Everything is happy in Frank Casazza's murals and graphics — cute cartoon clouds and cats, soft-serve ice cream and trees, airplanes and whales and . . . well, maybe not the skulls. As for everything else, it's not just happy, it's rainbows-shooting-out-of-your-eyes happy. And the smiles are infectious.
"It's like my whole world of characters," says the 41-year-old Lowell artist, who operates under the name Eyeformation. "I try to represent everything from our world in this 'Eyeformation' world. It's this whole world of things. It's almost like making everything into a character. Putting a smile and eyes onto a bone and all of a sudden it's a new character."
Inspirations come from skateboard graphics and graffiti he saw in the 1980s and '90s growing up in Lowell. He does graphic design and has painted murals in Boston, Los Angeles, Belgium, and Shanghai. With help from his wife Ellen at Lowell's Western Avenue Studios, he produces pillows, beer steins, resin toys, and soap bars featuring his shiny, happy people.
His flat, hard-edged graphics are easily mistaken for computer vector-drawn designs, which he does make. But much of his art is the work of a sure, free hand.
"A lot of what I do is kind of spontaneous in a sense. I don't like to replicate my own work from my sketches," he says. "I like to start just dropping characters."
FRANK CASAZZA :: eyeformation.net
