Star Wars Meets The Streets: The Art of Nicholas Hyde
Not long, long ago (the present actually), in a Portland far, far away… resides Nicholas Hyde, a gifted and creative artist. He has taken classic Star Wars characters and merged them with urban culture. Nerd Caliber had the privilege to interview Mr. Hyde about the motivation behind these artworks and gave us a chance to showcase his wonderful art on our site.
Share with us some details about yourself and your business.
I live in Portland and I skateboard most days when it’s not raining. I just moved into a nice studio/loft work-space and there I had some creative juices flowing in me. I guess my business started from making collage pieces out of everything that interested me and a lot of my friends really liked them. My art has been displayed in a couple of different shops and bars around town and I thought to start an online shop for them. I didn’t think they were too clean cut enough to sell to people so I created some digital images to print for sale of some of my favorite concepts. What is in my shop now, called Harshness, are those collage pieces in digital form.
What elements of Star Wars appeals most to you? What do you think of the Star Wars mythos now?
Well, my first memory of the saga would be that of the lightsaber. When I was much younger I thought although they weren’t real, I was sure that within a short time (after I finished my own Jedi training) they would be readily available. Of course as I grew older I came to realize that there wasn’t any real threats from a galactic empire and droids only existed in movies. I must admit coming to terms with my new found knowledge allowed me to appreciate Star Wars more as a fan than as a kid believer.
What motivated you to incorporate urban fashion/culture with Star Wars characters?
Considering I am fan of both ideals, I thought what better to get a couple laughs, all the while catering to my own natural artistic talents. Juxtaposing Star Wars based characters into urban trends and behaviors brings out some humor that even Darth Vader (Fader) and company can have a good time.
Artistically, how did you create these works? What were your greatest challenges in creating these works?
The conceptual part was the most difficult for me to digest. Coming up with urban scenarios and the choosing of which Star Wars characters to use was equally difficult. There are so many different characters from the stories that it makes it hard to choose which ones to incorporate, so I just went with the OG characters for the prints. I mostly used Photoshop and Illustrator, as well as some photos of my own, accompanied by the original collages that I created to make the prints. My top 3 favorites are probably Luke Cripwalker, Darth Fader and Chewpac.
Chewpac was a very hard one to make because of all the hair. It was hard to create a solid look for the picture.
Luke is my favorite out of them all. If you have ever seen someone try to do the cripwalk, they look really ridiculous like he does.
And Darth Fader is just a classic.
What current and/or future projects will you be working on?
I have been working on some new pieces that have totem art in them. I am a huge fan of minimalism and pop art, but it is insanely difficult to make anything totem art and keep it minimal. Hopefully I will have some of those worked out to where I like them soon.
You can purchase Nicholas Hyde’s prints here http://www.etsy.com/shop/Harshness or prints and other products here http://www.society6.com/studio/harshness/store
