After three and a half years my time in Argentina is drawing to a close. In less than 48 hours I’ll hop on a plane bound for the States. Bound for home.
It’s been a wild crazy ride down here, full of ups and downs, like any good adventure should be. I would attempt to put what this all means into context for you now, but the truth is I still haven’t been able to get my own mind wrapped around it. What I can say is that while one adventure is ending, a new one is about to begin. The Orange Gorilla, the mohawk, and I are bound for Los Angeles, where we’ll continue our unending quest for world domination, and making cool stuff (not necessarily in that order).
Until then, I leave you with the last 4 things I made while living in Buenos Aires.
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TO BE CONTINUED
20″ x 34″ (52cm x 86cm) | oil & acrylic on wood panel
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BACK OF SUBWAY PASS #22
pen & pencil on subway pass
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Photo: “One Day. 12 Trains”
I spent a day riding every line in the Argentine subway system. Check out the entire blog post here.
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SUBWAY RIDER: THE LAST STOP
sketchbook | pen & pencil
MUSIC IN THE VIDEO ARTIST: White Arrows ALBUM: Coming Or Going (RAC Mix) Single SONG: Coming Or Going (RAC Mix)
A few months ago my friend Creeping Elm introduced to the tunes of the WHITE ARROWS and they’ve been echoing off my studio walls ever since. Originating in NY and now calling LA home, this is definitely a band I’m looking forward to checking out once I get back to Socal. The song in the video, “Coming Or Going (RAC Mix)”, along with the rest of the White Arrows discography is available on their website here. The White Arrows can also be found in the following places: http://www.myspace.com/whitearrows http://twitter.com/whitearrows http://www.facebook.com/whitearrows
ART IN THE VIDEO The three gorilla paintings were inspired by a stencil I made about a month ago. Rather than just letting the beast live out on the streets of Buenos Aires, I thought I’d domesticate him and let him live on indoor walls.
THREE GORILLAS 15″ x 20″ (38cm x 51cm)
Latex paint on wood panel
2010
APE FLYER 15″ x 15″ (38cm x 38cm)
Acrylic and Argentine newsprint on wood panel
2010
Above: A recent commission piece for a pilot friend of mine over at Jet Blue. This painting is based loosely off of one of my previous paintings, Big World, the first painting I completed after moving to Argentina.
This piece, a departure form my regular style, is the second in an exploratory series where I revisit a painting technique I experimented with when I first started painting in which I use a palette knife instead of brushes to apply the paint.
STILLNESS 24" x 24" (61cm x 61cm)
oil on wood
2010
Over a decade ago I experimented with a style on 5 or 6 paintings (see “Untitled #2″ below) that was much different than the style I have developed over the years. It was free and loose, and used a palette knife instead brushes to apply the paint. Last week, after hitting a creative wall in the studio, I decided to revisit that style and see what happened. “Stillness” is the piece that resulted.
Click on above images to enlarge. Use arrow keys or mouse to navigate between them.
Click on above images to enlarge. Use arrow keys or mouse to navigate between them.
I’ve only painted two self-portraits in my lifetime and both were done over 10 years ago. In early 2006 I had an idea for a new one. At the time my studio was a garage in San Diego and in the corner of it sat planks of wood I had collected for use in future paintings. I snatched four of the planks and hammered them together. Over the years that followed I would periodically apply with a palette knife the leftover paint from other paintings onto this wooden panel.
The idea was that the background would consist of a random/chaotic conglomeration of colors from my other visual explorations and over the top of that would be juxtaposed an image of myself in grayscale. A few months ago, 4 years after beginning the background, I began working on that grayscale image, and finally finished it earlier this week.
To me, the finished piece represents a visual journey, and an amalgamation of intertwined, contrasting ideas: Color versus black & white, chaos versus order, and the movement of time versus a moment of it. The piece is called Self-Portrait (Somewhere).
The first and only self-portrait I ever painted I did over 10 years ago in college, in an Intro to Painting class. I’m not sure why I’ve waited so long to do another, but I figure it’s time I knock one out. Below are the work in progress pics of a new one coming to fruition.
