So far this summer I have really enjoyed making fantastical, surreal and colorful composites of numerous original nature photos, and adding some graphic elements to go for the vibrant pop art feel. This also allows me to express sone futuristic concepts like “Kudzu On Mars” since the resilient plant grows like crazy and takes over whatever area it inhabits. It seems like a great candidate to help terraform Mars! I’ve been on this topic before, with creosote and others. Kudzu, I learned, has edible protein rich leaves – and the root is a neuroprotective medicinal.
“Alive” is a collage of various plant and animal photos that combine in a fanciful menagerie, with the reminder that every area is teeming with life, and every piece of nature has a purpose. I had fun playing with color and scale here, like Alice In Wonderland. The creatures are gathered in this piece around a tree stump. I think it’s ignorant to think of trees as dead or dying, or even diseased. Nature always has a design and greater plan. A decomposing tree has a very important role in ecosystems actually. And insects such as beetles definitely rally around this. Then, as that tree returns to the soil, other trees spring up that are related to it. Legacy – voila!
“Elemental Bouquet” is based on a foundation of carbon, a photo of textured activated charcoal powder (that I was using for another large mixed media artwork – more info to come). I added other bits of photography that had something striking, but were not stand-alones. The silhouette of the wildflowers are definitely that, and I love colorblocking.
The collage / composite approach continues with the bright and oddly whimsical and conceptual “Industrious I-III.”
These are layered original photographs edited for maximum color pop. None of these are AI, but I don’t have anything against AI – it comes in handy for strategy, planning, rendering and more. There’s my opinion! Anyway, Industrious juxtaposes nature’s industry with that of humans, with an invitation to contemplate the path of evolution and stewardship, a modern understanding.
The saw blades to me look humorously whimsical and innocent atop the geometric beds of flowers. It is a statement piece, yet one of optimism, an acknowledgment of absurdity and the need for improvement, along with a nod to human ingenuity.
I look forward to creating more in this style. I was definitely transported while arranging the pop art red, white and blue of “Cosmic Wild,” that imagines woodland scenes of other chemistries on other planets, with a different starscape.
The artwork is available direct, through TurningArt and also Saatchi Art.
Next and appropriately continuing on a cosmic theme, is the score Electric Echoes Movement 4, We Are The Tech Of The Tech Of The Tech. This is a mouthful of a title referring to the lineage of creation and the embedded evolutionary technology, the greater family tree.
The score of this electroacoustic opera is massive, so I have released movement by movement, in order to stay on track. The piece was initially improvised along outlines for each movement and a greater plot. It’s definitely influenced heavily by tonal classical music, and also by beautiful noise and dissonance, and by pop electronic music. The plot involves the characters – from forces of nature to microorganisms, all levels of intelligence- trying to figure out how to evolve further. It’s an atypical opera plot, to be sure, and the instrumentation involves a lot of synth, in addition to piano and traditional strings. It’s been a journey notating this!
Movements 1-4 are now available on Amazon, in digital and paperback:
Ensembles can request scores here: sarah.ikerd@studio-shangri-la.com
And please check the publications page to purchase direct. I’ll be updating that shortly. There’s always something to update!
There’s two more movements of EE to notate and although a bit tedious to go back and sift through the parts, it’s tremendously rewarding. The whole point is to share the composition for performance, to be interpreted and staged. Although I released a recording first for reference, writing something like this is definitely so much more than a vanity project. And sometimes something like this takes a while to catch on. It’s a legacy project. Regardless, writing music is always part of becoming better and contributing to the culture. My next major piece is a symphony. And that is so much more approachable thanks to Electric Echoes, and just letting my imagination take flight, and assuming with patience I can do it.
The main narrative I’m interested in these days is the human joy of creativity, exploration and achievement, that comes in many forms. EE is certainly a celebration of that.