Some new Surreal Abstract creations to share

Originally posted by Serdgiam
Some really great stuff here, I think you are doing a great job.

In particular, I like the "and kept going" one and the first anti big agra.

"and kept going" pulled me in whether I wanted it to or not, and I kept finding layers. The colors are inviting and the shapes soothing, but together they demand attention.

Anti big agra 1 was immediately recognizable as a farm piece, but after that first half second, it dissolved into another reality. Great play on perception.

Thanks for bringing your art into the world.

'kept going' is a piece i title "Mishap at the baloney factory" I hope you still like it now, lol

and the other piece I titled "the cows" mostly because it started as a feed trough and I just didnt like the image, but the grass textures and cow shapes remained. And I'm really trying to tone back colors using more earthy colors and keeping shapes really bold, but I like how you explain it much better!! thank you for looking and sharing your reactions, they mean so much

Originally posted by Iamschist
reply to post by Aliquandro

 

Really intense work. I love the movement and the color. They almost vibrate. I love the Phoenix looking one, and the car phone, but all of them are great to look at. What is your medium? Some of them have many layers with an almost lace-like background. Very nice. Your babies are beautiful.

I am very happy by your reaction, I've created some motorized pieces but its just not as effective as making art that just jumps using just color and shape. The Phoenix piece is awkward to me, but its supposed to be chaos in the form of fire, and saturated with reds and some odd greens, but so many people have shown their like for it. It puzzles me!

The car phone piece turned into mechanical synapses, and they are all oils, so you can just keep turning up the color, that piece had a ton of weird patterns and textures before I revamped it, so yeah the layers come thru, even moreso in person with good light.

They are my babies!! That's a sweet thing to say, thank you!

reply to post by Aliquandro
Fantastic. Your art reminds us of Alex Beard, one of our favorites. I hope you are showing this in a gallery. s&f

Originally posted by Asktheanimals
reply to post by Aliquandro

 

I've been working or trying to work as an artist since I was 17, that was 36 years ago now. Did some shows, did gallery stuff, worked as engraver then taught elementary art for a while. I love art and teaching it to kids was the best thing ever. They have so much to teach us through their work. It wasn't until then that truly understood or appreciated abstraction. I've always worked in realism so it wasn't easy.

Working with kids you have to find what they're looking for in their own work, what it is and how they want to express it. I think you're strength is an innocence and youthfulness that radiates in your work. Hang on to that, it serves you well. I see a style that's very original which is really tough to do. Your compositions are good, you're use of color is good, I can't find anything to criticize and say "that part doesn't work" or "maybe this should be strengthened, blah blah".

Any compliments from me are well deserved. That is a lot of hard work you show us and it took even more just to get to where you are. I always try to make sure artists know their work is appreciated because most people don't have the vocabulary necessary to describe what it is about art that they like or dislike. At least in the US I've found that to be the case, maybe in Europe people get a decent education about the arts.

All I can say is keep posting as you do new stuff, I would love to see them.

You have so much insight and perspective to add, I appreciate it so much! I was inspired at a young age too and didn't seek any form of training until my 30s, but I remember my childhood art... and it seemed crude and simple but after years studying art history all you come to realize is most masterpieces start as a doodle!!

I agree that I am not trying to be overly mature, just intensely interesting with good balance. I sometimes have ideas cooking in my head (sometimes too many) until the time is right but almost every single good piece I've done starts with some heavy elements of randomness. Subject matter somehow just works itself out or just doesn't seem as important as a beautiful image.

I'm liking the really funky surreal abstract style lately, and I'll slip back into bizarre figurative? You know I just don't know how to classify my stuff lately when I post it, but anyways here's a new piece called 'tentacle garden':

Originally posted by Aliquandro
...A ton of colors is always welcome to me, but they still have order where they want to go. Just because two opposing colors are together doesn't meant they clash.

I spend probably 10x more time staring and contemplating what line/shape/color goes where than I do actually painting, still so much fun!

Color is a subject that interests me in the larger discussions on what constitutes Art with a capital "A." And, of course, that answer is as subjective as any, but I have noticed that a facility for color seems one of the rarest abilities in art. I have sometimes considered that it is much more rare and has maybe even more visual impact than line.

reply to post by The GUT


I think there is a hierarchy of how we process visual information. Color is our primary indicator for many things and helped us a primitive people find animals and plants to eat, to look out for danger and diagnose illness. Just walk down a street in any business district; we recognize dozens of corporate logos by their combinations of color alone. Shape is probably the 2nd thing our eyes focus on to make sense of what these colors represent. Line, texture, value and composition are finer points of discretion that help us further define our world.
In a way art follows our basic biology in appealing to those elements at an instinctual level. If I may be so bold I'd like to recommend a book called The Interaction of Color by Josef Albers. I think you'd find it very interesting Gut. Another book I think you would enjoy is The Natural History Of the Senses by Diane Ackerman.
Cheers,
ATA

reply to post by Aliquandro


What I see in your work seems to me like Abstractions of Systems or biological abstraction. The shapes all seem to belong to some sort of system and often it looks like things you might see through a microscope. The one different piece in black and white (mostly) was more mechanical. I don't know if you see the same things I do in your work but there is a constant interplay in the real world between the 2.
Just an observation.

Originally posted by Asktheanimals
If I may be so bold I'd like to recommend a book called The Interaction of Color by Josef Albers. I think you'd find it very interesting Gut. Another book I think you would enjoy is The Natural History Of the Senses by Diane Ackerman.
Cheers,
ATA

Heck yeah you can be so bold. You are feeding my Amazon book addiction, however. Great mind investment though, good books that is, so I'm in!

The Natural History Of the Senseswww.amazon.com... sounds GREAT. Creativity enhancing I'm sure.

I was pretty psyched to read about:

Josef Albers, one of the most influential artist-educators of the 20th century, was a member of the Bauhaus group in Germany during the 1920s. In 1933 he came to the United States, where he taught at Black Mountain College for sixteen years.

In 1950 he joined the faculty at Yale University as chairman of the department of design. Albers was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1968 and was professor emeritus of art at Yale until his death in 1976. Nicholas Fox Weber is executive director of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation.

Josef Albers’s Interaction of Color

Originally posted by tanda7
reply to post by Aliquandro

 

Fantastic. Your art reminds us of Alex Beard, one of our favorites. I hope you are showing this in a gallery. s&f

Thank you very much! I was checking out your crazy cool birdhouses on your Thread I would love to be a bird living in those and your framing is insane, I can see that sorta frame on some of my work.

Just checked out Alex Beard and wow, lots of eyes and screaming mouths, and his palette is bizarro. Thanks for the new artist suggestion and checking out my work.

Originally posted by Asktheanimals
reply to post by The GUT

 

I think there is a hierarchy of how we process visual information. Color is our primary indicator for many things and helped us a primitive people find animals and plants to eat, to look out for danger and diagnose illness. Just walk down a street in any business district; we recognize dozens of corporate logos by their combinations of color alone. Shape is probably the 2nd thing our eyes focus on to make sense of what these colors represent. Line, texture, value and composition are finer points of discretion that help us further define our world.
In a way art follows our basic biology in appealing to those elements at an instinctual level. If I may be so bold I'd like to recommend a book called The Interaction of Color by Josef Albers. I think you'd find it very interesting Gut. Another book I think you would enjoy is The Natural History Of the Senses by Diane Ackerman.
Cheers,
ATA

This is the BOLD thread, I'm sure you got the dozen or so high res full-color memos back on page one, share whatever you'd like to

I read about 1/2 of the color theory book my instructor gave me, the basics are so simple to grasp when you use colors alot.

As I'm sitting here looking at this piece I'm getting close to finishing, I'm thinking how the process happened. I layed down the black linework, then I came back and started laying in colored 'thatchwork' texture filling in the completed shapes, but only in the boldest shapes along the bottom and top edge. There's not one straight line on this canvas, and so far only warm tones, and I'm hesitating on what colors to use to fill in the top. The shapes are weird alien-like heads, lots of eyes and implied faces. If cool tones come into play its going to transform into a surreal landscape with these weird heads, if I stay warm it will stay a mostly abstract with heavy shapes. I'm leaning towards adding blues to make it more deep and surreal and suggestive.

I sometimes wonder using this process if the lines are heavily influencing what colors I use? I am so freeform in creating I pay such close attention to what I'm doing I actually miss what my intentions are.

Originally posted by Asktheanimals
reply to post by Aliquandro

 

What I see in your work seems to me like Abstractions of Systems or biological abstraction. The shapes all seem to belong to some sort of system and often it looks like things you might see through a microscope.

You mean kind of like this one?



I absolutely love micro biology for the amazing images. Pollen alone can supply me with ideas for weeks and weeks. These do seem biological even though that wasn't my goal. This piece is big and has so much creepy crawly going on it's like it's watching you! Not sure if I'm done and no title yet has come to me.

holy flurking schnitt

that's... awesome stuff.. (i immediately saw protozoa etc)
ahh man.. the colors! the colors, children!

i loved them all.. saving the entire 1st topic page to hard drive to show other people when they drop around..

(i) especially liked seeing those comments about anti-pharma, anti-cell phone (paraphrased) ..it's all there.. all that organic fluid stuff... yum.

i'm blown away by this... start making T-shirts and posters. this is surely the next 'mambo' or something?

the industrial one makes for awesome graffiti..
twelve thumbs up.

thanks for making this thread known.

Originally posted by Aliquandro

Originally posted by Asktheanimals
reply to post by Aliquandro

 

What I see in your work seems to me like Abstractions of Systems or biological abstraction. The shapes all seem to belong to some sort of system and often it looks like things you might see through a microscope.

You mean kind of like this one?

Yes, just like that one! I really dig the textures you put in this one, very vibrant and alive. You've just added a new dimension to your work, exciting stuff my man.

Originally posted by UNIT76
holy flurking schnitt

that's... awesome stuff.. (i immediately saw protozoa etc)
ahh man.. the colors! the colors, children!

i loved them all.. saving the entire 1st topic page to hard drive to show other people when they drop around..

(i) especially liked seeing those comments about anti-pharma, anti-cell phone (paraphrased) ..it's all there.. all that organic fluid stuff... yum.

i'm blown away by this... start making T-shirts and posters. this is surely the next 'mambo' or something?

the industrial one makes for awesome graffiti..
twelve thumbs up.

thanks for making this thread known.

I know flurking schnitt has got to be some odd language for pretty good

I love your comments and honesty, thank you so much. I seriously love and am inspired by most of nature and the images of microscopes and biology, I am not even trying to make them seem biological, they just end up that way.

I am honored you like them enough to show them to others, that is truly a wonderful compliment.

I will more than likely stay with this bold abstract style for awhile since it feels right, and is a tremendously rewarding and fun to create.

I don't know of this "mambo" you speak of but if it means I could make a living selling some of my images on shirts instead of contracting for google for crap wages, well bring it on I say.

Glad your twelve thumbs likes my industrial abstract, it just sold and I'm eager to create a bigger brother for it. And your comment is waking me up, since I consider that one abstract but it has many graffiti elements, and when I submit it to art groups online they sometimes classify it "Street art/urban" but hey it is what it is, right?

I'll be posting a bunch more stuff as I get it finished and photographed, so thank you for all the encouragement Unit76!

Originally posted by Asktheanimals
Yes, just like that one! I really dig the textures you put in this one, very vibrant and alive. You've just added a new dimension to your work, exciting stuff my man.

I thought you might think so, textures are so paramount in every piece now.

I never thought doing digital tiling textures for video games would make it's way into my paintings, but I guess it did? Working as an asset artist I made mostly bland terrain textures, but working in oils you don't care if they are loud, but my borders and images are always cropped, like you are never seeing the whole picture (I never understood this until a friend pointed it out to me) but framers HATE me since they have to float my frames and that's a pain.

This is why I either paint the image around the edge 90 degrees now or just black out and varnish the edges.

I am hoping to have about 3-4 new pieces signed by this weekend, they all work very well with that above piece.

Thanks for your input again ATA

Looking forward to new stuff!

WOW, just wow every picture I looked at and thought oh now that's the best just to scroll further see another and think that is the best one all the way to the bottom! lovely abstract art you are certainly skilled at it
I hope to see more of your art in the future

reply to post by calstorm


I hopefully should have a few more pics of some of the organic bike seat abstracts to post by later this weekend, been too distracted finishing a few really large pieces. My room is jammed to the hilt with art right now.

Originally posted by 13100D
WOW, just wow every picture I looked at and thought oh now that's the best just to scroll further see another and think that is the best one all the way to the bottom! lovely abstract art you are certainly skilled at it

I hope to see more of your art in the future

The weird thing is I posted them as chronologically as possible and I thought the same thing as I painted them, each piece I realized I was improving fairly rapidly. I cranked out probably 8-10 pieces in a 2 week period since I was so involved and happy with what was happening.

I am so happy hearing your words, they are very kind and honest and appreciated friend.

They make me want to paint, and that is the best thank you I think I can give you

Aliquandro don't play!! Gah...man...your stuff CAPTIVATES me!! Almost freaks me out sometimes...are you "alone" in creating this? Or do you connect with some spirits and collaborate!!?

Vincent would have you over for tea and conversation, I'm totally con-Vince-ed!