Shirazeh Houshiary A Cup and a Rose

We worked closely with the visual artist Shirazeh Houshiary to produce the animated film A Cup and a Rose. Houshiary's film A Cup and a Rose is inspired by the 17th century Spanish painter Francisco de Zurbarán's still-life painting A Cup of Water and a Rose (1630), set to a musical score by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt titled Cantus in Memoriam.

For A Cup and a Rose, Houshiary came to us with an image of Zurbarán's painting, and a concept to add narrative to through animation.

Working with Houshiary, we recreated the original elements of the painting as 3D models, added texture and light to mimic the look of Zurbarán's painting, then used a combination of keyframe animation, procedural animation, dynamic animation, and fluid dynamics to create the animated film.

The 3D animation for Houshiary's A Cup and a Rose was created using SideFX Houdini FX and Autodesk Maya, the film was rendered using Chaos Group V-Ray, textures were created in Adobe Photoshop, compositing and editing was completed in Adobe After Effects.

Houshiary's film A Cup and a Rose is exhibiting as part of Houshiary's A Thousand Folds exhibition (press release) at the Lehmann Maupin Gallery in New York City between 8th April and 28th May 2021.

Houshiary's film A Cup and a Rose is also exhibiting within the Tides of the Century Ocean Flower Island International Art Exhibition at the Ocean Flower Island Museum in Danzhou City in Hainan Province, China, from March to December 2021.