Mike Capp and importance of not understanding.

I was looking at the artwork by Mike Capp currently hanging in the hallway gallery at Projectline, admiring the whimsy of his robots, when someone asked me, "I wonder what that's about, the rainbow vomit?" I looked at it for a while longer and I replied, "I don't know. I don't always think it's about anything." That's really where Mike's paintings sit with me. They don't really mean anything dangerous or angsty or irksome. There's no bubbling social commentary. His paintings which incorporate his young childrens' drawings aren't meant to provoke the unarticulated terrors of childhood. They're just drawings of monsters and superheros and robots. I know Mike. I know that even though there's plenty of angst behind his humor, more so there's a playful, impish, boy's mind, full of cartoons and KISS memorabilia. His technique is solid and clean, so he affords himself the privilege of choosing subject material that loose and silly, while still keeping a close eye on small details of color and composition. He paints what feels good and what results are paintings that are funny and frivolous, in a good way. It's not as important to understand what his paintings mean, as it is to understand that they are just what they appear to be. Personally, robots spewing rainbow is delightful and doesn't mean anything more than that.

charlie isoe

I want to paint like Charlie Isoe today. His mixed media portraits are especially moving. There's nothing particularly beautiful about them, except that they make me forget that I'm looking at a painting. The skin, the expressions, are so transluscent, I forget that I'm looking at paint on canvas or paper. I don't know what I can say about them technically. Technically they're just so much more than anything I understand about painting. How do you even do that with spray paint and charcoal? And the layering of surreal over real...great. Really great. I am enjoy the portraits of women the most. They're simultaneously sumptuous and misongynistic, sexual and messed up, pretty, not pretty. Sometimes I come across artists who remind me that I think inside a very small box. The opression, depression, the thin veneer of normal over inner crazy in the faces of his subjects reminds me of my own limits. What I really see here is his fine drawing and so much attention to detail, that he can afford to ignore it.

This snapped into my consciousness via Artistaday.com.

christopher charlie isoe

And now for something completely polar opposite of splatter: realism. Namely the realism of Brooklyn artist David Jon Kassan. I saw a sample of Kassan's oil paintings on wood panel a month or so ago on another blog. I have to say that I was dumb-struck by the photo-like precision and the luminescent skin tones that only oils can promise. I'm not married to realism. I think realism, by very nature that it's meant to represent "real", can be boring to painful, depending on the skill level of the artist. Kassan makes it look so captivating, so easy.

His subjects are ordinary. They are captured as if being viewed behind a 2-way mirror, or an un-manned video camera. They sulk and pace and pose as if they're waiting for meeting, or for judgment. The artist finds them in a moment of introspection. The palates are dark and earthy. The backgrounds are not exactly organic, but industrial and deeply textured, neutral composites of concrete and brick and sometimes, text.

It's the skin that makes them so beautiful. Whether it's the skin of a young woman deep in thought, or an old man looking worriedly out of the frame, their skin is so translucent, one can almost see the blood moving beneath it. Kassan spares his subjects nothing in their skin; no blemish, no mole, no shadows from sleeplessness or age. Yet they have a worldly, empathetic beauty that makes them as real as anyone you'd stand in line behind at Starbuck's. Ordinary, unromantic, urban, pensive, and middle class. It's all revealed in their skin. I can only imagine how beautiful these paintings are in person.

www.davidkassan.com

And now, back to Monday.

So, this is happening this Friday:

COCA's 15th Annual Painting Marathon and auction. Painters will paint for 24 hours beginning Thursday11/8 til the 9th, then there will be a silent auction that evening. Sounds swanky. I'd really like to go, but won't be able to. There's a long list of artists who will be participating. I recognize two of the names, both artists whose work I have admired in galleries around Seattle. Kamala Dolphin-Kingsley, who paints lovely and eerie paintings with watercolor, ink, and glitter (!). I have a print of the one pictured here. And Chris Crites, whose series of mug shots painted with psychedelic colors on paper bags have impressed me again and again. I would love to see what they're going to do at this show.

http://www.cocaseattle.org/marathon2007.html

Friday, November 2, 2007

Who's knocking me out today? German artist Chris Von Steiner. This guy's obviously lost his mind where color and composition are concerned. I mean look at it! It's everywhere! It's all over the paper in some crazy explosion of day glo, nightmarish cartoon, and rock-n-roll mash-up. It's gorgeous! Gorgeous like a splash of road-kill on rain washed pavement, or the chaotic tangles of fallen trees on power lines. There's a dangerous agitation and sweaty sexuality to the compositions which make them as appealing as they are unnerving. It's too, too much to look at. I feel like I've taken amphetamines every time I study one of his paintings. It's color overload, subject apocalypse! Fantastic!

http://www.chrisvonsteiner.com/pages/accueil1.html

Audrey Kawasaki is the artist that I am admiring (sort of worshiping) today. What I love so much about what she does (and why I'm experiencing a little jealousy today) is her absolute minimal use of oil paint to develop these gorgeous, slightly creepy, images on natural wood. Her palate is natural and clean. The lines are sharp, but the curves are soft and sensual. She has this lovely, unashamed, grasp of innocence and sensuality, wonder and lust, simplicity and minute detail. Her paintings are just delicious.

www.audrey-kawasaki.com

Have an idea.

God, just grant me one original thought. Just one thing that hasn't been done, created, or conceived by another artist! Just one thing that's my own, that hasn't been borrowed or gleaned from someone else's work. It doesn't have to be the most amazing original thought. I would settle for something small and rather forgettable, as long as it's the jumping point for more significant ideas, or maybe the catalyst for a movement.

Rabbit and I were sitting in a Portland restaurant having eggs and potatoes. He'd picked up a neighborhood guide that had a list of shops, galleries and restaurants cleverly laid out with a small map and an index. On the front of the guide was a now familiar spray of artwork. Starting from the upper left corner was a curly, flowery, multi-layer stenciling in graded shades of purples and blues, little birds and stars and clouds accenting the curly-cues. It looks like something that started as street art and is now easily Vector produced, meant to give the message that something is urban and a little edgy, but very accessible. We had a short conversation about how prevalent that design is in modern advertising. I commented that I wished the idea had been mine.

That's what I'm talking about! Just one of those ideas. Just to have that idea that starts with a hand made stencil and 3 colors of spray paint and becomes the meme for urban chic...that would be cool. That's what I want. One original idea.

I'm not complaining that my ideas aren't good ones. The stuff I create isn't reproduction or direct knock-off. The ideas are just not completely original. They're composites of things that have already been done and made popular by someone else, more original and more seasoned. I'm searching for a something, either in technique or in finished product, that is not out there to be copied.