Artist a day

I was the artist of the day for a website called Artistaday.com today. I was very happy to see that, put a smile on my face, and I loved reading the comments people left. I encourage any artist to submit their work to this site, its a great way to see other artists and get some exposure.

This is not Gordon

The relationship between humanity and technology is interesting when you consider that the material we are working with in its raw form is non-existent to our eyes. What we see on the screen is a “translation” of the real material inside the computer. The bright pixels that form pictures, letters and numbers are not really the actual information that we spend hours of every day working, with but an elaborate translation to human symbols. Years ago people worked with there hands and created the product, they could hold the actual result in there hands, today we type on keys, and the actual product is something we never see, the actual product is a translation. Kind of like everything you “see” around you is not external but translated information. Anyway, the title is funny, while I was painting this painting Nikki kept asking me if that was Gordon I was painting (a friend of ours at the time). I kept saying it wasn’t and Nikki insisted that it was, so I titled the painting so that I could win the argument, even though I think Nikki was right, it probably is Gordon!

NYC

In the painting NYC, I combine ancient characters (Centaurs, Snake of Eden) abstract forms, and modern day characters (Lady of Liberty), and combine them to present a story of our modern day as if viewed from the distant future. I create the city of NY as a living, warm, breathing creature aware of its own existence.

The Lady of Liberty is deep in thought and rests quietly on a building, smelling a flower. Probably reflecting on her city, the changes it has gone through and contemplating with gentle indifference its future.

The centaurs are taxicabs, taking the citizens of this city to different locations as red blood cells take oxygen to different destinations throughout the body. One of the centaurs is playing the violin. Some of the taxi driver in NY have very interesting stories and talents. One taxi driver we talked to was a wood carver from Romania that worked in Vlad the Impaler's (person the original vampire legend is based on) castle.

In the outdoor restaurant scene, I show both the servant and the aristocrat with abstract faces, for that is the way each typically views the other. Each person in the servant work class seeing just another aristocrat, and each aristocrat seeing just another servant, both groups drawing from and displaying the same attitude towards the other.

I also show a homeless person green, sick and lying near floating wine. Some of the homeless you see in big cities can really touch an emotional chord within you if you look without apathy. I also have a guy looking up the stairs with a green arrow pointing. The green arrow is influenced by an exhibition of Francis Bacon I saw in Ft. Worth. There is also a guy who is part elephant walking the streets, much like the herds of people you see roaming the concrete maze of NYC.

One of the central figures shows a man with an apple, the sidewalk is grabbing his ankle and a snake is heading towards him, like a spider going after a bug trapped in her web. NY tempts some people into biting the apple of knowledge, changing ones view on the world and kicking them out of their respective paradise of blissful ignorance.