Art of eVan

I recently bought a new package of colored pens, and took them for a ride on a couple of simple, random drawings. This drawing is an example of that. The picture isn’t really much to speak of, but I wanted to see what the feedback might be on this avenue of expression.

A relative of mine already said it looked cheesy, but I actually enjoyed drawing this drawing and the other drawings I did recently with my new markers. I’d also made another hybrid off of this drawing for which I’ll post as well.

I just completed this new piece for my Micro-Chimerism series. This is the fourteenth version of this particular design. There isn’t any significance to that number that I consciously intended. It’s just that it took quite a few stages of metamorphosis to get to this satisfying version.

It reminds me of a painting on a cave wall, or like a design a Native American might paint on an animal’s hide. When I was drawing the design, I thought of how Buddhism teaches what is called the Eightfold Path. The paths Buddhism describes are supposed to lead to enlightenment.

Some of the square shapes surrounding the main ring in the design remind me of hammers. And the four circles on the outside of the main ring remind me of gears. This piece leads me in my associations into an abstraction of work and labor in society. Everything works like clockwork, and everyone is like a gear, and the hammer-like structures could symbolize the manual labor for which all modern cultures are founded on.

The philosopher Spinoza wrote about reason, and how to develop one’s reasoning abilities. He likened this process to starting real simple and basic, and advised one to build one’s reasoning from the most basic blocks of understanding into more complex structures.

Hammers and gears were developed from a more basic form of society and work, but they still are foundations that got humanity as a whole to where it’s at now.

This image has some associations with the idea of a big bang, and how scientists theorize how our known universe was born. I’m not sure if I totally agree with that simplistic understanding of our universe, but it still is a simple foundation from which more complex understandings can develop.

A hybrid vernissage…

This piece is titled “Worked Organic Fire” because I thought about how the bright colors of autumn leaves are mostly warm or hot colors. Colors such as yellow, orange and red are considered “warm” colors because of their associations with heat, fire, and the sun.

The warm colors in leaves, however, are organic, instead of emanating from basic, and elemental physical properties. So, hence the terms “organic” and “fire” in the title. Heat also can be used to perform work in so many different ways in our world simultaneously.

The fact that we are now at the end of Summer in this part of the world indicates the evidence that nature has been “worked” for the season, and is preparing to go into hibernation now.

I used some patterns from some Islamic mosaic designs in this piece, a picture of some autumn leaves, and nature pictures of branches and trees. Superimposed over these layers are a few of my own designs that I originally painted on my oil painting “The Fabric of Life.” Here’s a link of that painting for a comparison: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=646064855418813&set=a.216695921689044.60872.171452642880039&type=3&theater. You can also see The Fabric of Life here on this blog a few previous posts to this one.

There are many coincidences that came together in this image, and much of it was accomplished through experimentation and play. A lot of thoughts like “I wonder what would happen if I did this, instead of that”, and so forth went through my head in the process of creating this work of art.

This is the final painting I created of my Socratic Tree idea. I elaborated on much of this idea in the pastel drawing that preceded this painting. I made a couple sketches and drawings in preparation for this magnum opus.

It really is a magnum opus because it is the second biggest oil painting I’ve made thus far in my career as an artist. It’s 183 cm X 152.5 cm (or 72″ X 60″), so it is quite a large painting. It’s been in a couple of shows here in Albuquerque, so it has been seen. It just hasn’t been seen enough yet.

I completed The Socratic Tree back in 2003 right when the Bush administration was invading Iraq with the crafting of its lies about WMDs, and with the power of America’s desire to get revenge for the supposed attacks by terrorists on 9/11. I don’t want to get too political here, but this painting was a political expression at the time because I had no vocabulary to express the dissent I felt with respect to Washington’s rapacious policies.

Simultaneously, I had been listening to Art Bell’s radio show late at night in my grandparents’ basement during the cold winters in Nebraska, and he would sometimes have guests on talking about ghosts, ghost hunting, and EVP recording. The guests would sometimes discuss how children ghosts were often the most haunting.

This got me to thinking about all the lost souls, including children, who had their lives cut short because of governmental psychoses, or other reasons. I wanted to give all the children of misfortune in the realms of limbo surrounding earth a voice. So, naturally, I decided that their voices could be expressed through a painting of dissent against war.

I incorporated a lot of different media into this painting, including: bathroom caulk, pieces of cardboard, toilet paper, staples, some old cloth from a gunnie sack for flour, chips of old oil paint, acrylic, and a little bit of spackle mixed in with the acrylic caulk.

The caulk composes the main trunk of the tree. I did this to create a relief effect, while not using loads of oil paint to compose the body. It worked pretty well, and I was able to paint oil paint over the caulk.

Here are the left and the right sides positioned next to each other as a diptych. This is how I originally envisioned this project. I wanted to bring attention to the contrast of night and day, while unifying these times with a continuous landscape.

I hadn’t combined these two paintings together digitally up until now. I hope that the viewer can see the split in harmony, and the harmony in conflict. Being indoctrinated into a reality that relies on duality to survive, I made a creative project out of this perception.

It is a visual aphorism that speaks to the mind through an image that can transcend words. Without saying more, please enjoy!

This is the first drawing I ever made of The Socratic Tree. I didn’t title this drawing with that title originally, as I had not even considered a title for it. I made this drawing back in 1991 when I was first growing into an awakened awareness of what art really meant to me.

I had been experiencing some throes of depression and heartbreak over a girl I was infatuated with, so I made a few works of art pertaining to this sort of dark night depressive state.

I tried to put a crow in Times of Opposition–which also depicts The Socratic Tree on the left side of that diptych–but it blended in with the night sky too much, so you can’t see it. You can, however, see the crow here in this picture. I know that crows don’t fly at night, but moon is shining, so, perhaps the bird is a raven.