1977 "Dimensional Code Abstract #3" Abstract Watercolor Painting, Framed

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Abstract #3, by Jeffrey Abouaf (American, b. 1949). Born in Oakland, California, Abouaf’s interest in art was tempered by a … more Abstract #3, by Jeffrey Abouaf (American, b. 1949). Born in Oakland, California, Abouaf’s interest in art was tempered by a fascination with logic. Received an MFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts in 1977. He worked on canvases as big as 20 feet wide and 5 feet high, creating abstract visions of hundreds of tiny, meticulously drawn figures. Signed lower left "Abouaf '77" and with an Oakland Museum Gallery label on verso. Unframed. Image, 22"H x 29"L. Here are some quotes from "Painting with Light": a 2000 IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications article by Ben Delaney: "Jeffrey Abouaf has always been an artist. But the path he took to arrive at his current job—in-house artist and QA advisor at Macromedia, working on the upcoming Shockwave 3D product—has been anything but direct. Born in 1949 in Oakland, California, Abouaf’s interest in art was tempered by a fascination with logic. After getting his BA in fine art, he obtained a law degree from Hastings in 1974. But the law wasn’t a passion for him, and he went on to earn an MFA from California College of Arts and Crafts in 1977. Shifting focus I met Abouaf in 1974, when we shared a loft space in San Francisco. At the time, he was working on canvases as big as 20 feet wide and 4 1/2-feet high, creating abstract visions in oil and acrylic that included hundreds of tiny, meticulously drawn figures. These images seemed to dance on the canvas—foreshadowing his later work in animation. He said, “[Even in] art school my paintings wanted to be moving. And they wanted to be moving in an ethereal space.” A few years later an Interact computer appeared in the loft. It had 16K of RAM, used a TV for its display, and had a palette of 16 colors on its 80 × 25-pixel display. Abouaf walked in one day to see a program creating random patterns, colors, and sounds, and he realized that the moving images resembled the work he had been doing. For a couple of years, he and I created “art” on this primitive machine. Most of our projects involved making images dance on the TV screen. Abouaf got the bug. He also hit a detour. The cost of his large canvases ran hundreds of 1970’s dollars, so Abouaf took a day job practicing law. He hadn’t counted on the full-time commitment it required, though. He got a PC—an IBM clone—but it didn’t do graphics. He used it to write briefs. After 10 years he’d had enough of law and decided to return to his passion. He took classes on Painter, PhotoShop, Director, and Illustrator at the local community college in 1993. After getting his feet wet there, he moved to the San Francisco State University Multimedia courses. Around then he got a copy of 3D Studio and did his first 3D graphics, for Web sites. Creating 3D graphics and animation quickly became an obsession for Abouaf, and he fueled the fire within by becoming a teaching assistant at San Francisco State University. He later started teaching his own courses in 3D Studio Max there and at the San Francisco Academy of Art. He created tutorials that Discreet includes on the 3D Studio Max CD-ROM and Web site. He also contributed to four New Riders Publishing books on 3D Studio Max and worked on a digitally animated TV show. He has written for this magazine, both About the Cover stories and reports for Applications. This past summer Abouaf started at Macromedia as a 3D artist and consultant. There he works in both testing and advisory roles, helping the Macromedia programmers develop tools that are intuitive for creative people. less