Hiroshi Ariyama, designer and screen printer, is a resident artist at the Chicago Printmakers Collaborative. With a background in photography, he elevates screen printing to fine art with his graphic depictions of Chicago landmarks and everyday observations.

ArtStyle: Why did you decide to go into printmaking?

Hiroshi Ariyama (HA): I've been a creative person, working for ad agencies and design consultancies, but in that capacity there's always someone who's going to say “yes” or “no” to what I produce, and they put their two cents in and thereby nothing is purely mine. I think there's some part of me that needed to satisfy that aspect of being pure — producing something from beginning to the end. It was a driving force behind why I started screen printing.

I have a lot of photography and printing background, so screen printing was an interesting method for me to pursue because it involves my core competencies. There's a lot of room for me to express myself and produce a very unique piece of art. In my work, I discovered something interesting — a picture taken during the day could be turned into a twilight or evening scene with great effect.

5 pm. Courtesy of the Artist.

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Technorati Tags: screen printing, printmaking

Dear ArtStyle,

I happened to be in Santa Cruz, CA, this past weekend. I went to visit the Boardwalk, the tourist epicenter of Santa Cruz. Entering the world of arcades, I was shocked to see people, especially kids, completely absorbed in activities that so blatantly encouraged brutality. Any wonder why we have so much violence in this country?

Jane

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Thu Vu, a Vietnamese artist, studied art in Hanoi before coming to Chicago to attend graduate school at the SAIC. Chicago helped to change her world view about art and creating art on many levels. She is now back in Vietnam, where she is trying to push the envelope with her magical “doodling.”

Courtesy of the Artist

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Yamini Pinto has been passionate about art for as long as she can remember. She attended art school in India where she specialized in ceramic design. However, once she moved to Chicago, she re-discovered her love for painting and over the last three years developed a unique style and explored the many possibilities with oil paints.

ArtStyle: How did your subject matter develop?

Yamini Pinto (YP): Given that this was my initial foray back into painting, my instructor suggested that I start on a theme I was familiar with. It seemed only natural to me that I chose “Lord Ganesha” as the subject of my first work. This was a subject that had special meaning for me, as five years earlier I had painted this Hindu god of good fortune and prosperity on my wedding invitation.

Courtesy of the Artist

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Courtesy of Mark Staff Brandl

What makes ArtStyle unique from other sites concerning Chicago art operating in cyberspace? Art or Idiocy is clearly Erik Wenzel's personal, rather pro-SAIC blog, with some enjoyable perceptions; Iconoduel is very infrequent, yet marvelously well-written and well thought out; Bad at Sports (BAS) specializes in podcast interviews, with great comments raised by the interviews; and Sharkforum is the voice of artist-based independence and critique.
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