September 1st 2010

Happy September!

I'm going to make more of an effort this month to update. It will be a lot easier now that the work is in to the gallery. I'm working on an animation of one of the paintings coming together, that I'll post on here in the next little while.

I've given myself a bit of time to go through some favorite art and design blogs lately. It's nice to catch up and see what people have been working on.

I've had my eye on the work of Will Cotton for a little while. He creates the most wonderful portraits of girls in dreamy, candy-coated landscapes, (like above; the cover for Katy Perry's newest album). I've only been familiar with his work for a short time, but it's love. It makes me want to make an attempt at portraiture with oils next. That will be a goal before the year is up. Paint a portrait in oils.

He's also got a temporary bakery set up, full of beautiful confections at Partners & Spade in NYC.

*****

A good school friend contacted me this morning. It's been a while since we last ran in to each other, so it was so nice to hear from him! His name is Jeff Garcia, and he's been working on a lot of different projects in the last few years. He silkscreens and creates 3D and interactive work. One of my favorite projects he worked on in the last year was a video for one of my favorite bands, Ohbijou. I believe I've posted it before, but I'm posting it again! It's really beautiful.

He also sent me a link to the installation work he created on a recent trip to Japan, which is really wonderful. I love this set of photos.

I've been working on a couple of commissions, trying to catch up after finishing my last set of oil paintings. It's such a change working in watercolour again! It's sort of refreshing to switch back and forth. I'll be sure and post those when they've been safely delivered.

August 27th 2010

I dropped off the rest of my work at the gallery yesterday, (yaaaaaaay!), and am back to work on some commissions and fun side projects. It feels really good to have those paintings done and safely delivered.

A couple of days ago, my friend Nikki sent me this video and, just like during "Where the Wild Things Are", I got a little bit teary. I love this video! It's so, so sweet!

Finally, thank you to Meighan O'Toole at My Love For You is a Stampede of Horses for the feature yesterday! I'm planning on posting the other three paintings when this show opens on September 9th, but if you'd like a preview, please contact the gallery.

August 16th 2010

I'm nearing the end! Only another day of painting, then a few constructing frames and varnishing pieces, and I'm done!

Here's another painting from the series, titled "Red Fox". There are three other paintings, which I'll post after the show has opened at Narwhal on September 9th. The second image is of the under-painting of the fox. I completed each painting in two parts; a finished painting of an animal, and another of the ornate, white cordyceps.

(I love the postcard invite for this show, which is themed Cabinets of Curiosities, or Wunderkammer).

August 3rd 2010

I thought I'd post my first painting for "The Dazzle", an upcoming group exhibition at Narwhal Art Projects, because it's already up on the gallery's site.

I've been working on this series for months, and am having so much fun using oils. I've been wanting to do this project for a long time. I used this idea for a couple of grant proposals back in the winter of last year. I had decided that I wanted to create a series of animal paintings, covered in cordyceps; a genus of fungi that act as a parasite.

The parasite normally attacks an insect host, but I thought it would be interesting to create studies of mammals with the same infliction. The spores enter the system of a creature, take over it's nervous system and drive it upwards to high ground. When the parasite finally takes over, killing the host, the spores are released into the air, (by way of breaking out of the body), and begin to search for the next victim. (Gruesome!)

As I began to study these fungi, I had the strangest reaction to the image reference I was coming up with. The photos can be quite grotesque, while at the same time strangely beautiful. The formations created by these spores erupting from the host are delicate and intricate, and look a bit like lace. I wanted to try to create paintings that portrayed this strange beauty in the same way that I was seeing them.

There will be four other paintings finished for this show. I'll post the others closer to the date of the show, which is September 9th 2010.

August 2nd 2010

Chris emailed a link to the Telegraph earlier today. He'd seen a series of photos of pencil carvings by artist Dalton Ghetti that he thought I should see. They're incredible. These images haven't been photoshopped. This is the actual scale of his carvings! Amazing.