The book is comprised of two sets of 23 pieces of art. The work draws from a diverse range of inspiration: the music of Skinny Puppy, J Church, Chris Connelly, Radiohead, Sonic Youth, and Tricky; the writing of Joseph Campbell, Rudy Rucker, and Phillip K. Dick; the artwork of ancient Mesoamericans and modern day graffiti. Each piece begins as a sketch that is digitally reproduced and then recomposed using a montage technique that utilizes assets from Adwen Creative's extensive photographic library. The result is a manifestation of the pattern, a new perspective for viewing the world around us.
The pattern is a post-religious philosophy for understanding what it means to be human and our place in the universe. Its foundation is the belief that the human mind is an engine for pattern recognition. The artwork in this book is representative of that pattern, a metaphor that can be applied to our lives. The pattern is not literal, and thus stagnant. The pattern is dynamic, it is living, and it lives with us. By experiencing the artwork of Adwen Creative the viewer explores the pattern for themselves, finding their own meaning.
Adwen Creative is a Brooklyn, New York art & design studio founded in 2006 by the husband-and-wife team of Neda and Wade Harrell. They have done logo, website, and book design for clients in the video game, consulting, and tabletop gaming industries. Their artwork has been shown in New York and Los Angeles. The duo began collaborating in 2004 resulting in one of their pieces, now included in the book, being selected for the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art's 2005 Top 40 exhibition (lacda.com)
Neda Pek-Harrell is a Canadian born first generation Croatian that resides in New York. Early in life her family relocated from Canada to a Zagreb suburb in communist Yugoslavia. There she was shielded from the visual media saturation that dominated the childhoods of her western peers; instead she would read books and create illustrations that depicted their stories. By the time she was seven years old she acknowledged her gift for visually representing ideas and knew she would pursue her calling in the graphic arts. Shortly before the dissolution of the Yugoslav republic her family moved again, this time to Montréal, Québec. There she continued her art and design education, attending Cégep de Saint-Laurent and Concordia University. Today she is a professional graphic designer with work ranging from packaging design to Times Square billboards. Her 'upsidedown up' half of the book is her selection of 23 sketches she felt shared a common theme. Her completed works have been described as mosaic in appearance. Her skillful use of texture imagery draws the viewer in as they attempt to figure out what the finer details originally were. Her messages from the pattern are warnings, a reflection of the signage so frequently found in her environmental photography.
Wade Harrell is an artist and software developer. As a child in Virginia Beach, Virginia he dreamed of moving to New York City to draw comic books. His studies of comic book illustration led him to explore the notions of the minimal amount of information required to convey a concept. He asked himself "how few lines does it take before the viewer recognizes what I intend to draw?" From that foundation he began to add additional information, intentional disinformation, into his illustrations. As he layered recognizable information and disinformation upon itself the pattern began to emerge. His 'downsideup down' half of the book is a selection of 23 pieces he felt embody this perspective. His career in computer programming prompted him to challenge the notions of what could be achieved with digital art. His pieces are chaotic and organic with elements suggestive of more traditional painting techniques. His written compliments to the work are a narrative sequence that retells the individual experiences of people interacting with the pattern.