NYC Photo

Was looking through my NYC photos and found these two which I thought would look really interesting cropped and juxtaposed like so (right click view image for full size):

"Hotel Room: A Study in Light and Wallpaper", Photography, 2008

Painting is one day from finished. Will have photos up soon. Currently digging and checking out the work of Umberto Boccioni and Alberto Burri.

National Geographic Picture

I've been working on a new painting for the last week or so. The progress has been excellent. Although the last session sorta ruined my recent good mood with the piece's morose mood. Been listening to David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust album and am highly impressed.

Here is a National Geographic photo of the day by my favorite nature photographer:


Joel Sartore "Snarling Wolf, Ely Minnesota", 1998

Although it was taken with a remote controlled camera, I find it highly well composed. Carcass's blood, organs, fur, and bones nearly become an amazing sort of abstract landscape with the wolf's head perfectly balancing the composition.

Being Quite Productive Lately...

Went back in and actually made my latest portrait into how I intended it to be:

"Self Portrait X: Tissue"
Then I worked with some old stock photos I had of a particularly interesting basement as well as a photo I took while flying to NY:

"Flight Deck"
Then I took some inspiration from those medical diagrams you always see and made a "dark" version. Nice way to flex my design skills but still use some painterly elements, feels strongly like an illustration:

"Asphyxia"
Right click view image any of these for full resolutions.

Lately I've been listening to some pretty great music too. Couple of live shows of Sonorous, a post rock/indie/ambient band from right here in fort wayne. Also downloaded a free amazing indie concept album by the very talented Dan Warren called The Scientist. Go download it now!

Self Portrait X

Started using Corel Painter and I love it:

Mirror referenced.

Back from NYC

Unfortunately was very sick during my visit to MoMa (and wasn't able to appreciate much of what I saw although I was ecstatic to see Picasso's Boy Leading a Horse, one of my favorite paintings by him). Then I got better and we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art where they had a special exhibition retrospective on JW Turner, my favorite seascape/landscape painter. However, I was largely unaware of his groundbreaking 1840s work late in his life which blew me off my feet. Armed with an insane obsession with color and inspiration from the early color theory of Goethe's writing, Turner flirted with impressionism and abstraction in the 1840s decades before the movements would begin. These canvases hit me as perfect examples of emotive hard hitting art and blew my mind:

"Shade and Darkness - The Evening before the Deluge", 1843

"Light and Colour (Goethe's Theory) - The Morning after the Deluge - Moses Writing the Book of Genesis", 1843

I overheard numerous people complaining with lines such as "see, now, I can't tell what that is" at the exhibit... if there are still people that can't appreciate this as art today, imagine how controversial and risky it must have been in the 1840s?

I also saw a few other favorite works at the Met such as Sargent's "Madame X" and two Warhols I actually liked (!?!?).

Later we visited the Guggenheim where they had a retrospective on a Louise Burgeois which gave me a great introduction to her work which I had only stumbled on occasionally previously.

Still Life

Had this outdoors still life done quite a while... just now getting around to posting because of broken camera (right click view image for full size):


Progress Animation (right click view if not play):


Flying to NYC tomorrow!!! Be back in town the 22nd.

Rebecca Peters

Digging the collage work of Rebecca Peters


Rebecca Peters - "Making Butterflies"

Rebecca Peters - "Worms for the Babies"

The vivid colors, intense texturality, and pseudo surrealism appeal to me on a similar level as Max Ernst's paintings:


Max Ernst - "The Eye of Silence"

Monday my Dad and I hop on a plane and fly to NYC. Where I will be staying for a week and hitting up MoMA and Guggenheim multiple types. Extremely excited to experience probably the largest and best collection of modern art I will ever see in my life. Other activities include the usual NY site seeing and a viewing of Spamalot on broadway.