Thursday, May 28, 2015

Cate Blanchett, TimeSpace


 

Cate Blanchett, TimeSpace, Dissolving

Digital painting, 5/15

 

 

Cate Blanchett, TimeSpace, Squared

Digital painting, 5/15

 

                                 Cate Blanchett, TimeSpace, Elvin Queen

Digital painting, 5/15
 
 
 

 

Cate Blanchett, Close Up

Digital painting, 5/15
 
 
 



Cate Blanchett, Magnetic Eyes

Digital painting, 2013
 

 
Cate Blanchett as the Elvin Queen, in Lord of the Rings, knocked my socks off.  So ethereal!  Airy. Ethereal as in from higher plane of existence.  Cate and the movie crew made me FEEL the ethereal plane.  Facilitating the experience of being knocked into expanded consciousness is, to me, the highest function of art. 
 
I am subject to alternative states of consciousness.  Isn't everyone?  No, I guess not.  As a child I had "episodes" when I saw ethereal energy.  My mind checked out of consensual reality and went to a different place, maybe a holy place?  When people around me noticed me "blanking out"  they often did something to jerk me back, like swatting me.  As if to say, "Get with the program". 
 
So, now and again, art will knock me out.  Especially visual art, paintings. 
 
The idea for the primary picture here, "Cate Blanchett, TimeSpace Dissolving"  came to me with images of the speed lines of cartoons.  I first saw a face, broken up with speed lines.  Then I knew to paint it with the face of the Elvin Queen.  I downloaded several Blanchette faces to Photoshop.  Studied the faces to find the features that best fit my vision.  I digitally painted the face and then proceeded to chop and dice it into speed lines.  The "dissolving" part is the disassembled face illustrating how time and also the space we inhabit, comes and disappears. 
 
Even spaces change, the space of a moment disappears as slight changes make a different space.  Even your bedroom looks a bit different every time that you look at it.  The light from windows certainly changes.  The wrinkles of the bed linens change.  In addition,  your perceptions change with changes in your mental state.  A happy mood gazes on sunshine, and sunshine lifts your mood to happier.  Inversely, blue mood = faded perceptions.  Perceptions in the particular miniscule piece of time, are fleeting.  Every second reality makes small or large changes, and the previous reality is lost to time.  If the experience makes a lasting impression, then you may have the partial recall of the event with memory.
 
As I was chopping and dicing the beautiful face of Cate Blanchett, I noticed that a four pointed symmetrical image appeared, I liked the eyes forming a square.  I played with that direction and created "Cate Blanchett, TimeSpace Squared".  To balance the square image in the rectangular frame I copied a square of the center of the image and fitted four of these squares into a red panel. 
 
As I was working, I came across an old digital Blanchett picture, "Cate Blanchett, Magnetic Eyes",  created in 2013, and added it to this to the presentation.  
 
Well, I gotta go now.  My programing is wearing off.  I need to watch the fear tube for a few hours to get with the program.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


Thursday, April 30, 2015

Vitruvian Man Riff



Vitruvian Man Riff

 
 

 


Detail







Detail





 


 
 
 
Detail




This picture of Vitruvian Man Riff, is a digital image, I also have created a similar wall art picture, formed by printing out collage sections of the digital subject and collaging them on to board with a background of acrylic painting.

The face was inspired by Johnny Depp.  I have shamelessly appropriated from Leonard da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, and adorned (or defaced, take your pick) the beautiful body with images from my original digitally painted image gallery.  Da Vinci was inspired by  De Archtectura, Book III, by the architect Vitruvius, which illustrates ideal body proportions.

I have mashed up a selection of my images (which were, mostly, reimagined from previous images by other artists) that interest me onto the perfectly proportioned body.

Post internet artists are mining classical art images and transforming, reimagining, them in creative ways. There is a banquet of inspiration in internet pictures.  When artists transform previous images it is similar to Janis Joplin performing a riff on Kris Kristofferson's song Bobby McGee. 

There is a long history of visual artists borrowing from history.  (Nothing is created in a vacuum,)  For example Gustave Courbet riffed on the Jean Ingres picture The Source.  Ingres referenced an earlier picture The Aphrodite of Cnidus.  Numerous artists, including myself, have reimagined The Source since Ingres. 

According to Wikipedia Di Vinci's drawing illustrates perfect human proportions, these proportions  correlate with classic geometry and architecture.  In modern times the drawing has been appropriated frequently, has been used in logos and advertising, so, it is a familiar icon.

I am signing off now.  Live long and prosper.



Friday, March 20, 2015

Mary, Queen of Heaven, collage



 

Mary Queen of Heaven

photoshop image for collage on canvas
 
 
 
 
detail
 
 
 
This is the image that I am working on now.  Here you see the digital work that has been done.  I have segmented this image into collage pieces to apply to a canvas.  I printed out the pieces and cut the images into collagable segments.  A background has been painted on canvas.  It looks beautiful,  cobalt blue and pthalo tint blue acrylic painted with loose and free brush strokes forming glowing rays onto the canvas. Now I am ready to glue the digital collage elements onto the canvas.
 
I am working on the canvas (24"hX16"w) and hope to get it photographed and posted here soon.  The photograph may not happen soon, because it is spring and I am enjoying working in my garden.
 
This canvas continues the POP Religion series with a Mary is My Muse theme.  It is similar to the previous work called,  Mary, Queen of All. Which is in the collection of Donna Duffy, owner of Tripolo Gallery in Covington, LA.   Both paintings are based on a common and easily recognizable, traditional Christian Mary picture. 
 
In the heart area, shown in the detail, is a picture of Baby God Crying.  Well,  I think that we all have a squalling infant bundled in a small corner of our hearts.  I am not sure about you, but I do at times experience infantile rage aching.  My inner baby still screams from time to time, frustrated when she does not get her way. 
 
Some of the input into the production of POP Religion, comes from introspection.  Other input is traditional global religious myths.  But, I am confused, still confused, trying to sort it all out.   Actually, I am reconciled with being confused.  Long ago, I decided that "not knowing" could be reframed as "appreciation of deep mystery".
 
Another theme that my work expresses is humor about the human condition.  A condition so baffling and irrational the you gotta laugh.
 
When doing a collage, I try to put it all together, I use many images from my personal digital library created over a period of several years.  Included here are  Jagger Devil (a funny image), Belushi Bacchus, Marilyn Aphrodite, Ganesh, Beatles, and my high school graduation picture which I have Warholed.  There are about 30 images arranged to fit into the traditional Mary picture.

Gotta go now, my garden is calling.  Thanks for looking.
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 


Friday, February 6, 2015

John Wayne Moses

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

John Wayne Moses, Code of the Cowboy

digital painting, 195.4m





In ancient times, Moses handed down the "Ten Commandments".  On May 26, 1907, Moses reincarnated as the movie actor, John Wayne.  As John Wayne, the deity delivered the "Code of the Cowboy".  Mucho macho patriarchy.







 

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Sunday, November 23, 2014



Face Now

Recent digital painting, 24M


Monday, October 6, 2014

Brangelina Mere Mortals

Brangelina Mere Mortals

We will all die,
sooner or later.
So seize the day.

 

POP Religion

pop art
pop up gallery
popsicle
poppa
pop up toaster
pop tart
pop tart
pop, pop, fizz, fizz

pop gun
pop, pop, bang, bang
pop goes the weasel
pop U lar
pop U lated

pop up book
pop ideology
pop dogma

pop sin

pope

pop on ice
pop rocks
pop rx
pop corn
pop fever

pop riffing


  Brought to you by the  More Guts Than Brains Coalition.