Zooming in on art in the time of corona
Does art still hold a place during times when people are more focused on their struggle to survive the COVID-19 pandemic?
Yes, especially through a medium where everyone practices cyber distancing — the digital world!
A very unique, month-long digital art contest dubbed Zoom-In-On-Art, which was launched by Xiklab Digital, a top digital marketing agency in the Philippines, yielded artworks that were signs of the times — these times.
Karl Adrian So aced the competition with his piece titled Dyipne, which depicts the traditional, ubiquitous and flamboyant Philippine jeepney.
“One of its most unique characteristics is that every individual jeepney is visually different and is used as a canvas by native artists to show local culture,” says Karl Adrian. Displaying pop culture icons, images of the driver’s family, and local landscapes, many of these jeepneys are also covered with religious figures and iconographies, showing how a jeepney is truly a canvas of Filipino life and living.
Xiklab Digital launched this competition and promoted it through a pure-digital marketing campaign from July 16 to Aug. 15 to enable digital artists to showcase their creativity.
“In our industry, we know that many talented artists have been displaced by the pandemic and this was our way of giving back to the industry to promote these young but very gifted digital artists,” says Jules Cabigon, Xiklab Digital’s creative director.
All the digital artwork entries, both in static and video form, were featured in Xiklab Digital’s website and social media accounts including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter, in order for the artists to gain recognition both locally and internationally.
A total of 100 digital artists participated, with over 150 digital works of art. As of this writing, there have been over 3,700 unique downloads of these artworks by different visitors to the virtual exhibit in Xiklab Digital’s website. All these digital artworks can be downloaded through the website, which in turn can then be used as Zoom backgrounds to lighten up the mood and add some personality to virtual meetings especially during this pandemic.
Karl Adrian submitted a total of three entries, the second of which is titled Through The Fog. He said it symbolizes reaping the rewards from our efforts — thus enjoying the view and beautiful scenery once we reach the summit, the prize of our hard work. “As long as we persevere, good things will come our way,” he adds.
His third entry is titled Aurora Borealis, a stylized illustration of the Northern Lights, which also goes by the name of artwork’s title itself, Aurora Borealis. It is a beautiful blanket of colorful flashes decorating the northern and southern night skies.
Check out Xiklab Digital’s website to view and download the creative work of Karl Adrian So and the other artists who joined the competition. Every artwork has its own unique style and message.
You can also check out more of Karl Adrian’s work at instagram.com/kascreativity or behance.net/kascreativity.
(You may e-mail me at [email protected]. Follow me on Instagram @joanneraeramirez.)
- Latest
