Aron Wiesenfeld is an American painter, illustrator and comic book artist based in San Diego, California.
He is known for painting disquieting scenes of lonely youths.
His works have been shown at several exhibitions in the United States and Europe including those at Arcadia Contemporary in New York City, Unit London, Long Beach Museum of Art and the Bakersfield Museum of Art.
Wiesenfeld has created illustrations for various comics publishing companies including Marvel Comics, Continuity Comics and WildStorm.
He was nominated for an Eisner award in 1997 for his work on Marvel Comics' limited series, Deathblow/Wolverine.
Early life
Wiesenfeld was born to Susan Brouwer and Stephen Wiesenfeld in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Santa Cruz, California.
He began drawing at an early age and received lessons in painting and etching from his grandmother, Betsey Straub Wiesenfeld, a noted watercolor artist.
Wiesenfeld cites comic book art as an early influence.
From 1990 to 1993, Wiesenfeld attended Cooper Union School of Art in New York City.
Later in 1996, he attended Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.
Career
Comics
Wiesenfeld began his professional career in 1992 when Neal Adams offered him a job as a comics penciller at Continuity Comics.
The following year Wiesenfeld joined Marvel Comics and began working on the titles such as Cable and X-Men.
Soon afterward, he was hired by Jim Lee at Wildstorm Studios, part of the fledgling creator-owned company, Image Comics.
At Wildstorm he gained recognition for his storytelling and detailed line drawings in such titles as Team 7, Deathblow and Wolverine.
For his works in Deathblow/Wolverine, Wiesenfeld was nominated for an Eisner Award in 1997.
Wiesenfeld left the comic book industry in 1998 but returned for a brief period in the early 2000s for a run of painted cover art for DC/Vertigo titles such as Y: The Last Man, Crusades and Fables.
Fine art
In the year 2000, after graduating from Art Center College of Design, Wiesenfeld shifted his focus to oil painting.
His first solo exhibition was with Timmons Gallery, San Diego in 2006.
In 2009, Wiesenfeld began exhibiting his works at Arcadia Contemporary in New York City, where his work attracted the attention of celebrity collectors such as J. J. Abrams, Joss Whedon and Laura Linney.
Wiesenfeld's work has been exhibited in eleven solo exhibitions in the US and Europe.
His paintings have been part of more than 50 group exhibitions around the globe.
In 2014, Daniel Maidman reviewed Wiesenfeld's works in The Huffington Post and compared them to the early 20th-century surrealist artist René Magritte.
The film director Guillermo del Toro wrote of Wiesenfeld's paintings: "Like Hopper he is concerned with solitude, like Magritte he is bewitched by mystery".
In late 2014, IDW Publishing collected Wiesenfeld's work in a hardcover monograph, titled The Well, which collected 15 years of paintings and drawings.
Wiesenfeld's artwork has appeared on the covers of numerous novels, poetry collections and album covers.
In 2015 he collaborated with poet Bruce Bond on the book The Other Sky by Etruscan Press.
Art
According to David Molesky of Juxtapoz, Wiesenfeld paints images of young people in foreboding landscapes, fraught with undertones of danger.
Like characters from fairy tales, the adolescents who populate his paintings often appear under-prepared and vulnerable.
In contrast, other examples of his works evoke a calm, dream-like, or surreal feeling.
In these, his juvenile subjects seem reflective, or perhaps frozen in a state of internal dialogue.
The central protagonists of his images are often "waif-like", gangly-limbed girls who appear to be children on the verge of adulthood.
Being in-between life stages is externally echoed by the landscapes they inhabit - neither city or countryside - but the outskirts.
A common motif in his paintings is a metaphorical threshold that blocks the protagonist's path, such as a stream, or the mouth of a tunnel.
Wiesenfeld describes these as "a divide between worldly reality and another place". That place could be called spiritual.
The characters stare across these thresholds as if they are "trying to get to the other side of a river that is forever out of reach".
Aron Wiesenfeld è un pittore, illustratore e fumettista Americano con sede a San Diego, in California.
È noto per aver dipinto scene inquietanti di giovani solitari.
Le sue opere sono state esposte in diverse mostre negli Stati Uniti ed in Europa, tra cui quelle all'Arcadia Contemporary di New York City, all'Unit London, al Long Beach Museum of Art ed al Bakersfield Museum of Art.
Wiesenfeld ha creato illustrazioni per varie case editrici di fumetti tra cui Marvel Comics, Continuity Comics e WildStorm.
È stato nominato per il premio Eisner nel 1997 per il suo lavoro nella serie limitata della Marvel Comics, Deathblow/Wolverine.
Nel 2000, dopo essersi laureato all'Art Center College of Design, Wiesenfeld ha spostato la sua attenzione sulla pittura ad olio.
La sua prima mostra personale è stata con Timmons Gallery, San Diego nel 2006.
Nel 2009, Wiesenfeld ha iniziato ad esporre le sue opere all'Arcadia Contemporary di New York City, dove il suo lavoro ha attirato l'attenzione di collezionisti di celebrità come JJ Abrams, Joss Whedon e Laura Linney.
Il lavoro di Wiesenfeld è stato esposto in undici mostre personali negli Stati Uniti ed in Europa.
I suoi dipinti hanno fatto parte di più di 50 mostre collettive in tutto il mondo.
Nel 2014, Daniel Maidman ha recensito le opere di Wiesenfeld sull'Huffington Post e le ha paragonate all'artista surrealista dell'inizio del XX secolo René Magritte.
Il regista Guillermo del Toro ha scritto dei dipinti di Wiesenfeld: "Come Hopper si preoccupa della solitudine, come Magritte è stregato dal mistero".
Alla fine del 2014, IDW Publishing ha raccolto il lavoro di Wiesenfeld in una monografia con copertina rigida, intitolata The Well, che ha raccolto 15 anni di dipinti e disegni.
Le opere d'arte di Wiesenfeld sono apparse sulle copertine di numerosi romanzi, raccolte di poesie e copertine di album.
Nel 2015 ha collaborato con il poeta Bruce Bond al libro The Other Sky di Etruscan Press.