“Paint what you love.”

It’s advice an artist hears constantly, and I have always heeded it in my career as a freelance illustrator. So it was inevitable that I’d end up turning my brush to video games. And though I’ve entertained creating art based on video game characters and the like, what has drawn my attention lately has been the other aspect of gaming: the hardware itself.

Far more than just a means to an end, the plastic, faux wood and/or metal boxes and controllers and peripherals that were the vehicles for endless hours of fun have themselves been objects of interest for me. I recall standing, transfixed, in a toy store and staring at the just-released and as-yet poorly advertised NES, behind glass in a case. At moments like that, the hardware itself was the fetish. That gray and black rectangular console held the promise of so much wonder and enjoyment. It wasn’t the first or the last time I’ve felt that way about hardware itself, and I bet you’ve felt the same.

Long after the games are memories and the credits roll, the enemy stronghold crumbling in 3-frame animation, the hardware itself–even when it no longer functions–retains a strange and wonderful nostalgia.

Not every piece of industrial design does this. But there’s something about gaming and certain other pieces of electronic hardware that captures the imagination on its own. And that’s what I’m celebrating here.

There is something in the nature of painting, within the genre of still life, that ennobles objects. Representing an object in paint, then hanging it on a wall, framed, causes you to appreciate it apart from whatever context you normally experience it in otherwise. That is what I’m after here–elevating the very same products which simultaneously fill landfills and dusty boxes at flea markets, as art.

This series is a branch of my larger work. Think of it as, “The Art of Randy Gallegos: Gaiden”

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~ Randy Gallegos

For more about the show and items for sale, please visit the Krab Jab Studio Website.