DIGITAL VANITAS

To create my a digital “Vanitas” style artwork, I wanted to create a scene of an attempt to distill and preserve time by using clocks, bottles, and a skull as symbols of this. I populated the bar set I modeled with interesting lighting and a collection of reflective and transparent materials. I modeled everything in the scene myself in rhino apart from the green glass bottles to the left and in the background of the frame.

I see the distilling process as a manifestation of the concepts of time and luxury in Vanitas. The result of this long and extensive process is a luxurious commodity, and much like the practice of alchemy, common ingredients are chemically combined and turned into to valuable substance. In my rendering, time is not only the commodity but also the mechanism for preserving it. Often with alcohol, the more time preserved, the more valuable the result. “Trial 57” tells a story of an attempt to distill and capture time, without success.