Polygons and Pixels Anthony Petrie Interview

One of TTDILA's favorite artists, Anthony Petrie, is back with a duo art show and it's about video games at Gallery 1988. Polygons and Pixels has Anthony teaming up with Dan Mumford another well-known from G1988'S catalog of artists. That's a great way to kick off the holiday season and some convenient gift buying for those who need to get something for the gamer in their lives.

We did not sit down with Anthony at DCon, but still managed to ask him some questions about his upcoming show.

Polygons and Pixels 

Opening Reception Dec 6, 7pm

Gallery 1988

7308 Melrose Ave

Free

TTDILA: Polygons and Pixels, a duo show, how'd it come about? How did the video game theme come down? Was Jensen (gallery owner) like, "I need video game art...now, so do it now, now, now!”

Anthony Petrie: Basically yea. I had all but sworn off gallery shows, but I liked the focused theme as well the idea of teaming up with another person. Dan [Mumford] came up with the theme and video games are an area that I rarely explore, so I thought it would be good to hop a little outside my comfort zone.

Can you tell us what games your covering? Anything new like a Death Stranding piece or more older stuff? Are you playing new games? Current system?

Death Stranding is a little too new to have been in this one; I finished my posters about 2 months ago before the game was released. I stuck with some all-time favorites and a couple of classics. My rundown is:

Red Dead Redemption 2

The Last of Us

Gears of War

Rampage

Punch-Out!!

Super Mario Bros.

Legend of Zelda

Street Fighter II

What are some of your favorite video games and why? Will any be in the show?

There’s a few but the one that sticks out to me the most is Red Dead Redemption 2. I spent a lot of time with that game over the past year. After I completed it, there was an empty space where playing that game used to be. I did make a poster for it for the show, and I think it’s the best piece overall.

What piece took you the longest and why?

I like to have some over-the-top one-off pieces for my gallery shows, something that makes it worth showing up for, so I made an enormous stained-glass window for one of the classic games. I won’t spoil it before the show, but I spent about a month cutting tiny pieces of glass, soldering metal, and hand-making a frame. I may have lead poisoning from it now.

Last of Us Anthony Petrie

Will anything be like your amazing map work, the world of gaming is rife with what you could do there. 

I had considered it originally, but it felt too apropos in relation to the technical aspect of video games. The my central concept for [my part of] the show is adding elements of realism to video game imagery. Unexpected materials, textures, realistic rendering, etc. Bringing them to life.

From the only preview image I've seen so far it looks like you're gonna be doing some horror games. Your past work relating to horror films has been just hauntingly clever with a nice gore chaser. How does horror relate to you and your work?

My first love is horror, and though I don’t get to work on that genre a lot, I try to infuse it where I can. As for this show, I think the only horror title I chose was The Last of Us. That game is terrifying, and it really lends itself to realism in my art. There’s a lot of horror video games out there, but I feel like a lot of them skew really over-the-top or slightly campy.

Current Immortal Hulk comic

Follow-up question have you by chance been reading Immortal Hulk? It's very popular in comics right now as the direction has moved Hulk into a horror figure. Banner turns into Hulk at night and there's some good ol' fashion body horror. I'd love it if you could do an incentive/variant cover.

I have it downloaded in my Comixology app but I haven’t gotten to it yet! 

How was DCon? Why do you go to DCon.? We know we got to see work from artists like you and get cool stuff the will make friends jealous.

Metal Gear Solid Dan Mumford

DesignerCon was great this year. There were some growing pains last year, but it looks like the
trajectory for that show is rising quickly. There’s definitely a lot of high quality art and artists that show there, kind of like all of the best parts of comic conventions plus folks that you don’t normally get to see at the regular shows. I spend more money than I make there on all the cool stuff.

Any funny stories from DCon on any art show openings for yourself. Like a fan looks at you work and gets the wrong movie or reference? Any fond moments?

It’s usually the opposite. A fan will endlessly wax poetic on a property that I worked on, and I only watched it once for research. Case in point, at a recent signing I did in NYC for a Yu-Gi-Oh poster there were some pretty hardcore YGO fans there who wanted to talk about the characters they loved SO much, and I don’t really know what it even is aside from limited Googling. I was commissioned for a piece in that show, but somehow ended up being a part of Yu-Gi-Oh lore, which I know literally nothing about. 

I see you're Player 2 on the poster for the show; are you gonna challenge Dan Mumford to a video game at the event to becoming NUMBAH 1!?

I may stand a better chance arm-wrestling, but if I can get an arcade machine in there, I will do my best to establish dominance.

Check out Anthony's online print store here.