What is #Pintillism ?
Pintillism uses pins on canvas to create the same effect as Pointillism but with an added and tactile 3D perspective. The results are innovative and dramatic and accounts for George rapidly gaining an international following. The art of Pintillism works because Professor George Wolberg is a world-renowned expert in image processing. It is not the angle of the pins or even their lengths that count, but the density of their individual placement and the relative distances between them that makes your eyes, brain and light ‘see’ the images.
Michael Flaherty’s Collaborations with The Wolberg Studio
Over the years, Michael Flaherty has introduced a number of experimental techniques to his work, like tinting canvases with colored smoke and gunpowder burns, or hosting live-painting performances set against ambient soundscapes of his own composition.
It’s in this spirit of experimentation that he began collaborating with Professor George Wolberg, an artist, engineer, and inventor, whose pintillism technique handcrafts bold, dimensional images from fields of small, galvanized metal pins.
On the surface, Flaherty’s colorful, figurative work might seem at odds with Wolberg’s careful studies in light, shadow, and density. But in these collaborative pieces, the artists seamlessly fuse their different approaches to texture and detail, playing with audience perspective to create images that leap off the walls in keen and surprising ways.
This series of canvases highlights two of Flaherty’s most common subjects: birds and isotype hearts, based on his self-designed tattoos. It is Wolberg and Flaherty’s first collaborative series, but the two artists continue to experiment with new ways of blending their distinctive styles.
"The Bird Bottle" - 2023 “Bird Bottles” were crude mood-altering devices, primarily used during the 18th century in experimental therapies and stage-magic performances.
"Void Song" - 2023 He was always an unusual bird. But now he could feel himself changing. Into what though? He didn’t know. It was too dark to see. So he did what he always did. He sang about it. Maybe this time someone would hear him.
"Flight of Fancy" - 2023 Henrietta plans her revenge
"1st Love" - 2023
"Sticky City" - 2023 There are eight million stories in the Sticky City. This is one of them.
"Light Hearted" - 2023 Around and around you spin, falling further and further, flipped upside down and helplessly careening off the walls. Debris whips past you as the wind picks up. You are getting nauseous. You are about to be sick.