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.

One of my goals over the past year has been to establish relationships with galleries that showcase work similar to my own. To do this I did some research into galleries in Canada and the U.S. that currently show surreal and pop culture based artwork. After creating a list of suitable galleries I put around a series of e-mails to them featuring examples of my artwork and a link to my website. Then I waited for contact.

Some galleries didn’t both to get back to me. More yet sent a reply saying that while they liked my work they currently weren’t looking for new artists. A few, a very few said they liked my work and had either space available to show some of my paintings right away or they had upcoming shows which would be perfect for my surrealistic style. One of them was Distinction Gallery and Artist’s Studios in Escondido, California.

I e-mailed back and forth with Melissa Walker, the curator of Distinction Gallery. She wanted several of my works right away for one of their back galleries that features new work which is not connected to a specific show. I sent off three of my paintings. Check them out below.

Click each pic for a larger viewer.

 
These three went down to Distinction earlier in the summer. They’re still available if anyone would like to purchase them. Please contact the Distinction Gallery here.

Beyond wanting some of my available paintings for her gallery right away, Melissa invited me to do some work for Distinction’s upcoming show entitled “Scientific Evolution”. I was happy to oblige and produced two new paintings for the show. They’re entitled “Renewal 1″ and “Renewal 2″.

Click each pic for a larger view.

 
The idea behind the exhibition is to show how scientific advances have changed the evolution of humanity. I immediately thought about how modern medicine has allowed all of us to live longer lives by staving off early childhood illness and diseases. Also, with new treatments for disease and injury the life expectancy of everyone on the planet continues to go up. I personally hope to live to be a truly curmudgeonly old fart, with physical strength and mental accuity still intact. Let’s hope modern medicine can help me out.

I created two pieces for the show. I’m not sure if I was supposed to do two or not. I seem to be the only artist with more than one artwork in the show. Oh well.

The two paintings I sent down feature the idea of never ending renewal. The piece on the left “Renewal 1″ features an arm like form which can eject a worn out hand for a new one with the touch of an implanted ‘renew’ button. The piece on the right “Renewal 2″ is also based on an arm motif but in this instance the arm is renewing itself by self administering an injection of infinity through a conveniently implanted injection port. As the infinity flows into the interior of the body it becomes one with it creating new flesh and new vitality.

The show “Scientific Evolution” will be hanging at the Distinction Gallery from August 8th to September 5th. If you’re in Escondido, California or nearby I highly recommend that you go check it out!

For now, that is all. Goodnight.

Cath and I recently watched the movie The Midnight Meat Train. The story was written by Clive Barker and originally appeared in the Books of Blood. Outside of being a writer, he is also an accomplished painter. On the DVD for the movie was a little vignette about Clive and his artwork. As the film crew toured around his home looking at all his work, you’d swear that he lives in a storage space, not a house.

He had hundreds of four foot by four foot canvases stashed everywhere!They were in his studio, stacked in the spare bedroom, leaning in the hallways — he even had what seemed to be a lean-to built onto the side of his home that housed a hundred more. The man is prolific!

I found it quite amusing to hear Clive chatter while cycling through some of his old canvases predicting whether or not they could possibly be revisited and reworked or whether they’d never see the light of day.

As an artist chances are you’ve done a lot of work too; God knows I have. You’ve probably worked in a variety of mediums and a variety of styles and you probably have copious amounts of old work laying around your studio or your home. We all do. That just seems to be the way of things. Personally there isn’t a spare piece of wallspace in my apartment anymore.

I could easily stage a one man show with all the artwork that I’ve got hanging around. In fact, some friends of mine have pushed me in that direction, their thinking being that any show is better than no show at all. It’s not a bad idea — it’s a terrible one, and here’s why.

Read the rest of this entry »

When I was a younger artist, I was hell bent on acheiving professional success. Even then I knew that making a living at being an artist was what I wanted to do. I would spend my summers running my landscaping business and then, in the evenings or on weekends I would be in our old horse barn, painting, sometimes a little, more often late into the evening.

With this kind of work ethic I was able to produce quite a bit of artwork while I was away from University. It allowed me to be part of a two man show in my third year and gave me a solo thesis show at the end of my degree.

At the time I was working in a more expressionistic style, sometimes employing patching trowels and other hardware implements to bring my work to life. This gave me a lot of work, paintings of various styles that I realized I could shop around if I felt so inclined and that’s exactly what I did — but poorly.

Read the rest of this entry »