Matt's news blog

Sketches for upcoming work.

2012-01-25T13:49:00.000-08:00

Here are some new sketches I've been working on

For my upcoming show at Last Rites Gallery.

Two year end best of lists

2012-01-25T13:41:00.000-08:00

Had the good fortune of having work

on two best of 2011 year end lists.

Roger Ebert chose Resurrect Dead as #5 best documentary:

Roger Ebert's Journal

And a piece I did on Syria made the notable

Op-Ed of 2011 from the NY Times:

Notable Op-Ed 2011

Post on Beautiful Decay

2012-01-25T13:37:00.000-08:00

Honored to have my work posted on the

excellent blog Beautiful Decay:

http://beautifuldecay.com/2012/01/10/matt-rota/

Upcoming Solo Show at Last Rites Gallery.

2012-01-25T13:34:00.000-08:00

This is the first piece of a new series I'm working on for a show

at Last Rites Gallery, opening April 15th

2011-11-30T10:24:00.000-08:00

Some of the things I've been working on these past three months:

I had the honor of showing work in the Dark Water show at Copro

Gallery, curated by Martin Wittfooth. The work is on display until

December 3. I had fun working on four new pieces for the NY Times.

The stories were about Somali pirates, starvation in east Africa, the

anniversary of 911, and a soldier grappling with the moral complexity

of war. December 3, the Krampus show opens at Curly Tail Fine Art in

Chicago. There are a lot of great artists in the show, so it was an

honor to be invited by Monte Beauchamp, the curator.

New work

2011-08-21T09:48:00.001-07:00

Illustration to be used in an upcoming

ad for a group show, details soon.

NY Times Op Ed

2011-08-21T09:41:00.001-07:00

This was about the debt crises, and Republicans

using insanity (as seen in the mad elephant)

as a negotiating tactic in what was referred to

as a dangerous game of chicken.

New Work

2011-08-21T09:38:00.001-07:00

New Work

2011-08-21T09:29:00.000-07:00

Another one from the show at Copro Gallery.

Show Opening

2011-08-08T22:23:00.000-07:00

For those of you in LA, come to Copro Gallery

next Saturday, Aug 11, I have a show up

with Brendan Danielsson, and Rob Soto.

Check out the web preview here:

http://www.copronason.com/rotta/

New Work

2011-06-27T15:33:00.001-07:00

Op-Ed

2011-06-27T15:25:00.000-07:00

Here's a new piece for the NY

Times, it's about journalists

in Pakistan being censored.

Nuts and Bolts

2011-06-02T14:33:00.000-07:00

I was honored to be invited by Charles Hively

to lecture with a bunch of other great artists

and professionals this year at 3x3 Magazines

annual Nuts and Bolts Conference in July.

2011-06-02T14:23:00.000-07:00

I was lucky this year to be included in the Luerzer's Archive

200 Best illustrators worldwide, It's a beautiful book.

Dear Japan

2011-06-02T13:30:00.000-07:00

A drawing I did for the Dear Japan: Earthquake

and Nuclear Crisis Relief Benefit Art Exhibition.

New OP-ED piece

2011-06-02T13:21:00.000-07:00

A new piece for the OP-ED section, for an article

about the Freedom Riders and a standoff at a

church during the Civil Rights Movement.

2011-04-13T19:18:00.001-07:00

New Piece for the Foot show at

Kevin Paulsons Oo Gallery.

2011-04-07T17:45:00.001-07:00

Come to Bergen St. comics tomorrow Friday the 8th

for the Rabid Rabbit/Cest Bon comic release party.

Above is the piece I contributed. I will also have

original art on display. Bergen St. Comics is at

470 Bergen St. Brooklyn NY.

NY Times Op Ed

2011-04-01T17:50:00.000-07:00

A piece about Syrian protests

IFC Film opening.

2011-03-24T12:39:00.001-07:00

Come see the opening of Resurrect Dead at the IFC

Tuesday March 29th. Resurrect Dead is a Sundance

award winning film that I was fortunate enough to

contribute several drawings to, click hear

to see some of the work I contributed, follow the links

below for show times and trailer:

http://stfdocs.com/films/resurrect_dead_the_mystery_of_the_toynbee_tiles.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150166530394083&oid=177627902258694&comments

2011-03-12T16:51:00.000-08:00

Drawings on metro cards for the show

Single Fare, at Sloan Fine Art.

New piece for Utne Reader

2011-03-11T18:14:00.001-08:00

New piece about a woman who writes obituaries in the Midwest.

New piece for Soot group show at Oo Gallery, Kingston.

2011-02-13T00:26:00.000-08:00

NY Times Letters

2011-02-13T00:23:00.001-08:00

NY Times Op Ed

2011-02-13T00:19:00.000-08:00

New Piece

2011-02-13T00:15:00.000-08:00

Awards

2010-12-30T20:29:00.000-08:00

I was honored to be awarded a silver medal in

the sequential category by the Society of

Illustrators this year for my work on the

film The Silent Truth, check out the

animations below. Also was chosen as one

of the 200 best illustrators 2010-2011

by the Luezer's Archive.

Animations

2010-12-30T20:16:00.000-08:00

Here is a link to the animations I worked on for

The Silent Truth, Filipe Topa was the animator

for these: http://www.mattrotasart.com

/html/animation.html#

Recent work

2010-12-05T19:56:00.001-08:00

2010-10-26T18:32:00.001-07:00

Another personal piece.

2010-10-26T18:30:00.001-07:00

New personal work.

2010-10-26T18:20:00.000-07:00

This is the poster that I designed for the film

The Silent Truth, for which I also contributed

about 50 illustrations posted earlier in the

summer. they were transfered into animations

(which I will post in the near future) by

Filipe Topa. Thanks Rich Tu for your

design input. The film is finally done, and

will be making the rounds at festivals

later this year. I also wanted to thank

Joe Cipri, for suggesting me for this project.

2010-07-19T11:28:00.000-07:00

A comic I contributed to an unofficial

anthology of DC superheros. My

character is Deadman.

2010-07-19T11:16:00.001-07:00

2010-07-19T11:06:00.000-07:00

More comics from my

collaboration with Sean T. Collins

2010-07-19T11:01:00.000-07:00

Drawings I've been working on for a comic

written by Sean T. Collins.

2010-07-19T10:52:00.000-07:00

New comics I've been working on, they are

part of a longer project. The first three

appeared in the comic anthology Supertalk,

and the last five will be in the upcoming

Rabid Rabbit anthology titled Hell.

2010-07-19T10:40:00.000-07:00

last year I was invited to complete a sketchbook for

an exhibition that was taking place in the Marte

Museum in El Salvador, The show ran from April

to June this year, and I just got some images, and

a link to an article about the show. It was a very cool

show, very minimal, all of the books were exactly the

same size and color. To read more about it, go here.

Thanks Ana and Rueben!

2010-06-22T19:10:00.000-07:00

2010-06-22T19:00:00.000-07:00

This is a very cool music video from Blockheads

new album, The Music Scene. Though I

had nothing to do with the animation, it

is styled after the album art, that Owen

Brozman and I created and designed.

NYT's letters 2:

2010-06-10T16:03:00.000-07:00

NYT's letters 1:

2010-06-10T15:59:00.000-07:00

Utne Reader article on I. C. E. detaining immigrants.

2010-06-10T15:55:00.000-07:00

For anyone interested in what I've been up to for six months, here's a preview:

2010-06-10T14:59:00.000-07:00

2010-01-17T20:56:00.000-08:00

A new comic I'm working on with

Sean T. Collins. Check out the rest

at the comics section of my site.

2010-01-17T20:51:00.000-08:00

A new color piece.

Old and new drawings that I never posted.

2010-01-04T18:44:00.000-08:00

2009-12-06T21:18:00.000-08:00

This is a new piece for the New York Times Op-Ed

page. It was a great article, tracing the bombing of

Pearl Harbor back to Teddy Roosevelt's foreign

policy with Japan at the turn of the century. He

won the Nobel Peace Prize for brokering peace

between Japan and Korea, a conflict he was

secretly promoting. It was great to work with

the new art director for the page, Aviva.

Here are some of the sketches:

2009-11-21T12:58:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple new comics

I've been working on recently.

2009-11-11T08:54:00.000-08:00

Over the summer I had the pleasure of working with one

of my good friends and former classmates Owen Brozman

on the album artwork for Blockhead's new album, out now

from Ninja Tune Records. Owen did the original black

and white drawings, and made the logo. I colored the

drawings, and designed the layout for the album, and

single. The album is out available online now, and will be

in stores later in the year. Below are some highlights

from the album artwork. Hopefully Owen and I will

have the chance to collaborate again soon.

2009-10-05T17:40:00.000-07:00

This is a new piece I did for Alex Chow over at Nylon Guys.

The assignment was to do a portrait of Timbaland, and incorporate imagery from his new video game, Beaterator. This was a fun assignment because I have never dealt with the subjects Hip Hop or video games in my illustration, and I was excited for the chance to see how I could translate those subjects into my own language. Alex sent me a link to the Rock Star Games trailer for Beaterator.

I was trying to imagine a place where club life and video game life merged, something that I thought was interesting because they're opposite life styles, one incredibly social, and the other very anti social.

When I looked at the web trailer, I realized Timbaland's presence was very slick and cool, but the excitement was downplayed, so I tried to contrast his coolness, with an exciting party backdrop.

This was the first version I did of the piece, The art director was happy with this, only wanted to see the expression on Timbaland's face be more exciting. I asked for reference for the specific expression he was looking for which he was happy to provide,

I ended up redrawing the head, and was surprised at how different the two faces looked (the first image up top is the final) and ended up being very pleased with the new version. Thanks Alex.

2009-09-29T12:18:00.000-07:00

The image above was done for McSweeny's for an essay about the difficulty several novelists had in recapturing the the photograph of a man falling from the World Trade Center on 9/11 in words.

These are the sketches I did in preparation:

With the first one I was trying to capture the epic proportion, and the multiple points of view of the event.

In the next sketch I was dealing with the way writers were trying to invert the event. One author presented the a series of photographs of the man falling in reverse so instead of falling he appeared to be floating upwards. I wanted the figures to appear to be floating safely giving the viewer the ability to look on the event and not be threatened by it.

In the final sketch, I wanted to freeze the falling man before the the most terrible part of the fall happens, allowing for safe contemplation of the event.

After I gave these to Jordan I told him that they were still flexible, I could splice different elements of them into one. He suggested that I take the figure of the first, and place it in the setting of 2 and 3, and keep the same man in the foreground. That sounded good to me, so

I did this drawing with ink graphite and watercolor:

And added this color layer in Photoshop:

I was told that the finale would print darker than the original so I lightened the mid-tones in Photoshop using levels.