Momento Mori and the art of painting an apple

I always found still life painting to be one of the least interesting genres in art history. That said, I loved how painting an apple could be turned macabre.

When Paul Cézanne was painting his studies of fruit, he was exploring formal composition and the geometrical construction of shapes and planes. To me, it always seemed like he was more interested in the form of paint than the content the form took. But Cézanne obviously acknowledged the traditions that pre-dated him, like Momento Mori.

Momento Mori is a latin phrase that essentially translates to "Remember, you're going to die". As an artistic genre it covered any work that focused on mortality.

It sometimes was very subtle...

And sometimes quite obvious.

As I muse on the history and traditions that come before me, I try to find the context for my work. And as mundane as still lifes will ever be, I wonder if I'll ever overcome my fetishistic focus on the paint of paintings.

For now remember, these are paintings. Momento Pictori.

Courage Wolf

crash (coloured)

A leaving home

a house is not a home

The original idea was to have the owl staring at his home (which was going to be a tree suspended on the right side of the picture) but instead I decided to make the allegory a little more subtle by playing with his shadow.

Pretty happy with how it turned out.

_____, sweet _____.

form and colour

primary fun

done/undone

For the last month I've been working on something a bit different. I started with the basic idea of building up surface depth through adding layers of colour on top of one another. 4 panels and 132 layers later, the surfaces gained over 1cm of thickness. Pretty cool.

In a minimalistic kind of way, I think the materials really shine. I also like how the process remains visible. But I'm interested, how does everyone else feel?


Panel 1, close up
Panel 3, close up

all my (dischord) love

It's that time of year again. The time for another colour field study. And once more it turns out looking very nationalistic.

The Hiatus is over . . .

For those of you wondering what I've been up to as of late, I'll tell you right now that it's been busy.

After finishing the first draft of the book, I began working on the illustrations. That turned into a 3 month dedication of my free time. After re-editing, printing off the first batch and sending those off to the publishers, I now have some time to relax.

So now I finally have some new work to show. Enjoy!!
And here's the painting with an anonymous person behind it, so you can see what it looks like with legs.

To my hero.

I can't remember the last time I did so much prep work for a painting. I guess when the subject matter is everyones beloved rotund Italian, you must approach with appropriate respect.

Here is a sketch I made of Raccoon Mario that I later coloured in Photoshop. Let me know which monochrome is your favourite before I hit the canvas.

Fall colours

I like the colour red. How about you?

New work (finally)

Finished a new painting this week. The long time it took since the last painting might be compensated with the fact that it's by far the biggest I've done in Korea so far. And bigger is always better, right?


Also, here are some recent sketches.
As always let me know what you think in the comments.

Winter comes, winter goes

Winter came and it came cold.

Highlights included:

• exporing the cold city of Seoul with a very warm freind

• reading some Vonnegut, St Exupery and Salinger. . . amazing that I found the time

• and making home made Tortillas and Salsa, for an amazing Fajita dinner avec Jaime

and yes, I found the time to do some painting too.

new paintings!

Let me know what you think in the comments below! Thanks

mental vacations

I guess I have been neglecting my blogging responsibilities! You all probably feel cheated that I havent updated a post in over a month. Well, to the few of you that might check this site out, I am sorry.

I've been busy getting ready to set off for Korea, so truthfully, there hasn't been much to talk about. Here are acouple of new paintings. Please let me know what you all think in the comments below.

Further down the spiral. . .

Ever since graduating in May, my interest in abstract observations have been ever growing. It started one day when I was reading in the park. I had my sketchbook with me so I began to do some ink studies of tree-plumes. Like a sudden strike of inspiration, I thought I found a fertile starting point for some abstracted colour studies.

I really wouldn't mind some feedback though. I don't have the conviction that I'd normally have. I'm not sure what I'm saying by making these abstract paintings. It has been interesting and tough; even rewarding at times. But now that I've made them, what do people think??

True Colour

Few nights ago I was in bed watching a BBC documentary "The Century of Self" when I had a sudden inspiration to make a colour field painting. As unlike me as this was, I just wrote down on a piece of paper the colours in order and amounts that I had in mind.

Today I finished the painting. My friend came over and the first thing he noticed were how "flag like" and "Romanian" the painting looked. I didn't even think about it, but then I checked. Turns out I inadvertently painted the Romanian and Iraqi colours. The subconsious is a strange thing.