Blog
- August 5, 2021
30th Anniversary Poster: King Lear
An ageing monarch, a kingdom broken and a family lost to love. The blindness of sanity and the clear-eyed vision of fools and lunatics… fathers, sons and daughters, drenched in the storm of life.
Remembering: King Lear
- “Making Lear come alive is far from an easy task. It requires acting champions. There’s a once powerful king gone mad, and two of the most sinister daughters ever to trod the boards. Then there are the technical challenges of the expansiveness of the heath, the devastating storm, let alone the battles looming in the background… Under Bart DeLorenzo’s economically brilliant staging, the Antaeus Company triumphs in all areas.” —Don Grigware, Broadway World
- “Director Bart DeLorenzo and an expert cast … have done a deep reading of the text and the result is an intellectually engaging show that revels in the beauty and nuance of Shakespeare’s language and finds a plethora of unexpected humor.” —Terry Morgan, LAist
- “We chose Lear because it’s a fantastic ensemble piece, and because we wanted to feature our founding artistic director, Dakin Matthews. Dakin is one of the country’s foremost interpreters of the Bard, and this is an opportunity to explore a Shakespearean play with the master. We double-cast … a technique that strengthens the way we collaborate and work together as an ensemble, so we’re incredibly fortunate to have the equally superlative actor Harry Groener to share the title role.” —Former Artistic Director Jeanie Hackett
About the Artist
Oscar Rodriguez
Oscar Rodriguez is a Mexican illustrator from the city of Lynwood in South Los Angeles. Growing up with an interest in comic book illustration, he began drawing and sketching at a very early age. During high school, Oscar joined a magazine called L.A. Youth as an editorial illustrator. In college, he was involved in the journalism department also as an editorial illustrator, winning numerous regional and statewide awards. Oscar received his Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in Illustration from the College of the Arts at California State University, Long Beach in 2008.
He has since become a professional graphic artist combining graphic design and illustration using various art mediums like Watercolor, Oil, Silk Screen and Digital Illustration. Oscar embraces all forms of art mediums and is always curious to learn from Watercolor techniques to refining his ability to use all the Adobe Creative Suite and more recently Maya, Adobe Substance and 3DS Max.
Check out Oscar Rodriguez’s work at guezart.com.
While creating this illustration, I wanted to focus on the tone of the story, the fragility of loyalty and family. I wanted to capture the mood. One way I wanted to accomplish this was through an art style with fragmented elements, the character faceless to convey an emptiness and the subtle rain over the castle which set the tone for the climatic and tragic end to King Lear and his daughters.
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