A large 4' x 5' painting I recently completed - so large, and so detailed, it took me 3 months to paint! Click on the individual panels below to see more details Sorta Timelapse: Obligatory Selfie
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Some more recent additions to my 'Wine Series' of paintings for Wine Lovers
I am honored to have a 3-Month long Solo Art Show at the City of Seattle's Ethnic Heritage Gallery. For this show I have created an all-new body of work comprising of 15 'intercultural' paintings that stylistically meld contemporary American Pop Surrealism, classical European Tradition and East-Indian Narrative Expressionism, while inviting philosophical contemplation of hope and the human condition. Location: Ethnic Heritage Gallery, THIRD Floor (Arcade Level), Seattle Municipal Tower, 5th and Columbia, Downtown Seattle. Show runs Jan 17 - April 10. Gallery is open Monday thru Friday 8-6. Many thanks to the team of Seattle City Employees who helped make this possible: Marta Idowu, Bradley Wilburn, Deborah Paine, and Blake Haygood, Y'all rock! :) A few photos: Here's a video of me talking about the show, courtesy of Seattle's Office of Arts and Culture: https://www.facebook.com/SeattleArts/videos/10155297851607780/ And here are images of the 15 paintings. They look even better in person: All paintings are 20"x20", Acrylic on Canvas, 2016 or 2017 and will be available for purchase after the show.
Current price: $795+tax (each). If there is one you want, send me a note and I will put you on the waiting list for that particular painting. Bonus Trivia: - I created this new body of work over a period of only 10 weeks. It was a slog, yes! - The titles of all of these paintings derive from lines of poetry penned by Rabindranath Tagore, the Winner of the 1913 Nobel Prize for Literature (and the first non-European to win the Literature Nobel). - If you know M. F. Hussain's work, can you spot the influence? :) You are invited to my SECOND Annual Holiday Show (and sale) at my studio in Bellevue, WA on Saturday Dec 10, 2016, open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m - drop in anytime. As I rarely show my original paintings outside of formal gallery shows, this will be a great opportunity to come see many of my original works, including some all new works never shown publicly before, as well as - if inclined - do some holiday shopping of originals, prints and reproductions. Copies of my four books will also be available, or if you already own a copy - bring it and have it signed! If you are on FaceBook, you can subscribe to the event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1820351744845690/ DIRECTIONS:
My Studio is in the Eastside Artist Collaborative Building at 12650 Northup Way Suite 201 Bellevue WA 98005. Click here to get Google Maps Directions to the Studio Building. Parking is free. You can park in any open spot at the building or along the street. VERY IMPORTANT: The Studio is on the back side of the 12650 building and cannot be reached from Northup Way. After getting directions from Google (or your GPS), you need to additionally make your way and turn onto NE 21st PL and then follow the road to the second-last building on the left: Down by the corner, over by the pool: And that my friend, is my own creation staring back at me from the corner of Front St. and Grant (near the entrance of the Julius Boehm pool) in Issaquah Washington. It's a Utility Box Wrap, based on my painting "Night of the Mystic Moons", licensed by the City of Issaquah as a temporary public art installation. Just for reference, here is the original Oil painting;
Following upon the success of my Coffee-themed series of paintings, I am commencing on a series of whimsical paintings for Wine Lovers. Here are the first ten: Here's what these paintings look like framed, floating on a black mat in a 15" x 15" black frame that really brings out the colors: The above paintings are currently priced at $275 framed (less if you want to do your own framing). Also available as 8" x 10" paper prints and as 8" x 8" Limited Edition Metal Prints ($75). Here's a timelapse video of the painting of Drinking Buddies (see prior blog posts for more time-lapse videos): Art Interruptions is an annual public-art program, run by the City of Seattle's Office of Arts and Culture, for purposes of vitalizing selected Seattle neighborhoods with temporary Art Installations that create discovery and surprise. I had the good fortune to be one of 7 artists selected in 2016 to activate the Rainier Valley East-West Neighborhood Greenway, which is a pedestrian path that runs through a neighborhood, connecting parks at each end.
My contribution to this project is a series of mini-murals tucked away behind street signs. When approached from one side, these look like ordinary signs, but peek behind them, and here's what you'll find: Was that fun? Yes it was! :) How did this project come about? The City of Seattle maintains (and periodically updates) artist rosters, and when opportunities like these come around, artists can apply to the projects with specific proposals. (In business jargon, it's an 'RFP'). The proposals are reviewed by an panel of jurors comprising of citizens, artists, and city officials, and artists are selected based on the match between the proposal and the site/audience requirements. My original proposal for this project was to traverse the neighborhood and create surprise/discovery by painting whimsical little vignettes on various surfaces (corners, sidewalks, rocks, poles, utility boxes) etc. The panel loved the idea, and I was selected as a project artist, only to discover that actual painting on public and private surfaces was a no-no (too permanent, invites graffiti, has site permission issues, etc). After much discussion, we concluded I should create temporary art primarily on Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT)-controlled surfaces - in this case neighborhood street signs. (And only particular kinds of signs that would not distract from pedestrian or traffic safety - e.g. no Stop signs, or School Crosswalk signs). The process involved: * Identifying the most appropriate signs * Finding a way to exactly measure the signs * Creating designs that, as far as possible, took advantage of sign location, shape, or other attributes * Finding a way to economically create 20+ designs * Finding a medium on which to render the designs so they could be temporarily attached and eventually removed * Overseeing the fabrication * Painstakingly trimming each design to fit it's intended site (ever notice those rounded corners on street signs?) * Finally, site installation - every one of these signs is 10 feet high! Here are some process photos: For this project, I realized I would have to design everything digitally. (If I painted with real paints, I would have to scan the paintings before they could be printed on adhesive vinyl. By painting digitally, I could skip the scanning step altogether and save lots of time in the process). The above images show two designs in progress, hand-drawn on a computer. (The one on the left is Escher-inspired - Escher makes it look easy, but, trust me, repeating patterns are HARD!). Even with digital designs (hooray for UNDO), I did twenty designs taking about 4-6 hours each (=80-120 hours), meaning I was sitting in front of a computer for almost 3 full 40-hour work weeks. (Don't let anyone tell you artists don't work hard! :) ). This one gave me the most trouble! Honestly, you haven't lived, till you're perched 10 feet high on a ladder, holding a large sheet of sticky vinyl, while the WIND IS BLOWING HARD. This was the largest piece and it kept sticking to itself and to the sign in odd ways due to the wind. I had to rip it off and put it back on many, many times. Took almost 2 hours. (Notice all those uneven areas? Now you know why) Overall, this was an intense, but fun project. The art will be up Sept - end Dec 2016 so go see it anytime. More details on the City Website. Many thanks to the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture and the Seattle Department of Transportation 1% for Art Funds for making this project happen. Click below to see more details. If you made it this far, maybe you'd like to get a copy of this special Dragon print based on one of the Mini-Mural designs...? "Ombrophobia (Fear of Rain)" https://www.etsy.com/listing/466524174/ombrophobia-fear-of-rain-fun-dragon Available in 3 different ready-to-frame sizes. Here's a time-lapse painting video of an 8"x8" oil painting: Some time=lapse videos showing behind-the-scenes art-making: Anubis-Bot: Ink Drawing on Papyrus Paper sWine: Oil Painting on Ampersand Gessobord Panel Elly: Inking outlines on a Watercolor on Paper, using a Pentel Brush Pen The Imp-Master's Disciple: Acrylic Painting on Canvas Dino-Riders: Inking on a Watercolor on Paper |
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