Notificar
Posted by SUNofMAN on 10 Mar 2009 | Tagged as: Digital Art |
from my ‘Car/tunes’ series
‘Light is action at a distance!’ -Merleau-Ponty,
from Philosophy and Painting
‘Simplificar’ from my ‘Car/tunes’ series
Posted by SUNofMAN on 10 Mar 2009 | Tagged as: Digital Art |
Car/tunes’
I have always wanted to reflect this city from an ‘auto-motive’ perspective.
Auto as in the self circulating in the flow of the city.
I recall what John Lennon said of LA:
‘Everything is happening and nothing is going on.’
Movement, energy, mobility of thought is what I’m seeking in these digital drawings. Everything is more or less fleeting you might say.
The flux and flow of existence. The word existence in German is dasein which is similar to the word dancing and very well so since there is a performance element to the work. LA with its long octopustic extensions of freeways and neon signs especially at night give off unprecedented hues of color and energy. Trying to reflect this is what drives these pieces in the end.
All the titles which are in Spanish end with ‘car’. For instance: Atracar, Notificar, Masticar and so on . . .
The ‘tunes’ part is related to words, quotes, observations hovering
over this vehicle which transport one from A to B. I think it’s that space between A and B, the journey you might say which I find interesting and which where I see the logos (words, thoughts) having an impact in the scheme of things. It’s not easy to combine words with form. One tends to supercede the other.
I think Rene Magritte and Ed Ruscha resolved this well in their work.
And now I have attempted to do the same.
by Rene Angulo Trujillo ‘OtrO’ Angulo
Note: Backword writing underneath line saids: ‘Color is the place where our brain and the universe meet! -Paul Klee
Dreams from a Counter Pop Evolutionary Artist
Posted by isis on 02 Apr 2008 | Tagged as: Anti Pop Art, Figurative |
Photograph for oil painting called “Wondering” 2008
Today I dream of a Counter Pop Evolution, where Artists concern themselves with their origins instead of mass productions. I want art to slow down to a snail’s pace so that I can really really think….
Slow Art
Art that is made with loving hands….Like you used to do when you were a kid…working with your father on a craft project like building a car…or with your mother like building a cake…
You know…art that takes time to make.
Now I have time to appreciate!
They are two different places in which I exist so differently:
One is public, the other is private.
One is passionate, the other is pensive
One is objective, the other is subjective
One is secular, the other is spiritual.
But one thing that they both share in, is that they will always be separate but united.
Like Adam and Eve, I co exist with their legacy.
“Regalo w/Still Life” oil on wood panel 75% finished
EVE, THE FIRST LIBERATOR OF MANKIND
For had it not been for the Apple that Eve gave to Adam, we all would surely have remained infants of HeShe (God), hadn’t we?
God punished Eve, as the “fall guy”, with childbirth pain, monthly PMS and worry. Eve sacrificed her own freedom so that Adam could enjoy his. He fought against this injustice by God and showed his gratitude to Eve by becoming the expert in science and psychology. Continue Reading »
A statement From Laura Molina on the death of Dave Stevens, AKA “Naked Dave”
Posted by Laura Molina on 13 Mar 2008 | Tagged as: Paintings, Digital Art, websites, Figurative, Death, Muse, Dave Stevens, Naked Dave |
A statement from my internet art presentation, “Naked Dave”.
Dave Stevens died March 11, 2008.
My Naked Dave series has been a way for me to work out the anger, grief, and loss that my unfortunate relationship with Dave Stevens brought me. I was only 18 when I met him. I was not too much older than that when he fathered my child in 1978. The way he tried to bully me into getting an abortion during my pregnancy was nearly unforgivable. When I lost my baby through a miscarriage, the emotional pain I went through was so intense that I tried to block it out for several years afterward. But the psychic injury would not heal. I have been dealing with the effects this loss has had on me all my adult life. The whole situation made me despondent and depressed for many years. Dave helped me through none of this. Just knowing this person almost killed me.
In 1990, Dave began seeking me out again. He held out the possibility to me that we could reconcile and "carry on in a more positive light", as he put it. Seems we were at cross purposes. He attempted to apologize for trying to avoid his responsibilities in making me pregnant, but I wanted him to apologize for telling lies about me after it happened, the greater transgression in my eyes. Neither apology was accomplished. Instead of acknowledging the past and putting things right, he withdrew once the damage was done. Cast off the opportunity for forgiveness and reconciliation because I did not perceive that a brief embrace between us was supposed to serve for the entire apology and I was not supposed to press him for more than this. It wasn’t what happened in 1978 that inspired the series. We were young and stupid and that can be forgiven. No, it was the failed "reconciliation" of 1991 that lit the fire. I had been betrayed for the second time and I had to do something to save myself. I couldn’t walk the earth with murderous rage in my bosom and let it destroy everything around me. Naked Dave originally began as a way I could cathartically extract the poison this man brought into my life with his cowardice. Projecting his own unbearable guilt onto me and dismissing my existence by perpetrating a calumnious myth he invented that I am some kind of dangerous psychopath (like his dear friend, Bettie Page). These paintings became an entire genre of my life’s work, one that has brought me recognition. (Though, not the only recognized thing I’ve ever done with my creativity, that’s for sure…) The publication of my project brought a healing flow of empathy from others, but also vilification from comic book geeks and others too emotionally shallow to understand why I had the need to make this art and disseminate it on the web. Many missed the irony and took "The Angriest Woman in the World" dead literal as a personal vendetta as if there wasn’t enough to be angry about, just having to live as a woman in this screwed-up world. One woman’s revenge is another’s individual justice.
For many years I assumed that Dave was merely annoyed by my paintings of him but I was wrong. In recent years I discovered that he was deeply affected by what I had done. The only friend we still had in common beseeched me in an email to forgive him, but I found it impossible to do so without face to face reconciliation. In 2005, when I offered an olive branch to Dave through a go-between, he refused. True to his real nature, he claimed himself as the sole victim of this tragedy. As if my justified resentment sprang unmitigated by anything he had done, and that he bore no blame. Now that he is dead, face to face reconciliation and forgiveness between is not possible. I have to live with this reality and find the way to forgiveness without the reconciliation that I knew long ago I would never see.
My motives for this project have been the same since I started. To heal from the injury inflicted and diffuse my anger by having fun with my past pain. The issues this unfortunate relationship brought to my life, and my ability to process them through my art, still inspires me. When that changes, I will be done with this series. To aspire to make great art one must know truth, beauty, and love. My muse, as unwilling a subject as he may have been, was a muse nonetheless. The English Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti had a muse, Elizabeth Siddal. A recent book about her life has the following quotation from John Ruskin which took my breath away with it’s truth: "And yet Elizabeth had been loved tenderly, loved by the man and by the artist, which is to be loved twice, because painters have a tenderness for the creature that suddenly realizes for them, in an exquisite and living form, a long cherished dream, and lavish upon her a gaze that is more thoughtful, more intuitive and, to put it plainly, more charged with love than is possible for other men."
Below is a study for the last painting of the Naked Dave series. I have known since February of 2005 that Dave was ill with cancer. I was sworn to secrecy and struggled with thoughts of continuing the series altogether for this reason, but the heart sees what the conscious mind can’t bear to know. The monarchs are in the painting because the Aztecs believed they carried the souls of the dead. I started this latest painting in July 2005. I will continue to paint Dave until I am done and I can bring peace to myself.
Forgive me Schulz
Posted by rio on 29 Jan 2008 | Tagged as: Uncategorized, Digital Art, Popular Culture |
The roots of this strip began a couple of years ago. It was around the time of San Francisco’s annual Gay Pride events and Mariela and I were looking through the SFWeekly for a schedule of who would be performing on Pride’s Latino stage. While looking through the Weekly we came across an ad for sex toys in the shape of different religious icons. I laughed but Mariela freaked out and couldn’t even bring herself to look at the ad again. Even though she didn’t exactly consider herself Catholic her opinion was clear: You don’t sexualize your personal icons
As Chuck D once rapped “My wanderings got my ass wondering” and as a Chicano I’ve wondered about our iconography and the taboo of eroticizing it. In terms of Chicanoness, I can imagine that it would be very bad to have a fantasy about bustin’ out Alberto Gonzalez; so would the opposite be good? Or maybe I just have the hots for Dolores Huerta?
As far as the whole Peanuts thing goes, I’ve always identified with Charlie Brown. His philosophical ponderings and neurosis always seemed to click with me. With this strip, Charlie Brown is a stand-in for my parents both of whom have taken risks with their artwork and both of whom have told me in some form or another that I’m goin’ to Hell for doing this comic strip. Wimps!
The Fantasies From The Indigenous I
Posted by isis on 26 Jan 2008 | Tagged as: Anti Pop Art, Figurative |
“Believing “pastel on paper 45″x55″ 2008
What are our fantasies as Indigenous/Multicultural/Mulatto/Mestizo Peoples/Artists?
The history I received in public schools, the Hollywood sitcoms, tv dramas, and movies that I watched, the museums that visited, mostly iconicized and exotified Native Peoples….I enjoyed this portrayal because it mythologized us. They made us look beautiful, spiritual, strong, but always ultimately defeated, which I resented deeply. To continue seeing one’s culture as defeated, is destructive to one’s consciousness and self esteem. This was my Indigenous Reality.
Looking back at my previous art endeavors in art school, I drew and painted about my Indigenous Reality: oppressive government laws concerning women and native peoples, reproductive rights, and failed relationships with boyfriends. My Indigenous Reality was hopeless and depressing. I continued working this way for over 10 years. I think part of why I painted such things was because I couldn’t be motivated to paint unless I feel. And so the topics that I chose to paint about in those days, deeply effected me. It wouldn’t be until the late 90’s that I began to paint from my Indigenous Fantasies.
It started with the LMA Series (Little Miss Attitude Series).
Wonderwoman LMA 8.5″x11″ graphite on paper study
LMA Series was an exploration of behaviors of empowerment. The cartoon has always been a creature typical of emotion and so are women. In our chatty conversations with one another, we expose so much about ourselves, go in depth about relationships with others, go into minute details about sex, love….When we aren’t conversing, our quiet moments are psychic, still attentive to each other’s emotions, knowing what the other feels, because we collectively know what makes a woman happy and what makes her bleed…So intoxicating is this awareness, that my research was already done. All I had to do was paint. And so I did 16 paintings, 8 studies, 8 paintings trying to understand what attitude was as a factor of empowerment in us ladies…This was the beginning of Indigenous Fantasies because I was painting what what my ideal of a woman was.
Our Lady of Hustlers: Priscilla Ceballos
Posted by rio on 23 Jan 2008 | Tagged as: Digital Art, Urban Art |
Most of these hip-hop fools out there make claims about being hustlers when in reality they’re just taking a fashionable pose. Priscilla Ceballos is the real deal Holyfield. If you don’t know who she is, Priscilla Ceballos cold got ill so her daughter could score some free Hannah Montana concert tickets. She entered her daughter into an essay contest to win a free pair of tickets to see Hannah Montana and won by writing that her father was a soldier who had been killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq. The trouble was that none of it was true, her father was alive and well-living in the next town over. When Priscilla was finally busted she and her daughter lost the tickets and she became the most hated woman in the western world. Homegirl defended herself by saying that no one ever specified that the essay for the contest had to be true.
Priscilla Ceballos may be a dumbass but her ass ain’t dumb, of course she knew what was going on all along. What makes her a true hustler is that she will stick to her story of “not knowing the essay had to be true” until the bitter end. Some people will no doubt call her delusional but in the hood that’s called some fuckin’ hustling. To the rest of the world she may be a villain but I’m canonizing her as a saint of the ghetto: Our Lady of Hustlers.
Since being busted for the fake essay Priscilla Ceballos has made numerous media appearances to clear her name. With these interviews she’s done a lot more harm than good and exposed herself to even more ridicule. Many blogs outside of Latino culture are both confounded and fascinated by Priscilla Ceballos’ bad chola style. “Doesn’t she know how fucked up those sharpie eyebrows look?” they all seem to wonder. The motivations of chola fashion still elude the mainstream but with her appearance on the Today Show she has become America’s most recognizable chola.
I don’t really take issue with people challenging the basic humanity of Priscilla Ceballos or at least her qualifications as a mother. What I have found deeply disturbing is the amount of racist bile that has been thrown her way. One look at her Bebo Profile and you can get a good sampling of some of the racist rants that she’s no doubt confronting on a daily basis. Most of them shits call her out for being Mexican, even though her profile picture is clearly all about her being Salvadoran (Holla at my Central Americans). The truth is, whenever one of us fucks up publicly it becomes baggage for all of us not just for Salvadorans, Mexicans, or Chicanos (except for maybe Brazilians…Tudo Bem!). Despite my anger at Priscilla Ceballos I am even more offended at the racist responses to her choices and that is why I chose to include a tear forming on her eye as well as text from the aforementioned Bebo profile behind her.
Orale!
Hunting the Now / Cazando el Momento
Posted by Mabel on 30 Nov 2007 | Tagged as: Public Art, Urban Art, Art Socializing, Games |
This month…
Hunting the Now/ Cazando El Momento by The Counter Narrative Society
Begin at the corner of 14th and Valencia Streets
For this SAT. Dec. 1 - 11am-5pm
To download a map locating this project from GROUNDED? go to http://soex.org/Event/152.html
Game will be available at various venues and online after Dec. 1 at: TheCounterNarrativeSociety.org
Hunting the Now is a bilingual and peculiar treasure hunt that intends to divulge unique but ordinary features of the present social-urban development of Mission and Valencia Streets between 14th and 24th Streets. Brochures containing map, instructions and clues to the unique destinations we have gathered will be available at Southern Exposure.
Cazando el Momento es un juego bilingüe artístico de encontrar tesoros que divulga cualidades únicas pero cotidianas del presente desarrollo social-urbano de las calles Mission y Valencia entre la calle 14 y 24. Afiches con mapa, instrucciones y pistas de estas destinaciones inusuales estarán disponibles en el local de Southern Exposure.
Hunting the Now is part of Southern Exposure and Intersection for the Arts’ GROUNDED? 1st Annual Juried Public Art/Urban Interventions Day. For more information about GROUNDED? including the 16th Annual Juried Exhibition, 5-week Performance Series, and 7th Annual Film/Video Screening please visit soex.org or theintersection.org.