In Up, Up and Away, Philidelphia artist Micheal Bell-Smith creates extravagant pixelated images of real and imaginary places. One of the cities in the panel looks remarkably similar to Tokyo while others seem less specific. The panels drift upward on the screen to be replaced by new images in a cycle that last 6 minutes and 40 seconds. The images are full of bright colors but Bell-Smith works within a limited pallete. In one image of a city the foreground reveals a green landscape with trees that slowly shifts to a yellow, then purple, and finally blue cityscape. The viewer can see each pixel the artist makes to build up to these images. When I first saw this work at the hirshorn it reminded me of games on the sega genesis as well as games on the gameboy and it's later generations.
The viewer is brought to a different place in the matter of seconds. It's almost challenging to really appreciate the details of the pictures before being introduced to another one. This artist frequently uses pixels in his images but I consider up, up and away one of his masterpieces.
Artist main site: http://www.foxyproduction.com/artist/view/5
Lawrence, Sidney. "Cinema Hirshorna"23 February 2009.
http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/reviews/lawrence/lawrence4-25-08.asp
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