5/25/09

Bacon!

We just got home from the Francis Bacon special exhibit at The Met which just opened this week. Do NOT miss this one. It is a great colelction of works spanning his entire career.

Bacon is easily one of my top favorite artists of all time as well as a huge influence on the direction my art eventually took. I had been painting cutesy cute until I realized that my personal visual pleasure came from the grotesque. And eventually I found the happy medium between cute and grotesque = natty art. You can see Bacon's influence on my art especially in my piece, Pope Something Something IV. Sure, I painted it around the time the current Pope was being elected. But I definitely had Bacon's paintings after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X in mind as well.

Valazquez's, Bacon's, and mine....




The Bacon exhibit at the Met is up through the Summer until mid August. Be sure to check it out.

While we were at the Met, we also lurked around in my favorite section -- the African / Pacific Islander area. I am forever fascinated by these pieces. So creepily cute and weird... They often remind me of Tim Burton creations. I should probably do some more reading into the Pacific Islander stuff because I know how much more I enjoy the arts of Africa having taken a whole semester of study into these pieces during undergrad. They are cool enough visually to look at, but so much more fascinating to me just knowing the uses behind the masks and statues.

Also while there, we adventured through the medieval and religious based older paintings. Absolutely fantastic stuff. And which today was reminding me of one of my favorite books when I was a (little bit twisted) little kid:

Master Snickup's Cloak illustrated by the awesome Brian Froud.

5/22/09

And....

Because I'm on an update kick today... I never posted the finished set of the Seven Deadly Sins which showed at White Rabbit, NYC during the month of March of this year. Lust was sold to a happy home in Italy near the Vatican (how appropriate!!!). But the others are all up for grabs. Please email me for inquiries.

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Gluttony

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Lust

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Greed

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Wrath

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Pride

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Envy

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Sloth

Album Cover Self Portraits

I have been on a bit of a creative hiatus from painting for a little while here. All the big shows and work towards those shows burned me out a bit. But, I just bought a lovely (and BIG) sheet of watercolor paper to start on something new soon. In the meantime, I've been exploring other creative outlets. I've always been an avid photographer and a huge fan of Cindy Sherman's work. I find self-portraits to be fascinating. Altering your own image... letting the world see you as you see yourself. I don't know. There is just something fascinating about someone capturing their own self. The past few months I've started a series of self-portraits in which I recreate album covers. This has been incredibly fun. It simply started as an idea where I thought it would be fun to do a bloody self portrait ala Andrew WK's album. And that got me to thinking how fun it would be to just completely recreate that cover itself. And from there, the project was born. It's been trial and error with hair and makeup, lighting, camera angles, and photoshopping. I love this project because I am learning a lot of technique and skills by just making what needs to happen happen. Anyways, enough of an artist statement... here are the photos (with their album comparisons).

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Natty Kocsis / David Bowie

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Natogold / Santogold

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Natty / Kylie

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Natty Twin / Aphex Twin

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NK / U2

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Natalie J.K. / Andrew W.K.

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Natty / Bjork

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Nat Phair / Liz Phair

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Spring Session N / Spring Session M (Missing Persons)

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Natalie / Madonna

I'm hoping to maybe do a show with these when I'm up to 20-25 of them. I have plenty more in store!

I love magic where you least expect it.

5/5/09

natty art at "Girls Night Out" this Thursday night at Pyramid

I'll be showing a pair of paintings this Thursday night. Stop by for bands, burlesque, and a whole lot more!

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