and Pele from certain angles. I want people to feel like they can approach this piece and inspect it close-up - I'm glad that you can still see the grand majority of it all.

Enjoy!

Far Fallen

"Far Fallen"

by Dani Selvaggio

2008
for sale

I am a huge fan of Italian opera and Puccini in particular. My absolute favorite opera of all time is Madame Butterfly. What is ALSO very special to me is a memory I have of going to see this opera for the first time as a treat from my father when I was about twelve years old. I was absolutely captivated by the climax where Butterfly commits seppuku and Pinkerton rushes onto the stage only seconds too late. For the number of scenes leading up to the final one, the Soprano playing Butterfly has been clutching and wringing her hands in agony. And then as she slits her wrists, she throws her hands up into the air...and, cascading to the stage come these liquid, unfurling ribbons of bright red silk. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life.

I kinda hate this painting because it doesn't come anywhere even close to capturing what I saw.  Oh well.  I might take another crack at it in the future.

Cradle of Civilization

"Cradle of Civilization"
by Dani Selvaggio
2008
commission

The photo of this piece did NOT come out well (again with the digital cameras!). In order to get clear shots in my studio, I had to angle the camera against the painting in a really strange way. It resulted in either weirdly distorted photos of the image or blurry shots. *sigh*

"Cradle of Civilization" was my particpation in a 24-hour art project for an organization that was raising money to support developing communities in Kenya. It was a donation that was auctioned off.

Here's a better glimpse at some of the detail. Again, I had to take these photos quickly, but they ended up coming out very...wacky? At any rate, enjoy!

In progress: KILLER

Here are some parts to my upcoming piece KILLER. I'm hoping that this will be finished by spring 2010!

I had enormous fun constructing the raven, although using scissors to get a clean, straight cut on miniscule pieces of black paper was certainly a pain. However, I'm incredibly happy with the result. A lot of its detail is completely lost in this image, so you will have to keep checking back for updates. :-)

Have I mentioned that I hate digital cameras?

Recompense

"Recompense"

by Dani Selvaggio

in progress

commission

The title "Recompense" is an little bit of a joke. The person who commissioned this piece had been competitively bidding on another piece of mine, but lost and were vocally bummed out. I agreed to make them a personal piece that to make up for their loss. Nevertheless, take the title to mean what you will!

I decided to do a single image that tranlated onto two pieces of canvas. Considering that I didn't know how large their display area was, I decided to use two smaller canvases so that they didn't take up too much space. The size of the original painting in question was my reference.

Because the original painting had to do with what I like to call "confined nature," or an instance of man displaying nature in his own constructed habitat, I decided to do something similar here: twigs in a jar of rocks.

Winter's End in California

"Winter's End in California"
by Dani Selvaggio
2009
commission

This piece was done as a birthday gift for a woman I love who celebrates her birthday in the summertime. However, she always reminds me of spring! For those of you that live in Southern California, you know that our seasons hardly vary...we have windy, fiery, dry, and more dry. But the best time to see California is that liminal season between winter and spring, when everything is at its freshest and the wildflowers are beginning to grow. I tried to evoke something colorful and "new" in this image, but kept it as simplistic as possible at the same time.

Here are some details for the bougainvillea: