When Background and Visual Development Artist Aaron Spurgeon first started painting, he used oils. But in 2001 he was diagnosed with Idiopathic Aplastic Anemia, a severe bone marrow disorder. He sought a new medium that wasn’t as toxic for his body and eventually embraced gouache, inspired by his ArtCenter instructor Mike Humphries’ art from Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
For his personal work, architecture is a favorite subject—the surroundings that a building occupies and how the shapes of buildings relate to each other. In describing his approach to Microcosm of Los Angeles, Spurgeon says, “I like to basically take entire cities and make them into Disneyland maps. The more artistic license I use, the further the image breaks from reality. But it’s the individual objects in their relative placement in the environment that aims to pull it all together.”
For this piece, he started with several drawings of individual L.A. structures, beginning with buildings downtown. Once he had a few compositions sketched, he began to collage them together. “Once I tie down that arrangement, I tighten up the drawing and do a value study that becomes the map for the final painting,” he says.
Having started his career at what he calls late in life, attending Citrus College at age 27 to build his portfolio before starting ArtCenter at 30, Spurgeon says that while there have been rough patches, he finds animation rewarding. Not only the job itself, but because it’s taken him to many parts of the world. While he focused Microcosm of Los Angeles close to home, his creativity thrives on the inspiration his travels provide.
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