Barbie Tee Vee Head

Dreaded Artist Statement

So, I wrote recently about the dreaded "Artist Statement". All my words seem foolish. It is an exercise in contracting a rich and deep experience into words. I did some web research and made a collection of words and phrases that other people have written.

List of a collection of words that may or may not be useful in an Artist Statement:


the minds eye

other realities

just suppose

whispers of blended shadows

Deepen life by creating and expressing meaning thru paint and pixil.

"Not by the fancied gift of absolute or transcendental knowledge, but by suggesting questions which help one to detect the passion, strangness and dramatic contrasts of life." This by a writer of the Bloomsbury school, concerning philosophy.

great art created in attempt to deal with childhood pain

Okee Dokee

visual textures of heightened complexities

is in fact a religious mythologist, himself

hopeless dreamer

zen koan heaven

freedom from rational control

speaks language of ancient fables with irony

deliberate passionate assault on the mundane

all history is now ours

thrill factor

desperate attempt to escape boredom (I just made that one up)

Hey, hey, have a wonderful day. Be good to yourself. Love one another.

Okee Dokee, bye now.

Elizabeth Taylor as Isis

ELIZABETH TAYLOR AS ISIS

Her face is so beautiful, this was a joy to paint. I portray her as Isis, the Egyptian Goddess. Isis is the one who loved her husband back to life, after he had been turned into a tree. I put the elephant in just because I like the elephant. I combined the classical landscape, the elephant and Taylor, just because, just because, no real reasoning involved. Just a few images that interested me, that I wanted to work with at the time.

Ink jet archival print.

Recently I wrote an ---Artist Statement!!--- for an exhibition. This was not a fun project. It just feels awkward to explain visual art with clumsy words. Simon and Garfunkel sang, "and all my words come back to me in shades of mediocrity." That said, I think that now I will write some "artist statement" type words.

"Whats it all about, Alfie?" What IS it all about, this obsessive making of images? It is about spending my time with color. It is about interacting with the world. Art is a way of exploring this individual human on earth experience. About this particular self, exploring reality in a deep manner. About experiencing all the riches of perception. Processing these riches in my poor befuddled brain. Hallucinating pictures. And then creating unique visual communications.

We are all in this together. Here we are, lots of us humans. Bumping into each other at Wally World. Fighting over beads at Mardi Gras parades. Scrappling with the office bitches. Eating and sleeping and loving and searching for comfort. We are alike and different. Alike in that we all want comfort, want joy, and want the best for our children. We perceive each other, we talk, we produce memos.

We are all in this together, but our minds are separate.

What I intended to say, what I said, what you heard, and how you interpreted it are four different things.

Each of our interpretations of our separate perceptions is individual, is different. A meeting of the minds, that is what we say when we agree with each other. But even when we agree there are subtleties of difference. We are separate. There is between us a wide gulf that we imperfectly bridge with communication.

Visual communications bridge the gulf in a deep, richer manner than verbalization. A picture is worth a thousand words. (I am just saying, really, I love words, love to read.) Even with pictures I am reducing my interpretations to a manageable level.

With art I attempt mind to mind communion. The communion is imperfect, reduced, but it is the best that I can do.

Lucky Dog in da Quata

Elizabarbie

Barbie, vintage Barbie face, Barbie's sixties face. Here she is, all glammed up in an antique English Queen's dress. A monarch for all times.

Marilyn Monroe Aphrodite

Digital painting for print. Completed recently. Marilyn Monroe pictured as Aphrodite or Venus. This is an appropriate depiction, as Marilyn has certainly become an enduring Love Goddess. To create this picture I harvested several Marilyn images from Bing. The final figure composition stitched together several different historical photographs to create an image that pleased me. Her famous pose came from one picture, face from another, hair from the third reference photograph. The shell came from Botticelli's "Venus". While repainting the low resolution shell, I was gained more appreciation for Botticelli's artistic genius. The wave inspiration came from the famous, ancient Japanese wave painting. I experienced a frisson of delight while experimenting with the wave. I realized that by duplicating the wave and transforming it horizontally a heart shape was created. While I was distorting Marilyn's dress in the liquefy function it began to look like angel wings, and this delighted me. The two waves appear threatening, a watery heart, threatening imminent engulfment, an unintentional reference to her tragic demise. It was a lot of fun to create this picture.

Aurora Ballet

Well, I havnt been here for a while. Ive been painting on canvas and dont have much digital work to post.
This is a recent photo shop work. I started with a low rez ballet dancer image, gleaned from orphan Bing images. I used the image as inspiration and as a sketch or first draft. I repainted the image digitally, set my colors, changed the figure's proportions, and added minor distortion. I enjoyed many hours of pleasant work. Background is a classic Japanese landscape. There is an airy ethereal tone to the dancer. Dance is an art just as painting is an art. The picture illustrates the artist transcending mundane reality by practicing art.