Hue Walker Bumgarner-Kirby: Gronk’s BrainFlame

Artist(s):

• Hue Walker Bumgarner-Kirby

Title:

Gronk's BrainFlame

Exhibition:

• SIGGRAPH 2005: Threading Time

Creation Year:

2005

Medium:

animation

Size:

4:23 minutes

Category:

• Animation & Video

Artist Statement:

This animation is based on sketchbooks and a storyline provided by internationally known Los Angeles painter Gronk. Examining the flashpoint in a creative idea, the work begins and ends with a seed pod struggling to burst open. The story moves from a rock-strewn desert to a flaming mind, following an artist as he is pulled up into a hovering glass brain and broken apart. The fragments eventually coalesce into a new work of art. The landscape and figures were modeled from Gronk’s sketchbooks; the textures were created using scans of the artist’s skteches and photos of his paintings and the murals in his Spring Street residence. The Glass Brain was modeled after a series of Giant Glass Brains Gronk made during a residency in Tacoma, Washington.