Cellist And Drummer, 48” x 59.5”, oil on canvas, 2022
Art In The Time of Corona
This period of time will always be remembered for Covid-19, the coronavirus pandemic that has stopped society as we know it, and the social distancing, quarantines, and stay-at-home orders, in humanity’s efforts to overcome. It is a strange time to be alive. Every artist I know has the capacity to thrive in isolation, but ultimately, people need people.
During my isolation, I recently completed this sculpture of an octopus. Titled The Healer, it is a symbol of adaptability and represents positivity in conquering difficult obstacles. An octopus is an extremely intelligent creature that can adapt to new environments, hide, disappear, squeeze through seemingly impossible passages, hold strong, attack, and regenerate. In our quest to defeat Covid-19, the unique characteristics of an octopus are especially important for us to emulate.
The sculpture is made of thousands of little pebbles. The octopus of course has eight arms that connect to a central mantle, and in this artwork these can be interpreted to be the various human populations of the biggest landmasses that connect to Earth’s mantle.
Dude, stop being so serious
With this piece, I turned a doodle into a painting. The purpose was to create something, well, humorous, while also retaining something more than just a punchline.
I am sometimes annoyed by the overwhelmingly vague and grandiloquent language used by many folks in the art world to legitimize certain artworks. If they can create enough confusion by linking inexhaustible theories to such language in their art of art-writing, using overused words such as juxtapose, banality, and utilize (instead of use), then I suppose many people think they are smart and unquestionably correct.
Why is the art world so serious? Is it because of the millions of dollars being exchanged by the few financial elite over a handful of contemporary artworks? Does a work of art really need to be valued as though it's a cure for cancer?
Here's a middle finger. And the art police are chasing. Take the Ball and Run with It. 18" x 24", oil and acrylic on canvas.
Philosophy Of The Eternal And Universal
How to create art that is timeless? I think it must represent the eternal and universal. In my endless mission to create more meaningful work that transcends cultures and borders, I went back to a few philosophers for guidance.
Although it appears that Arthur Schopenhauer was a cynical sexist asshole, he had some interesting thoughts about art:
The deliverance of knowledge from servitude to the will, the forgetting of the individual self and its material interest, the elevation of the mind to the will-less contemplation of truth, is the function of art.
A work of art is successful in proportion as it suggests the Platonic Idea, or universal, of the group to which a represented object belongs. The portrait of a man must aim, therefore, not at photographic fidelity, but at exposing, as far as possible, through one figure, some essential or universal quality of man.
For example, tragedy may take an esthetic value, by delivering us from the strife of the individual will, and enabling us to see our suffering in a larger view. Art alleviates the ills of life by showing us the eternal and universal behind the transitory and the individual.
The title of this painting is Tell Us Where The World Went. Over the summer of 2017, I camped in and just outside of Yosemite with some friends. I took a photo of them and used it as a reference for this painting. Only a few days after we left, a huge fire broke out and destroyed the area and thousands of acres and homes. The year 2017 is going to prove devastating with regard to wildfires.
Note: The title of this piece comes from a line in The Road by Cormac McCarthy, p. 166.