Between working on other things this Sunday I plyed around with photoshop, making designs in designs. These are the fruits of that:
Part of this is idle playing around, but I figure its still more productive than a video game, and allows me to play with some ideas. I’ll post more iterations and the source “drawings” I was using after the jump. Read more »
I’m still working on this painting. Here’s an almost up to date photo.
acrylic on panel
24 x 24 x 2 inches
-Steph
so funny!
-a giddy StephG
Oil on Canvas, 30″ x 40″.
It has been a long, looong time since I’ve really sat down and painted with oils. Today, I had quite a few hours to myself, so I decided to do just that. I have a few old pieces, that I was never happy with and that I have been contemplating painting over. In this case, I went about merely reworking the original (and I do have plans to come back and finish it before another year slips off into the abyss). Original after the jump–>
The
Whitney
pulls an all nighter all week. 24-7. Give me the cot by the Koons.
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
This is for my fellow immature cat people. *giggles*
I dunno, the hiccup bounce seemed real anyway. My excuse for posting such drivel: I can’t be held accountable for my actions as excessive heat and humidity is making me delirious.
-StephG
I am having a few communications issues, my laptop is in the shop, my phone is buggy, blah blah blah, it’s not all that exciting or important but I am glad I uploaded this last week and didn’t use it. It’s my first abstract for awhile.
Usually when I post source material for things I’m working on they are paintings and such. This time, they’re different versions of a drawing I did of beloved Hip Hop Martyr Jay Dilla, that I then used as a coloring book. The color patterns used in each have more to do with how they’ll be used in the final piece than what looks good in each individually. The day Glo one is for use as a hilight while some of the darkers versions will be used as Shadows. Hopefully the final collage of J Dilla will be a fitting tribute to his own sampling techniques. I’ve been working on this for a year though, so be patient.
Lately, I’ve been a little lax about posting our weekly sidewalk drawings here. Sorry. Today, I’ve got three from the last few days to show you: one seriously ambitious drawing by WABU, one with an unexpectedly sweet message by Mr Brown–ages 15 and 13 respectively–and one by me. Everyone who has happened past has been impressed.
by WABU
I should probably try to get a shot of the whole sidewalk to give a sense of scale. This first drawing by WABU fills an entire sidewalk section crack to crack and grass to grass!
by StephG
by Mr Brown
Peace,
-StephG
acrylic and pastel on matboard
prolly about 17 x 11 inches or so-ish, i dunno
Much denser and fussier than the ones I’ve been doing recently, this one I did quite a while ago. I remember that I had mixed feelings about it at the time. I couldn’t make up my mind. I kind of liked it. I kind of didn’t like it. Then i put it in a box for a long time and forgot about it. I happened upon it the other day and added that big green stroke. Now I’ve decided that I’m no longer undecided about how I feel about it. I was right to begin with. I kind of like it. I kind of don’t like it.
12 x 9 inches
acrylic on matboard
To me, this one seems very related to the orange nipple sketch I posted previously on darteboard. A friend of mine saw a small image of this and associated it with innards. I didn’t set out to do that but I can see what he meant. Maybe the bodily references are subconscious. Probably. Regardless, painting these makes me happy.
I don’t have anything new this week, so enjoy this animated short film by H5.
From them:
“This is a short film that was directed by the French animation collective H5, François Alaux, Hervé de Crécy + Ludovic Houplain. It was presented at the Cannes Film Festival 2009. It opened the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and won a 2010 academy award under the category of animated short. “
The vid:
I’m going away to the atlantic shore for a week. Here’s a little print to enjoy. I’ll send a postcard. Later!
Tom Bennett
Long Night, 2010, monotype, 20″ x 16″
Back in the 90′s when I was living my dirty New York City life I would occasionally pick up some modeling work here and there, and due to the social circles I was moving around in it was more or less inevitable the I would end up working with Terry Richardson eventually. Before anyone gets distracted by the almost fancy sounding phrase “social circles” let me clarify that it means I was living in a hotel with a bunch of cracked out club kids, working in nightclubs, and subsisting on a diet of opiates and sugar. The term “heroin chic” was on the verge of being coined for a very good reason, an attempt to justify our habits in a more acceptable context and keep working. It still amazes me that people got that to fly for as long as they did, but anyway, back to Terry.
When I met him Terry looked like he stepped straight out of a 70′s porn film, complete with pedobar mustache and cut off denim shorts. Actually he still looks like that, which I think may not be helping him out here because he has recently been accused of exploiting under age, or nearly underage models. He was well established when I worked with him, but certainly not the mega star he is now with a series of books released by Taschen, a host of campaigns for Gucci, Miu Miu, Pirelli, Tom Ford, and a million magazines added to his resume. I can say that when I worked with him he was always respectful and professional, but that was also on the cusp of everything turning really ugly in the scene and I know first hand how a combination of drugs, a position of power, and unlimited indulgence from those in authority can become a recipe for really bad things happening. I stumbled across his book Terryworld a few years later in some shop in London and remember flipping through it and not being able to really think past “um…wow”. I’ll just leave it at that.
For another take on it, one from an actual teenage girl (no direct contact with Mr. Richardson) I’ll refer you over to the very well produced fashion blog Style Rookie. She gets into the nuanced dynamics of power, in the fashion industry, the media, and between older men of influence and young women of little experience. Tavi’s pretty bad ass.
I had a hard time finding some of the images that represent the issue most pointedly because apparently he’s been doing his damndedst to remove them from the internest, though there are few explicit ones in the article I linked up at the top over there (I’m not sure I’ll look at a carnation the same way again), but here are a few that might give you an idea of where we are going with this.
I finished a project last night. It could’ve come out better. Now I have another week of adjustments to do to it. Or more. And maybe a companion piece. Or I could call it day and move on to other things I need to do. I have to choose whether to indulge in convenience or obsessiveness. I’m not sure which is the preferable trait. But all of that is a non-sequiter.
This piece is about a month or so old. Its made of leftover masking tape stencils I used on canvas that I’ve mounted to paper I drew on with markers.
The obvious point of camparison is Warhol here, whom I seem to reference a lot because of the way I do things, but I’ve also referenced Rothkoesque compositions a lot, so don’t lose sight of that little plagiarism here. And you thought the only thing they had in common was changing their names to sound less Jewish!
On the Warhol point, this piece made me think last night that people will compare this to him because its 1- figurative 2- a stylized, simple style and 3- repetitive. The first 2 might be what people are more consciously aware of, but repetition is the big one for me.
For all the traits that Warhol is famous for, his use of repetition maty not be the first people think of but is central to his oeuvre. He definitely didn’t invent its use, but he’s the first in my mind to popularize it as a powerful compositional tool unto itself.
The first example I know of is his Soup Cans. The image above is of many individual paintings (this is before he turned to printing methods to speed things up). Everybody knows the basic Pop ideology behind any one of those pieces, but if you see them all together it amplifies the idea immensely. A single can is a commentary on a banal object in your cabinet. A full wall of cans is a comment on the supermarket itself, the standardization of products in the commercial-industrial world of the early 60s. Treating the paintings with the same form of mass production as their subjects amplifies the content of the piece greatly not just conceptually, but visually. One such painting is a novelty. the full wall hits you over the head with the statement behind them.
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While later pieces used repetition to continue to illustrate the consequences of the printing processes he was using, the greater takeaway for me is that repetition (or repetition with variation) allows simple processes and statements to be amplified. Warhol’s hasty coloration of a single Monroe silk screen is famous in its own right, but the version you see imitated and referenced as a cultural icon is the repetitive grid form. Even without variation among the coloration the repetition works by de-emphasizing the actual subject in favor of the process. Its an effect that can be either anxious or meditative depending what you bring to it.
Personally, my processes often have nothing in common with silk screening (other methods I use do, like the image at the top of the post) or automation, but repetition/variation is vital to what I do for the exact same reasons as it was important to Warhol. Do something once and its good or bad. Do the same thing 20 times and it will have to be taken more seriously, whether good or bad, because of the effort of repetition.
Even last night, seeing the piece I wish had turned out better, one of the solutions I presented myself is to create a sister piece to help visually contextualize it.
In music they say a mistake is something you play once, play the mistake twice and you’ve got yourself a tune. Play it 50 times and you’ve got a modern masterpiece (not really but let’s pretend).
Anyways, this essay was impromtpu and doesn’t really have a formal conclusion.
Piece out,
-JD
I’m a bit late on my friday post, sorry about that. I wanted to get some of my pics from Thursday night’s Midwest Mayhem ready to show. Check more of them out here.
Here’s a detail of one of the paintings I’m working on.
The whole thing measures 24 x 24 x 2 inches and is acrylic on panel.
I’ll include a few progress shots after the jump.
Read more »
I’m continuing this series of the male figure. Here’s a new word I came across: Andropause. I find this an amusing attempt by some to excoriate the more complex feminine process of midlife aging. As a member of the male gender class, I admit we are the weaker sex emotionally, psychologically and, considering our place in the biosphere, physically. Lets face it, men are deep down scared shitless. That’s why we bluster and play the the macho door-busting hero. The Male mid-life crisis might as well be call boyopause.
Tom Bennett
Midmorning Crisis, 2010, monotype, 20″ x 16″
larger image after the jump
Tomorrow night, I will be out shooting pics for KDHX at their annual Midwest Mayhem event at the City Museum in downtown St. Louis. Come out and see it if you can!!
From their site:
“It’s back and badder than ever: Midwest Mayhem at the City Museum, May 13, 2010. Make room for the dancers, get down with the DJs, enjoy food, drink, and 12 bands on four stages, but most importantly, do not miss it. Become a member of 88.1, and get 2 tickets to this party to end all parties.
Now in its fifth year, Midwest Mayhem is KDHX’s annual spring membership party. The event takes place inside the City Museum, a 600,000 square-foot building in downtown Saint Louis, a space previously known as the International Shoe Company. Christened in 1997, the City Museum is part family playground, part infinite cavern, part psychedelic circus and part ever-evolving architectural spectacle. It’s the Eighth Wonder of the Urban World, and the perfect setting for a night of music, mirth and mayhem.
Who: 12 bands, featuring: Brothers Lazaroff, Dear Vincent, DJ Needles & Jingo, Bottle Rockets, the KDHX Blues Band (featuring Tom Ray, John McHenry, Art Dwyer, and Ron Edwards), Miss Jubilee and the Humdingers, Richie Kihlken, Kevin Buckley and Ian Walsh, Ryan Spearman, Sins of the Pioneers, Fresh Heir, and the Funky Butt Brass Band. Plus: The Show-Me Burlesque Dancers will be strutting their stuff all night.”
Some of the performers after the jump–>
Read more »
I am, in both senses of the word. I’m coming off a night of frustrated dreams feeling irritable, but to be fair I was feeling a bit irritable before I went to bed when I was working on these so the mood just carried through consistently. Whatever, let’s get off my petty angst and back to the art tests.
I started by making a monotype in the morning that failed because the ink refused to stick to the paper, I was a little disappointed but then I started thinking about other materials and decided to set up an experiment. First I selected an image, I chose a reclining figure, then I set a limit of brush strokes to keep me from getting lost in fussy details on the figure. This way I could execute the crude woman shape with a minimum of fuss and have something simple and consistent to compare on each surface. I started with a topographical map I found in the trash at the zoning office.
The ink bled a lot, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
Agora Gallery - the proud sponsor of the Chelsea International Fine Art Competition, which offers contemporary artists the opportunity to show their original art at one the most acclaimed juried art shows in Chelsea, New York’s art galleries district.
darteboard
jdhastings
ssstephg
Tom Bennett
Toni Tiller
Jason Gray
probrucer
laelia e. mitchell
