day job - 1973-present
Art/Portrait Time Capsules
an online Webists RETROSPECTIVE on the creative life
- A PAIRING OF ARTIST PORTRAIT WITH
SAMPLE ARTWORK
FROM DIFFERENT PERIODS OF AN ARTIST'S LIFE
PYGOYA, HAWAII
day job - 1973-present
My creative journey-
I believe I was born an artist but ended up earning a living as a dentist. Life is not perfect. Dentistry is always a challenge as you can attest as patients. But throughout my life art has always been there for me, and I have tried to be disciplined about my efforts to be professional both in the study of the nature of art and my production of my visualized creativity we call "art." Without the outlet of art I life would be so ordinary, I thank the Almighty for the blessing I have been endowed with. It's been quite a journey - from crayons to poster paints to acrylics then to oils. After that to clicking a Nikon F2 to huge splashy canvases to bright neon lights then back to more subtlety of ceramics and bronze. Finally my courtship with media was over when I fell in love and married my computer. After losing tons of money as a gallery owner featuring avant garde and digital art in a town undeserving, I found salvation with the advent of the Internet and have lived there creatively ever since. After drifting alone in Cyberspace for years I feel blessed again to now belong to a family of artists with their own Web sites, all with the common philosophy to build global culture through the Web with our individual talents, and as we also promote understanding, tolerance, and peace among all men. "We are family." Artists: each and every artist's effort is preciously idiosyncratic and invaluable to building this new realm of creative freedom; don't believe in cynical critics who know nothing about you or your work.
Selected portrait/artwork pairings-
Baby Artist, 1946, art medium - diarrhea & feces
Rodney Chang, age 1.5 ; Kaimuki, Honolulu
I remember the LONG hours of neglect being confined alone in a playpen, torture for an emerging creative mind and bundle of energy. One day I the fun of self expression, I undid my diaper and smeared my nice soft orange and browns excrement all over my private Alcatraz's flooring and vertical bars! I still consider it one of my most successful works of art, wish someone had photographed the "shitty" art instead of give me spanking. After this I was better attended to. Note: as soon as I finally was big enough, I climbed over the top railing and crawled out the front door, which through daily observation, I knew was not locked. They finally found me a couple blocks away across the street. (There could have been no Pygoya!) And yes, I was put back into solitary confinement after corporeal punishment. Thereafter, I wanted to be an artist free to act out whatever I felt.
Rodney - 2nd row, no. 6 with favorite bengal shirt
Rodney Chang, 1966 Waikiki Zoo Fence painter - lots of sales to tourists
Young
Hawaiian artist, age
20
"Sailing," oil on canvas, 1966
Disco Doc, performance, 1979-2004 Da Waiting Room - published art installation, world TV coverage
"Disco Doc," 33 - clubbing 4x a week, dancer "Da Waiting Room," dental clinic discotheque, national TV
Secured at this time a psychology
and philosophy of art by
which to live with, one which freed me from specific
art medium with which I can visualize my inner self, Mental
Evolution and Art, 1980, Exposition Press, NY
Rodney Chang, 1983-85 Sculptor
Sculpture, Ceramics, Photography, Mixed Media "Domesticated Hawaiian Hare," bronze, 1985
"Self Primal Portrait,"
1985
"Africa," Ceramic/Leaves,
1985
"Bag Art," Mixed Media, 1983
Pygoya, 1985-1989 Gallery Director, Soho TOO Gallery & Loft, "Computer Artist"
Dr. Rodney Chang (42) Director of funky warehouse gallery in Honolulu ghetto area, lived in upstairs loft
"Next Century," IBM AT/Lumena, photograph, 1985
More vintage digital works (1980s)
Pygoya, 1985- 1995 "Digital Artist," Hawaii Computer Art Society, founder
Pygoya, new artist's name, 40 "Pixelism - Industrial Age," oil on canvas, 72"x48", 1989
More end of century Cyberpaintings (oil on canvases)
Pygoya, 1997- Present "Cyberartist," then "Webist" & Director of Truly Virtual Web Art Museum
Pygoya, 58
(2004)
"Rain
Forest," Giclee print, 2003
snapshot of 3D vrml online museum, 1999
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