John Brosio - 4

"Bride in Headlights"

"The Last Hot Dog"  oil on canvas  24" x30"  2013

"BFF" 27" x 36"  oil on canvas  2012

"Breaking News"  oil on canvas  18" x 24"  2013

"Dinoaurs Eating CEO"  oil on canvas  55" x 60"  2013

It's often hard for me to get back to posting after the holidays. Habits are like flywheels. It doesn't take much effort to keep them going but once they grind to a halt it's a real bitch to get them started up again. Which why I'm thankful that Mr. John Brosio is out there making new paintings for me to get excited about... AGAIN. This is my fourth post of his work (Nov. 2008, Mar. 2010, May 2011). And I really don't have much to add to anything I might have said before. All visual art ought to speak for itself. It's visual after all, and any art that requires explication for appreciation is missing the point if you ask me. John Brosio's work speaks directly to my love of dark narratives with a pitch perfect blending of painterly realism and surrealist fantasy, sci-fi and horror. Throw in a dash of humor and you're off to the races. After all, I would probably fall in love any painting titled "Dinosaurs eating CEO" no matter what it looked like. It helps that it looks looks as good as its title.
you can see more at www.johnbrosio.com
or get the latest at his Facebook page.

Eric Stotik

Untitled - Continuous Series - installation view - acrylic on paper - 5' x 45' - 2013

Untitled - Continuous Series - partial montage - acrylic on paper - 5' x 45' - 2013

Untitled - Continuous Series - detail - acrylic on paper - 5' x 45' - 2013

Untitled - Continuous Series - detail - acrylic on paper - 5' x 45' - 2013

"Quetzalcoatl"  acrylic on paper  60" x 40"  2013

"Untitled" (bird, octopus, horn)  acrylic on marbled book endpaper
26" x 20" 2013

Eric Stotik's most recent show of work is dominated by a single piece that he worked on for the last two years. It's a continuous series of paintings on paper. And by continuous, I mean infinitely so, for one end is congruent with the other. You could hang the piece in a circle and then stand in the center  slowly turning round and round trying to take it all in. However, one thing I can guarantee is that you would not be able to take it all in after just one complete turn. The piece is so full of uncanny details and unpredictable subtleties that repeat viewings are practically demanded by it. There is a clear overarching theme of human horror. but the horror is leavened by it's peculiar surrealism so that the viewer is inexorably drawn into the world it creates even while being repulsed by it. Some visual elements repeat here and there riffing off each other; for example, a series of pits and mines (one of the smallest of these seems to glow from within suggesting a literal mouth into hell). Overall the piece is defined by the artist's unique visionary detail but here and there the detail fails to resolve, as in a small odd cylindrical shape emerging from the heart and between the fingers of a woman. Is it a cigarette? An arrow shaft? There a drips of what might well be blood descending from it. The answer could be both or neither. Most of the faces are rendered in the artist's typically detail obsessed manner depicting every wrinkle and fold of skin, but one is a soft focus mask of dark patches which only suggest eyes, nose and mouth. Not far from this cryptic figure a woman holds what at first appears to be some kind of cylindrical box, but on closer inspection the shape merely defines an area in which the painting remains unfinished, revealing the sketch and under-painting of the artist's process. What does it all mean? It's best not to ask such questions too rigorously, for the work as a whole is a riff, a piece of constant improvisational invention swirling around the artist's morbid preoccupations and predilections. You have to start by letting the whole thing wash over you. Then you can zoom in and fascinate over the pieces then zoom out again only to be sucked back in by another detail. All I can say is that if you happen to be in Portland Oregon this month, go see it. And make sure you have some time, or better yet go see it several times. You won't be sorry. And while this enormous piece of artwork will no doubt occupy much of your attention it is important to note that some of the other pieces in the show display the artists obsessions and obsessive attention to detail with equally beguiling results.
The work is on display at Laura Russo Gallery through September 28. More of Eric's work can be seen on the gallery's website.

Bijijoo

"Jacqueline and the Dragonfly"  oil on panel  24" x 38"  2012

"Alex and the Pill Bug"  oil on panel  36" x 24"  2012

"Alex and the Pill Bug"  detail

"Preparation for a Demonstration of a Pick-Axe"  oil on panel  13" x 19"  2013

"Ghost no. 1" oil on panel  24" x 36"  2012

Bijijoo is the presumed pseudonym of an artist in Portland, OR who is apparently obsessed with giant insects, decapitated celebrity heads, and people holding hams, just for starters. Not all of these obsessions are represented here - you'll just have to look through the rest of his work yourself. He is also, it turns out, a Ph.D. chemist (trained as a biophysicist), and quite possibly a satanist. Oh and a clown and a collector of broken dolls too. This is all as a way of pointing out that his art goes beyond the paintings and strays into areas of conceptualism and avant-garde humor. Have you ever heard of the giant goose that some claim haunts old growth forests of the Pacific Northwest? No? Well you can read all about it here. Did you know an episodes of the TV show "30 Rock" featured characters holding hams, and that the entire concept behind this was unfairly stolen from the mind of bijijoo? No? Well you can follow the course of his litigation here. The world of Bijijoo is a complex cascade of satyrical humor, where nothing is quite what it seems, or perhaps it is but also something more. But in the end it is the paintings, various series that operate around conceptual premises (Presidents holding hams, still lives with celebrity heads, etc.,) that are at the center of his creative enterprise. And the paintings have steadily matured over time allowing his dark humor to haunt the viewer with disturbing realism
visit his website: bijijoo.com.,
And for plenty more go to www.flickr.com/photos/bijijoo

David Becker

Last Project  oil on canvas  55" x 37.25"

Cable Ready  charcoal on paper 39.25"  x 27.5"

No U-Turn oil on canvas 60"  x 76"

Corona No. 3 charcoal, conte crayon on watercolor paper 40" x 60"

Redemption (31/100) etching and engraving 22" x 34"

David Becker's work will not appeal to the squeamish. There is little here in the way of beauty or noble sentiment. Figures are often half naked revealing overweight distorted bodies. Their features communicate little more than selfish idiocy. The events portrayed are often cryptic, as if it were an allegory of some sort that could be deciphered with the proper key. But one thing is clear. Whatever the message locked within these images, it is not good news. It is a dark and chaotic vision of the human species. Hundreds of years ago Hieronymous Bosch would have recognized in David Backer a kindred spirit. At that time work like this might have been acknowledged as a theologically sound depiction of mankind's fallen nature, immersed in sin and sorrow. Less than a century ago Otto Dix might have also recognized this work as a similar voice speaking out against the horrors that humanity inflicts upon itself. Human beings in this understanding, are both victim and perpetrator. The present is a far cry from the conditions of Bosch's medieval Europe, when plague, famine and war could consume entire populations without warning. And the horrors of World War II are remembered as little more than grainy film clips on the History Channel. But the human condition never really changes. And there will always be artists who force us to look at the unpleasant truths of it. Because we need them to.

You can see more of his work at Ann Nathan Gallery

Adrian Cox

"Bather" Oil on canvas, 41" x 66" 2012

"The Lovers" oil on canvas, 34" x 47" 2012

"Border Creature: Portrait III" Oil on canvas 31" x 24" 2012

"The Great Orator" Oil on canvas 36" x 36" 2012

"Border Creature: Portrait II" Oil on Canvas 31" x 24" 2012

And now for something completely different. Fine art does not usually mash-up so nicely with horror and science-fiction. The artist Christian van Minnen uses some similar effects but with a more tongue in cheek approach. These grotesque portraits of mangled and bubbling flesh reminded me immediately of a slew of great horror and sci-fi images: the monster in John Carpenter's remake of the Thing, the tantalizing but disappointing transporter accident from Star Trek, the morphing monstrous evolution of William Hurt at the end of "Altered States". I'm sure there's more and better more contemporary examples out there. The shock of such imagery in a film often has much to do with it's fleetingness, the mere hint that allows the imagination to take over. But here Adrian Cox overwhelms all that with weight, solidity and detail. The horror just stays there. Until you begin to grow accustomed to it. And that becomes a new layer to the nature of the horror. Because the horror is just flesh adrift in nature, longing for connection with that nature, with other flesh, with anything that might ground it more firmly to life, not realizing that it is mortality that defines it. The horror is our own existence; grotesque, pitiful, sad and beautiful all at once.
You can see more at www.adriancoxart.com
or at Ann Nathan Gallery in Chicago

Santiago Caruso

"Cabinet of Wonders"

from "The Bloody Countess"

"Portrait of Crime"

"You Look Like Rain"

Santiago Caruso is an Argentine illustrator and artist with an intensely dark surrealist vision. It came as no surprise to me to find that he has done a great deal of illustration work for the writings of H. P. Lovecraft. There is an undeniable atmosphere that both share, not merely dark, but hyper-sensitive, paranoid, on the threshold of madness. The themes are myth, mortality, temptation and the supernatural. It's a rich vein of material that is more generally mined by lesser talents. Clichés are usually the norm in the genre of horror, so for anyone who enjoys that sort of thing, it is a rare treat to find material that treats it with both seriousness and originality. If you count yourself among those, then you really need to spend some time browsing his website. He has a lot of material to look through, and for many of the images he provides extraordinary detail images and process shots capturing his painstaking and exquisite technique.
www.santiagocaruso.com.ar

John Brosio - Fatherless Bride

A quick note here:
Shortly after my last post Mr. Brosio sent me an updated version of the first painting in that post. Apparently he had not been quite satisfied with the results. He felt it needed a little something extra in the background to tie all together a bit more and give it a "what the **** is going on kind of flavor" if I may quote his email. I think he'd be curious to know what others think of the change. So take a look, compare and send me your thoughts!
(you can click on either image to view them somewhat larger)

"Fatherless Bride" (with ghosts!)

Earlier version

His website, by the way, is www.johnbrosio.com

Timothy Cummings

   Masks, 2003, Iris with handwork and monotype, 16" x 13.375"

   Spot Portrait, 2001, acrylic on board, approx. 10" x 8"

  Owl Girl Lives in the Garden, 2004, acrylic on panel, 10" x 8"

Pretty on the Inside, 2003, acrylic on panel, 18" x 14"

   Spot Portrait, 2001, acrylic on board, approx. 10" x 8"

On his website (www.timothy-cummings.com) I could not find any images more recent than 2005. It appears that he's working on some film projects but that part of the website merely says, coming soon. Nonetheless, the images were so striking that I felt I had to post them. About half of his work are simply faces occluded by varying masks and marks, most of which lend a slightly horrific aspect. On a couple, the face is covered in scrawled doodles, linking somehow the ritual markings of so-called primitive cultures and the developed world's need for individualist self-expression. The result is not comforting. There is other imagery as well and all of his work is beguiling and slightly disturbing. Just the way I like it. Go check it out.



I came across his name on an ad for a show at the Florida State University Museum of Fine Arts, called "Cute and Creepy" coming this October. Over half of the artists to be included in the show are artists I've included in this blog. Including Lori Field who posted the ad. I do not currently have any other info on the show. But I guess the curator and I have some similar tastes. Go figure.

Vladimir Stankovic Rus

"The Forbidden Dance"
colored pencils, markers and watercolors on paper  25 x 18 cm

"There You Shall Find All That You Could Desire!"
watercolors, colored pencils, color markers on paper  12.5 x 17.5 cm

"Secret Gathering"
Mixed technique on paper  25 x 18 cm




































"The Spell Has Been Broken"
colored pencils, color markers and tempera on paper  25 x 18 cm

 "I Overheard a Secret"  Mixed technique on paper

Vladimir Stankovic Rus is a young graphic designer and illustrator from Serbia (currently residing in Finland and, I think, enrolled in a Masters program. His interest in and pursuit of commercial work however has not hindered his unbridled creative vision. Applying colored pencils, watercolor, color markers, tempera and probably anything else handy to paper, he creates an arresting allegorical vision. There's a strong hint of Gustav Klimt in the way he builds shapes, not with modeled coloring effects, but with rich patterns that give the work an unexpected depth. The shapes butt up against one another and overlap in surprising ways that spell out a puzzle-like narrative of human, semi-human, and monstrous relationships. The menagerie of stylized mythical creatures that seem to lurk throughout much of his work also evoke hints of Heironymous Bosch. These works are small and dense, and worth a good deal more than a glance. Take your time with them.
There's a lot of art to look through, plus some fine graphic design work on his Flickr page.

Halloween Gallery

A while back I posted a group show of themed work, called Night Scenes. So this will be only my second group post. This time the theme is halloween. As you can imagine, a few of the same artists will make an appearance.

I've posted quite a lot of art that deals with very dark and disturbing imagery but not all of it is appropriate for Halloween. It is a holiday after all. Something we celebrate. So bleak despair and man's inhumanity to man are not really what I'm after. Here we seek that side of the horrific that draws us in, that entertains, amuses or even comforts us in some way. Part of the appeal of horror and of Halloween is either knowing the nightmares are not real, or secretly wishing they were. So here's a collection of art that I think reflects this appeal.

Be sure to click on individual images that you like to view them larger (in most cases).
Click on the artist's name to link to the original post of their work. There you can find a link to the artist's website.



Andy Kehoe
 "Be Wary of the Dark Places"  8"x8"  2009





Allison Sommers
"The Sudden Picnic in the Succulent Grove"
8.5" x 7.5" gouache on illustration board 2009

Chet Zar
"Bats"  11" x 14"  oil on canvas  2010

Daniel Danger
“and i dont even like to be seen in the parking lot between the movies and the drink and the glass, whatever the hell that means”
18×24″ five color silkscreen 2009

Dan May 
"Between You and Eye"
18" x 18"  acrylic on wood panel  2010

Fred Einaudi
"Mermaid" 18x24"

Gus Fink 
"Sick Girl"
mixed media on antique photo

Jeremy Enecio
from a show called "Zombies In Love"

 

Jim
untitled




John Brosio
"Fatherless Bride"
60" x 45"  oil on canvas  2010

John Kenn
no title - pen on post-it note

Laurie Lipton 
"Last Night I Dreamt that I Murdered Mommy" - (1980) 
63.5 x 91 cm - pencil on paper

Phil Hale 
title unknown

Scott Radke 
title unknown

Travis Louie 
"Hairy Stare"