Zombie!!!

This newest portrait is for the King of Undead Rock N' Roll: Rob Zombie. I love the music from this fellow because he makes obscure references to strange, yet important horror films. He even directs his own disturbing films with a very confident vision. I enjoy his ability to combine many art forms while not being afraid to try something new.

AVGN

This portrait is for the Angry Video Game Nerd or as mortals know him, James Rolfe. Not only do I love his internet comedy video game review show, but his movie reviews make me excited about films that were made decades before I was born! As you can see, each of these portraits will have a different vibe as I illustrate different cultural icons whether they be classical or modern. Hopefully, I can keep up this pace on drawing these inspiring characters.

Inspirations!

I decided to do a series of people who inspire me, whether it be their work or their ideas or even their personality. This blog has become the space for my project and I decided to do the portraits weekly. They will all be mixed media in nature and may involve simple to complex designs.

My first portrait is of someone who has recently caught my attention even though he is a legend in his own right. Vincent Price did countless movies involving characters with tight sarcasm and a creepy tone in their voice. I need to watch the famous Roger Corman "Poe" movies to really get more of a grasp on this man, but from what I've seen he definitely makes me think of theater in an entirely different way.

Seeing is Believing

I would like to begin looking at my fellow artists by starting on one of the most engaging, Susana. With the structure built here: http://cortez419.blogspot.com/2010/10/set-me-free-continues.html, Susana created her own environment and captured our attention during critique. Her performance made me want to help her out of the cage even though I was the one who filmed her in it for her video and took pics for her documentation purposes. To convince someone who was there all along is strong enough for me to want to see more performances in many more places!

To the artist that has the most potential is Alex. Her pawn piece really makes me think in so many directions and I want to see more (even if it isn't quantity, it could be how everything is set up or situated). You can see it here: http://aphil11.blogspot.com/2010/11/attack.html, when Andrew suggested a racial divide on the pieces I instantly announced to the class that the scene reminded me of an episode of Oprah. This narrative and many more are at Alex's fingertips so if she pushes everything just a bit more she can show all of us many wondrous worlds, especially her knitting work which is my favorite of hers.

The artist that I have the most knowledge of their process is Kyle. His studies on light and concept are incredible: http://kyleatseniorstudio.blogspot.com/2010/09/art-work-update.html, and it keeps going from there. His portraits blow my mind, but sometimes my favorite moments are his experiments in drawing. Kyle is someone who gets what it means to explore art; his drawing of the man in the ornate frame gave me such distinct feelings that I knew he thought about every aspect of the piece.

One artist I've discovered is Yuko Ishii who uses Mixed Media to the nth degree. Using photography and physical implements she expresses spiritual awareness through her pieces. http://www.yukoishii.com/

Another artist who I knew about only in photography apparently paints as well and he does a series of "Nurse Paintings" which hit home to my not only because they are figural, but my parents are both nurses. Richard Prince explores different ways to combine text and the figure to give a narrative that we may not have seen before. This article on a nursing site is interesting in juxtaposing the nursing world and his world: http://www.nursingadvocacy.org/media/va/nurse_paintings.html

My next project has to do with the secular vs. the religious, the liberal vs. the conservative, and conflicted identity vs. solid identity. My biggest issue is how to combine everything in a simple way. I have already figured out a way to deal with Neil Diamond and David Paskin, but I dunno if it is the direction I want to take. What would be the best way to explore these ideas? How could I combine them without losing any of the magic of the original images? And now...back to work on painting.

What is it? (REDUX)

My work is progressing in a different direction by using common materials for my backgrounds like newspaper and electrical tape. These items relate to my subjects of Abraham Cahan and Mark Zuckerberg. Cahan was the editor for the Yiddish newspaper called The Forward, which garnered a quarter of a million readers by 1924. As for Zuckerberg, he is the creator of Facebook, which has at least 500 million members. This push and pull from a selective readership to a unified membership represents the blend of cultural ideas adding to the greater picture of humanity. It'll never be a perfect relationship due to the clash of cultures on a regular basis, but there is at least hope people can gather together in a forum and be civil to one another.

While in my studio I think of all sorts of different ways to represent an image and how to re-think something that is the "norm" in society. I don't really think there is such a thing as "normal," just "less strange" because life is always strange. Everything is strange.


John Stuart Mill is as "strange" as it gets. The good kind, however. He was a British philosopher who was a proponent of Utilitarianism, which can be explained as: "the good is whatever brings the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people." I have read his book, On Liberty, which states the responsibilities of an individual who has the right to liberty. His view is that someone can do anything they want as long as they do not hurt anyone else in the process. Most people can agree with this autonomous ability. My work incorporates this autonomous idea of an individual and how they use their cultural heritage as inspiration for their ideas or even how their ideas come from the separation from their original culture.

Culture has its own pushes and pulls for people. Most people connect well to what they know, though some find new ways to express themselves through other cultural means. Jewish culture has become important to me not just because I have celebrated Passover a few times, but that it is a religion tied to a ethnic body and this is unique for any religious organization. The idea of a complete Monotheistic culture grants authority only to God, but who makes the rules when God is not clear or has socially obsolete ideas (613 commandments is a lot to follow)?

After all of this heavy talk of society and culture I would like to share something that is probably destroying ours as Americans. So now I would like to present the Deep Fried Cheeseburger: http://www.squidoo.com/deepfriedcheeseburger

Supernatural Kick

These are the two photographs I am using in my Digital Printmaking project. I want to juxtapose supernatural European Jewish folktales with an assimilated culture in America. The cultural aspect I chose to represent Judaism was Korean martial arts, specifically Taekwondo. Since this art was used for soldier combat at one point only to become an after-school activity it intrigues me enough to use it in a different context on how American Judaism has become more aggressive and concrete than mystic superstitious folktales of the "old country." I plan to paint on top of these photos as stated in my earlier post.

The Darkroom

It's been awhile since I've been in the darkroom, and boy did I forget how much of a wonderful, even magical, place it is to me. I have been working on a photo mixed media project for digital printmaking and it's been fun so far. I plan to have double exposures of printed photographs, scan them into my computer, and then print them out on canvas paper to paint over them. This analog, digital, analog process intrigues me and I plan to focus more on the analog to reach my goal. I will post the photographs soon to give viewers a glimpse of what I was working on, ciao for now.