Outside the Lines 8

I am taking part in an exhibition at the Bath House Gallery in Dallas from June 7th-28th called Outside the Lines 8. This exhibition was juried by 3 local art professors and one gallery owner. The Outside the Lines exhibition is focused on artwork that is outside the mainstream of art. There is an opening reception on June 7th from 7-9 pm.

Night Sky Over Reykjavik

I have wanted to create a piece of art based on Iceland since we visited there in 2005. This piece is attempting to reconstruct parts of the city of Reykjavik and the sea bordering the city based on my memories 2 years after being there. There is a theory that each memory is reconstructed anew the moment you remember it from various symbols in your mind. This is my take on that theory.

Taking shapes, pieces, colors, experience, the feeling of the crisp clean air, the marriage of nature and architecture that is Reykjavik, the memories I have of breathing in the salty sea air with every step down her clean cold streets. No matter where I was in Reykjavik, I was constantly reminded of the mountains, the sea and the arctic sky above bordering the top of the world.

I changed the position of the city a bit, taking the main street and pushing it closer to the sea, moving Mt. Esja over a bit and turning the puffin island of Akurey into a man-made object. Nature and architecture seems so inter-related in Reykjavik I made an incoming cloud into the same material the city’s buildings are made of. The pink glow on the horizon gives a hint of the daytime reality the rest of the world is experiencing. You feel as if you’ve found a geographical hiding place away from daylight as the sun focuses on the lower latitudes.

I’ve had a growing interest in night based artwork. It seems at night colors and shapes become more intense as they pop out of the darkness.

Not Art

I recently signed an online petition against someone who calls themselves an artist ( but is not). This person (who I will not name) starved a puppy in a gallery and called it art. He is set to do it again this year. You can sign the online petition asking the gallery not to do this again.

Killing any living being is not art. It is cruelty, torture and murder for the entertainment of apathetic individuals. There have been other individuals who call themselves artists who kill in a gallery setting and try to pass it off as art in the past (I will not go into the details). To me art is a creation that reflects or represents some aspect of reality, conscious or unconscious. Killing is a reality, it is not a reflection or representation, it is not art, and when you witness the murder of another being through torture or any other means you are witnessing a reality. The reality of another's pain for your pleasure, again (this is the last time I'll say this) this is not art, and any violent individual who does this is not an artist.