Bam-b, controversial 3D obsessions

Bam-b, Fayaz Jafri, bam_b.jpg

Fayaz Jafri is a digital artist. Originally from Pakistani descent, he was born and raised in The Netherlands and now is active on the New York scene. If some of his illustrations and animations wink at pornography, the distinctive mark of his job is aesthetic purity. And this very duality is at the centre of his artistic production, where the rigour of 3D computer graphics, minimal and aseptic, is combined with a hard, sensual and violent imaginary. His attitude towards modeling is evident, and the accuracy of details generates an artificial perfection. A former murals artist with a master in industrial design and engineering, Jafri finds his cultural points of references in photography as well as in cinema, pop art and japanese comics. The obsession for Bambi, the cartoon fawn, is evident. It appears frequently in Jafri’s artworks showing his two faces, the innocent and the seducer one. This obsession is so obvious that the artist’s personal website is called bam-b. It is an evolving flash gallery that let the visitor enter in his alternative world, where ethereal inflatable mutant-babes enliven situations a-la-Cronenberg, or where the sweet fawn mutate into a bloody creature. Looking through artist’s digital portfolio, that includes collaborations with major glossy magazines and corporations, seems that the last collective exhibition (‘Oh my deer! Feast of Mind’) he took part in squares the circle. Fubon Art Foundation in fact, commissioned the Dutch designer to make a physical sculpture of Bambi, transforming his virtual 3D in three real dimensions, a sort of ‘mise en abym’ of reality simulation.

Valentina Culatti