DWG Going Native Reception

Here are some photos form the group show at Dahlia Woods Gallery this weekend.

Upcoming Show - Going Native

I have 4 pieces of work at the Going Native show at Dahlia Woods Gallery.  There is a reception Friday, December 5th from 6-8:30. The show runs from the 5th till January 3rd,2009.  I'll have 2 new paintings there.  The paintings are title "The Griffin and the Cello" and "San Francisco Under a Marigold Sky" (Ill post photos after the reception).

Gallery Representation with Dahlia Woods Gallery

Starting October 1st I will have gallery representation with Dahlia Woods Gallery in Dallas.

I'll be creating all new artwork that will focus on architectural and surreal/dream based ideas. I'm looking forward to working with the gallery.

Saatchi Showdown

Ive entered some artwork for a "showdown" on Saatchi's UK website. If you would please go here and vote for Dinner with Bacchus Giraffe!

Ordering Goodies

If anyone would like to order photo prints, jigsaw puzzles, mouse pads, mugs, postcards, magnets or coasters with selected pieces of my work you can order them from deviantART here.

Breathing In and Out

I notice that my work comes in breaths. I have a period of "breathing in", where I don't produce much work and just breath in the life around me, storing it up and processing it. Then I "breath out", letting my subconscious purge and I begin turning all of those experiences into artwork. For the past several years I haven't really produced that much work, Ive been breathing in.

I have ideas for about 25 new paintings that I'm looking forward to starting on. Most of the ideas I have are figurative, some with religious and anthropomorphic overtones about them. I will probably start on those this fall, after we move. I'm interested in seeing how my artwork has changed since I haven't been doing a lot of it lately. I notice that when I "breath out" my work has changed quality, new ideas and ways of painting spring out. I never know what the change will be but I'm looking forward to seeing it develop over the course of my next breath out cycle.

I was recently contacted by a photographer named Ross who is curating for a new space in Dallas called Ochre Gallery. Its a gallery space located inside a salon. I enjoy having my work out in public, for people to see and talk about as opposed to being stored somewhere. Its there now and will be there for several months. I'm also talking with several other galleries right now about shows and other things coming up.

Thinking Nun drawing

A sketch from a scene in the movie The Sound of Music

Sites, anecdotes and thank yous

I recently joined 3 art sites, thought I would share the links with any other artist interested. They are free sites and others can comment on your work:
Artbreak.com
ArtSlant.com
deviantART Gallery

I'm going to start applying to local galleries here in the next couple of weeks, a task Ive been neglecting for a couple of years now. I have an interesting anecdote about applying to galleries. About 9 years ago I applied to Empty Walls Gallery in Dallas. The first time I went in I saw a guy working there and he took a look at my work and politely replied "not interested", he didn't really look at me in the face at all. About 6 months later I went back to the same gallery, with the same work and saw the same guy, this time he loved it and asked me for work. I ended up showing my work at Empty Walls for about 4 years. It shows that not only are taste in art different from person to person, but even the same person can change taste over an allotted amount of time. Just a bit of encouragement for any artist who may be frustrated with getting shows.

On a different note I sent a copy of the sketch of Noam Chomsky I did to him, and he replied back saying "thank you and he appreciated it". That made me happy.

4 new drawings

These are 4 new drawings Ive recently completed. The first of Nikki and Miro on the couch, the second of Nikki and Zoe napping, the third of the creek beside my grandparents house, and the last one of Noam Chomsky. I have a lot of drawings and sketches I haven't uploaded to skipnoah.com yet, I hope to get around to that soon.

Outside the Lines 8 reception

The reception went really well at the Bath House Cultural Center. There was a large turnout, and some great work.

This show was even more special to me because my wife Nikki was chosen to show a piece of her artwork as well, a knitted wall sculpture. It was a lot of fun being in the same show together.

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.

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!