receive back to The Jewels of Apator , Ann and Jeff VanderMeer ’s tower about the intersection of artistic production and the fantastic . Bruce Jensen is an creative person whose workplace you ’ve credibly seen more times than you could remember . Over seven seasons , his art montages formed the backcloth to C of segment on the CBS show 60 Minutes II . Jensen has also done cover art for such classic as Neal Stephenson ’s Snowcrash and The Diamond Age . His piece of work tends toward sheer color choice , using a style that can be whimsical or more terrible , recall the architectural surrealism of an creative person like Magritte .
As you might expect , creating distinctive backdrops for TV is very different from art in other contexts . Jensen says :
Art directing even news broadcasts in the 80’s-90 ’s made me focus on clean , readable , and stylish vivid invention . Each [ 60 Minutes ] story begin with a studio introduction in front of artwork — in a ‘ magazine ’ . The executive producer and theater director gave me incredible freedom . Time was the big challenge . Three example a week , was quite a muckle of piece of work . In seven time of year I probably made about 650 to 700 illustrations . Another challenge is that unlike an illustration in a magazine , you could n’t linger on it . On ordinary the work I did was run in thirty to forty - five seconds . Perhaps that ’s not a restraint in performance , but in satisfaction it for certain is !
A number of classic SF artists have influenced Jensen , including Paul Lehr and Richard Powers , whose work , he says :
is fundamental to my appreciation of SF fine art . I respond to surrealism and ambiguity … Another creative person from the same era I really like is John Schoenherr . His compositions are virtuoso . Michael Whelan was the creative person of another generation that next most influenced my work . He has an uncanny knack for composing an icon that feel honest to the book in a specifically narrative means . I commemorate seeing his “ Foundation trilogy ” paintings in a Boskone artshow , this is before the paintings were put out , and I just knew that they were for those books .
( For more on Jensen ’s thoughts about book design , go over outthis cool MindMeld featurefrom the always lively SF Signal . )
From 1984 to around 2000 , Jensen used acrylics on illustration board , with episodic forays into oils and sundry media . But Jensen ’s work in television system tidings finally led him to information processing system :
Over clip , I begin using the computing machine for my book cover sketch . I worked with tight comps in acrylics but learned that digital sketches could be much more efficient for pre - visualization . On a few occasions , I used digital figure in parts of my final work . The covers for Neal Stephenson ’s Diamond Age and Snowcrash were both mixed media . Each had portions translate digitally , which I photographed and collaged into the final illustration .
Jensen is still ambivalent about the utilisation of computers for art :
There are some really howling aspect to digital media in make an image but , I still have a high regard for the ‘ physical object ’ , the physicality of a painting . Hanging digital photographic print in an art show has always left me unsatisfied .
Despite , or perhaps because of , that ambivalency , Jensen has often been link with cutting sharpness SF , especially as he does very footling illusion artistic production :
Through the 90 ’s I remember my study was often associated with cyberpunk root word and I really delight that . I ’ve often set up myself working with visual element that partake on AI , virtual reality , nanotechnology , genetic applied science , technology of that sort .
That articulate , his latest project , which he call “ alien menagerie ” ( see the gallery ) is often as fantastical as SF - nal . Interestingly , these paintings mark a “ return to traditional media ” for Jensen . A individual painting from this serial publication , displayed at the Microvisions 2 show at the Society of Illustrators , made it into the best - of art anthology Spectrum 15 , to be published this descent .
Bruce Jensen[official site ]
Books
Daily Newsletter
Get the best tech , science , and culture newsworthiness in your inbox day by day .
News from the future , birth to your present .
You May Also Like
