The shortest distance between two points is often uninteresting

April 23, 2011 6:08 PM

Oakland artist Momoko Sudo paints lines. One at a time, free-hand.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey (16 comments total)

I have no personal connection to the artist. Her stuff is currently hanging on the wall at my local coffee shop and I've seen her booth at a local farmer's market. But I couldn't pick her out of a crowded Oaktown street if I had to.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 6:08 PM on April 23, 2011

I dunno ... to me they just say "70's SoCal bachelor pad."
posted by ZenMasterThis at 6:32 PM on April 23, 2011

I'm so glad they aren't STRAIGHT lines.

I like the cognitive dissonance of this tabletop.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:46 PM on April 23, 2011

Mmmmm ... topographical.
posted by bwg at 7:14 PM on April 23, 2011

There's always something interesting to me about these sorts of semi-masochistic processes, especially when it's to achieve an effect that can be duplicated much more easily with digital or printmaking processes, but this isn't going beyond that for me. There's also the idea that each of these can be thought of as basically a work day for one of the pinstriper guys at a body shop condensed into one place.
posted by cmoj at 7:26 PM on April 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

I have no personal connection to the artist. Her stuff is currently hanging on the wall at my local coffee shop and I've seen her booth at a local farmer's market. But I couldn't pick her out of a crowded Oaktown street if I had to.

That wouldn't be Woody's, would it?
posted by QuarterlyProphet at 8:00 PM on April 23, 2011

That wouldn't be Woody's, would it?

Bingo.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 8:05 PM on April 23, 2011

The drawings and wall art aren't doing a lot for me most of the time (some of the broken-up fields like this and this excepted), but for whatever reason I really like the technique as applied to tabletops.
posted by ardgedee at 8:14 PM on April 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

Like my friend recently said: "That's a really awesome GIF!"
My other friend: "That's a JPG!"
My Friend: "Holy shit."

Seriously, those lines are moving...
posted by XhaustedProphet at 10:38 PM on April 23, 2011

hooray for op art
posted by feastofviolet at 11:09 PM on April 23, 2011

Oakland is a wonderful, heroic city, the Brooklyn to San Francisco's Manhattan, with a better Chinatown than San Francisco and a much stronger public engagement with San Francisco Bay. It's a lovely place to do art.

I'm awfully glad for the creator that they got this stuff into a local coffee shop, but please don't judge Oakland's art scene on this. There are a lot of great artists here producing a lot of great work, and stuff like this doesn't need to be showcased ahead of it. Check out the Oakland Art Murmur site for more compelling work here in Oakland and the greater Bay Area. We've got some artists here!
posted by FLAG (BASTARD WATER.) (Acorus Adulterinus.) at 1:46 AM on April 24, 2011

I like this alot. I'm a sucker for good Op art especially Bridget Riley. I like the movement in Momoko Sudo's work. She has some neat stuff on her blog.
FLAG (BASTARD WATER) I' don't think anyone is judging Oakland's art scene by this lady's work. Your favorite artist sucks etc. etc. I think Momoko Sudo is just fine and I am glad that the Pirate Bartender bought this to my attention otherwise I would never have seen it.
Oakland has some good artists I am sure and this lady is one of them. I find your comment petty.
posted by adamvasco at 7:46 AM on April 24, 2011

There are a lot of great artists here producing a lot of great work, and stuff like this doesn't need to be showcased ahead of it.

So feel free to put up an FPP about any of them, then, instead of threadshitting in this one.

FFS.
posted by Lexica at 9:41 AM on April 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

Hey, rad! Stuff like this totally needs to be showcased! *pointed glower*
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:38 AM on April 24, 2011

Can this be a rad Oakland arts thread? Chinaka Hodge is awesome and I probably can't FPP her because she's a sometime classmate of mine.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:43 AM on April 24, 2011

Oh, very interesting! I really like these ones -- seen from the right point of view, the contour lines make the surface appear wavy, rather than flat. Somehow, the visual system is happier to assume that straight contour lines are painted onto a wavy tabletop, than assume that wavy contour lines with correct foreshortening are painted on a flat surface.

This is yet another example of how the visual system tends to prefer 'simpler,' or more statistically probable interpretation. I think I will recommend these images to my professor as examples to use in his perception class. Very nice!

Or, what flapjax at midnite said, although I don't think I would use "cognitive dissonance" to describe this particular phenomenon -- I think the Gestalt principles of perception are more appropriate in this case.
posted by tickingclock at 1:50 PM on April 24, 2011