Memories of Qilin is inspired by traditional East Asian art. It channels the sense of movement and fluidity found in classical Chinese brushwork, while drawing from the colors, patterns, and forms of ukiyo-e woodblock prints. 

The series explores elements of folklore, evoking the mythological imagery of dragons, phoenixes, flowers, and mountains.  The title references a fabled chimerical beast found throughout East Asian mythology (while the qilin is its Chinese name, it is also known in Korea as the girin and Japan as the kirin) that represents prosperity and luck.

Viewers are invited to interpret elusive forms that verge on representation. As with the stories passed on through generations, each piece is imagined, organic, and ever-in-flux.

Memories of Qilin

A real-time live interactive piece that also acts as a clock. 720 unique ways to show the current time, one per minute over twelve hours. Each clock will activate on its given minute, giving you a special moment every twelve hours to consider what one minute means to you.

720 Minutes

A synthesis of over 777 days of generative artmaking, motion as survival, and coding as transformative ritual. Sky gardens of trustless techno-leviathans crystallize, entangle, and play between dimensions online and AFK, generating new forms altogether. I channel these speculative phenomena to highlight the fluid, transformative possibilities of structures perceived as rigid and immutable. Their intricate geometries move freely beyond limited social media compression that severely reduces the experience of digital art. These formations also embody choreographic elements from collaborative live coding dance performance.

glitch crystal monsters

Elementals is inspired by physical printmaking techniques and early Bauhaus principles. It starts with a few basic coloured shapes and arranges them in varying frequencies, sizes, and positions based on a unique transaction hash. Multiple overlaid variable grids allow for myriad layouts and opportunities for colour interaction. The goal is to create pieces that feel both intentional in composition and part of the same family.

Elementals

“A particular order can be found in deepest space, in our oceans and forests, and in all living things, including ourselves – a unified code producing endless variation.  Gravity and cosmic winds shape star-forming nebulas into coral-like forms.  Flowers self-organize in radial symmetry with signals hidden from the human eye.  Stars are birthed, explode, collapse, and are reborn.  Invertebrates move on the tides of oceans, signaling with ever-changing bioluminescence.  Light bends time as events unfold in our own lives.” 

Cosmic Reef reflects on the ordered randomness in nature, capable of producing beauty and symmetry.  The individual works begin with a simple geometry that becomes more complex through composed dynamic layers, each born of a combination of human control and computational chance.  

Leo Villareal creates intricate sculptures that speak to the underlying rules and structures of systems for both gallery and public settings.  He is interested in exploring ways to express this through base units such as pixels and binary code.  Villareal is most known for two monumental public artworks: The Bay Lights, a site-specific light sculpture that occupies the entire western span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, and Illuminated River, a series of generative light sculptures installed on nine bridges over the River Thames in London.

CONTROLS:

“Z”: Journey along the Z-axis   

Cosmic Reef is graphics intensive & requires a WebGL2-enabled browser.


Art Blocks Curated

Cosmic Reef #318

Leo Villareal

About Cosmic Reef #318

Leo Villareal

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