Hi all!

Recently I was contacted by a young gentleman by the name of Martin Shea.

He’s a grade 10 student attending the Denver School of the Arts in Denver, Colorado and as part of his curriculum he has to interview artists that interest him. Martin saw my work on the Juxtapoz website and decided to contact me for this purpose. Thanks for the honour, Martin. You’ve definitely given me a boost. I asked him if he would send me some images of his work. He sent me some really groovy images of a multifaceted gargoylesque head in blue. Check out his sculpture below.

Click on a thumbnail for a larger view.

After reading through his questions, a preset group set forth by his class, I thought it might be a useful idea to not only respond to them but to post my answers here on seanchappell.com so anyone who’s interested can read the questions and answers and draw benefit from them should they find any to be had – based on their personal situations that is.

Here’s how the interview went:

(more…)

Hi All!

There’s a new show going up in El Cerrito, California at the Eclectix Gallery. It’s their Fourth Annual Halloween Show and wouldn’t you know it, I’ve had some of my work accepted into the exhibition (big surprise there). Here’s the online promo:

I was really hoping it would feature one of my works. Patricia Zemanek, the gallery curator had asked me earlier for a hi-res image of my painting “If You Could See What’s On My Mind” for promotional purposes (in Hi-Fructose magazine no less!) but she decided to go with a couple of less complicated images for the sake of publishable clarity. It would have been nice to see it used for the online promo or postcard promo piece in lieu. Oh well…c’est la vie.

There are 50 artists in the show and 81 artworks on display. Three of them are mine. These are the pieces that were accepted into the exhibition. Click on a pic for a larger view.

 
The show starts on October 16th and goes all the way until November 29th. That’s a good six weeks folks! If you’re in El Cerrito, California or should find yourself nearby in say, Berkeley in the near future drop-in to the Eclectix Gallery and take a look at the show. There is a lot of really professional artwork on display. If you like my work I’m sure you’ll appreiate the work of Dean Fleming, Mark Thompson, Dan Harding and Jacqueline Gallagher. All of them are represented in the show and their artworks are absolutely stunning!

You can find the Eclectix Gallery online at www.eclectixstore.com . Follow the current exhibition link at the top of the page to see all the works listed in a visual format. Every work is expertly represtented. Eclectix really has their Sh#@t  wired tight. The exhibition will really be something to see!

Update: November 2nd, 2009

Here’s a picture that I pulled off the Eclectix Gallery website. It shows a couple of patrons of the gallery checking out the show before it opened officially and they are staring at none other than my piece “An Investigation of ‘Cute’ “. How is that for an ego boost? I hope they buy it.

For now, that is all. Goodnight.

Hi all!

Sorry that I haven’t posted a lot lately. I’ve been busy trying to find a job so that Cath and I don’t starve in the near future. It’s funny how an impending total lack of monetary funds can creep in and fill up your days with job searches, resume writing and interviews.

Any who, I’ve been working on some new ideas which have been born out of necessity in conjunction with my return to the drudgery of the work-a-day world. I’m going to find myself cramped for time very soon so I’ve been experimenting with some new ways to continue to create artwork but do it in a more timely manner than I’ve been acheiving with my acrylic paintings. The idea is to create one new work a week. Here’s what I’ve come up with.

It’s just an experiment really. It’s gouache and ballpoint pen on PK5 board. For those of you who don’t know what gouache is it’s kind of like watercolours more evolved cousin. It’s water soluble, reacts similarly like watercolours in that it can be thinned out and used for washes yet it has an acrylic like permant quality when used in a concentrated form and is very vibrant in hue. Highly pigmented, it can cover just about anything in one pass. It has been fun playing with it.

I’ve pulled out my drawing skills to fill in all the little details and so far I think it’s worked out very well. This piece was certainly acheived a lot faster than an acrylic painting of the same size and detail would have been. I’ve been thinking of working up a series of these pieces so I can put together an illustration portfolio.

I’m a fan of the look of this artwork. It reminds me of old school etchings from books and newspapers of yesteryear. I’m going to be working up a lot more pieces like this in the future. I’m placing them in their own gallery under the heading ‘Illustrations’ in the right hand column. Look for updates to go there.

It’s already been suggested that I should do childrens books. I think I’ll have to tone down the creep factor just a bit first. I hope to be able to take this style of work into the world of book cover illustration or possibly even into comic book covers etc. If you like what you see and think it might work well for a project you currently have in the works please don’t hesitate to contact me. As I said early, I’m on the verge of poverty so any work that utilizes my skills as an artist would not be turned away.

If you like it or you don’t, don’t be afraid to tell me what you think. I’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment

For now, that is all. Goodnight.

Hi all! Sorry for the lapse in blogging that I’ve had lately. I’ve been working really hard on painting and organizing things for the House of Scratch show that is coming up this October. It hasn’t left a lot of time for posting on the Internet. That being said….

Welcome to my latest artwork. I’ve decided to broach the subject of introversion in this piece. Both Cath and I would consider ourselves to be introverted. We have to deal with a lot of misconceptions and small minded opinions about that facet of our lives on an almost daily basis.

I won’t go too much into what it means to be introverted. There are all kinds of blog posts and books already dedicated to the subject. In fact, Cath wrote a book review for one very recently. Check it out here.

Suffice to say, most of society is extroverted and us introverts constantly get the short end of the stick. We may come across as stuck up, snotty or too into ourselves. We’re simply quiet and gain energy and insight from internal exploration and thought. This leads to people calling us anti-social when in point of fact we’re simply un-social. There’s a big difference. Extroverts get energized by intense socializing. Introverts get exhausted. An extrovert’s energy is best spent outside of himself. An introvert’s is best spent focused internally. My latest work is all about that difference.

I’m working with the tentative title, “The Grim Spectre of Introversion Puts Down Its Book Long Enough to Look Perturbed” or “Hi, My Name is ‘Anti-Social’ “. I’d like to thank Dali and all the other surrealists of the 30’s for leading the charge for extremely long painting titles.

In this piece I’ve created a character whose head is mostly brain mass. Introverts engage in a lot of private thinking. A large brain seemed fitting. Above that large brain hangs a black halo which, instead of giving off rays of light, has black thorns circling it. This symbolizes the demonizing that happens to introverts.

Lower down, we see that his mouth is dimpled and crimped but uncapable of opening and making any comprehensible sound. Like many introverts, this character is silent.

In his left hand he holds a leather bound book. In his right he displays the glasses that he uses to read with. I referenced intellect and science here by making the three lenses across the bottom of his glasses magnifiers with 10x , 20x and 40x magnification powers. Intellect is often lambasted by the masses. Introverts have a tendency to be quite clever. It seemed fitting.

On his chest he wears a label that says Hi, My Name Is “Anti-Social” which of course is exactly what this piece is about, the misconceptions that introverts have to deal with at the hands of extroverts.

Last but not least, his left hand that holds the book is very subtly showing off his middle finger, which is my own personal opinion on where people can go when they improperly label introverts such as Cath and myself with misconceptions and broad, foundationless stereotypes simply because we like to keep to ourselves. So there!

Anyway, this is my latest painting and there are more on the way. I hope you like it!

For now, that is all. Goodnight.

For those of you who don’t know, I run an online gallery of surrealism and imagination with my girlfriend Cathrene. It’s called House of Scratch and was named after a short story written by Cath as a birthday present for me. The goal was to host a monthly online show of amazing art from around the world focusing on the genres of lowbrow, pop-surrealism, fantasy, horror, sci-fi etc. It has since become a bi-monthly show which has proved to be a better format for us. We’re currently in the throes of running our seventh show.

From every show, we’ve picked one of the artists to be in the House of Scratch physical show which will be on exhibit this October at the Hang Man Gallery here in Toronto. So far we’ve got a very impressive group assembled. Well…

In an effort to raise funds for the physical show Cath and I came up with the idea of a painting raffle. I would pony up one of my paintings and House of Scratch would sell tickets for its sale. I chose the painting “Pumpkin Portrait” a smaller piece but a well received one. After three months of selling tickets we decided to close the sale and run the raffle, which we did, this weekend.

We wrote a page all about it and posted it on House of Scratch. If you’re interested in learning all about it follow the link below. It’ll take you to the page on House of Scratch. We posted pictures and a witty write up! Check it out.

For now, that is all. Goodnight.