GET YOUR PIECE OF THE PERSONA ART PROJECT

Kickstarter Campaign Launched September 22

September 25, 2015 – Cape Town – Two brothers, Shayne & Ant Vervoort, are launching a Kickstarter campaign on September 22 to promote an exciting new art project coming out of South Africa, Persona Art Project. The aim of this project is to tap into the massive reach that an international platform such as Kickstarter provides. South Africa has just scratched the surface in terms of crowd-funded projects. The Persona Art Project wants to be part of this community of creatives and utilize the process of crowd-funding to build support around grass-roots projects coming out of South Africa.

Meet Shayne and Ant Vervoort: two Pretoria-bred boys with a big idea. Ant is the artist, and Shayne is the business brain. Together, they have designed a series of artworks that are all wonderfully similar, yet beautifully different. With a little luck, these artworks will land them in a spectacular global commission.

For artist and architect Ant, the idea began as a technical challenge. “I wanted to see if I could draw a character that looked good at the scale of a Google image search, but equally good blown up the size of a building,” he said.

Image: http://www.getnews.info/uploads/9a43acc03316580c79a10a9730f9ba60.jpg

Ant started with his favourite character ever: Superman.

“As final images, they look simple, but the process was very difficult,” he said. “It took me a year and a half to draw the first one.”

Since then he’s created nearly 200 hand-drawn and then computer colored Personas, which can be viewed on www.personaartproject.com

The irresistibly quirky drawings take the universal icon of the bathroom figure (originally designed by the DRU Design Studio) as a template… then add personal effects that conjure up characters you’ll recognise in an instant.

“They’re humorous, they don’t take themselves too seriously,” adds Shayne. “They’re incredibly simple, yet there are subtleties that will make you laugh if you know the character.”

So why the bathroom figure?

This simple, yet universal figure of the male and female toilet sign has been around since the 1960’s and is a piece of art seen everyday – on the way to work, at the train station or at lunch at a restaurant.

The design came about when the DRU Design Studio was tasked with re-designing the corporate identity for British Railways. They created a bold new look for all signage, out of which has come one of the single most remarkable designs in daily life… the bathroom figure; an icon that broke communication boundaries by distilling hundreds of translations into one visual message.

“This got me thinking,” says Ant, “what if it could symbolize more? That’s how Persona Art Project was born, we’re taking mass designation to individual design by using the bathroom figure to abstract characters down to their essentials. Those components that we love the most, that make them who they are. Think Ron Burgundy and his red velvet suit and killer mustache. Mandela with his salt & pepper hair and colorful shirts.”

The bathroom figure has allowed Ant to draw the characters without any emotion: no facial expressions or body language. Despite that, they are packed with feeling.

“There’s no emotion in the drawing, and yet, when you see a character that you like, you have an emotional reaction to the artwork,” Ant said. “So the relationship is between you and the character, not the artist.”

What’s next for Persona?

Two brothers, Shayne & Ant Vervoort, are launching a Kickstarter campaign on September 22 to promote an exciting new art project coming out of South Africa, Persona Art Project. The aim of this project is to tap into the massive reach that an international platform such as Kickstarter provides. South Africa has just scratched the surface in terms of crowd-funded projects. The Persona Art Project wants to be part of this community of creatives and utilize the process of crowd-funding to build support around grass-roots projects coming out of South Africa.

“It’s not just about raising the money – it’s about developing a community that believes in the same things we do,” Shayne said. “It’s about developing a following behind the art movement.”

“We are all so different and unique as people, and yet across countries and cultures, we have similarities that tie us all together,” continues Ant. “That’s what Persona is about: being wonderfully similar, and beautifully different.”

Follow the project on Facebook to keep up to date leading up to the launch of the Kickstarter campaign and to secure a piece of the Persona Art Project.

For more information contact victoria@personaartproject.com

About Persona Art Project

These simple hand drawings abstract characters that are important in our world. All of the characters are abstracted to the same, almost emotionless, drawing.

This is done so that the emotional reaction to the drawing is between the viewer and the character (instead of with the artist’s drawing).

Because, the drawings are about a relationship between a person and a character – custom characters can be drawn by the artist specifically for you.

For more info, visit: http://www.personaartproject.com/

About Ant Vervoort

Description: Cape Town Hippie

Sibling description: The Creative One

Free time: Salsa, drawing, painting and Architectural Design

Persona Passion: Having an excuse to chat to my boet (brother) every day

About Shayne Vervoort

Description: Joburg Busy-Body

Sibling description: The Difficult One

Free time: Sports & reading

Persona Passion: Helping Ant put another wonderful South African design on a global platform.

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Logo: http://www.getnews.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/1443198294.jpeg

Distributed by Crowdfundersseo

Media Contact
Company Name: Persona Art Project
Contact Person: Shayne Vervoort, Ant Vervoort
Email: victoria@personaartproject.com
Country: South Africa
Website: www.personaartproject.com/

ReleaseID: 514498

Source: GetNews