My DJ Buddy, DeeJay Sash

My buddy just started his new blog http://deejaysash.blogspot.com he plays the latest house music in different venues on St. Maarten like Holland House on Front Street, St. Maarten and Mooi restaurant at Puerta del Sol, in Simpson Bay, St. Maarten. He plays there upstairs in the lounge. You should check it out too.

Art book on the reality of the art world

I am reading an art book that I bought on Amazon.com called "How To Become a Famous Artist and Still Paint Pictures" by W. Joe Innis.

I randomly buy books like this for my general interest and maybe pick up an idea or two.

I always had my suspicions of the workings of the art business in terms of the amount of publicity certain artists get, the artists being accepted in the gallery or museum system and so forth. My suspicions were the existance of "Le Circle" that Joe Innis is referring to. The writer brings the true and harsh realities to light about the art business or "Le Circle". An artist can dream to be a full time painter, be represented by an art gallery, do exhibitions everywhere etc, but don't put your faith in the traditional system. You have to do it yourself and he has a couple of ideas on how to get there. The book is a very interesting read so far. I am not done with it yet. I greatly suggest this book to any artist though to get promotion and be successful in the arts. The link to the book is on the left.

My latest pop art painting "Innocence"

Here is a glimpse of the current work. It takes a lot of time to produce this work, certainly the collage took a good while. The risk for this type of painting is if you screw up painting over the collage work, well... there's no way to replace the collage by just painting over it. I like it the way it starts to look. Why I am painting this is explained in an earlier blog.

Older paintings in storage

The other day I was looking in my shack for a paint brush and some varnish. I came across some canvasses that where closely held together. I thought "hmm, interesting I have some more canvasses to paint on" But as a matter of fact, they already were painted, I had no idea - and did not even know what was painted on it. I checked, and indeed, some paintings I did a long time ago when I was living on the other side of the island. They are abstract paintings, I remember I did them on impulse and completely free hand, one-off. I remember the passion that went into it. The passion that some people are expecting to see in art. Curiously enough, when one day I was pitching my art pointing someone to check my website (to a so called art connoisseur) he thought my art (paintings) were lacking that passion and that this sort of paintings can only work in the USA. (I was pitching to someone in Belgium). I was a bit taken aback by their statement. Actually when I pitched my art to galleries in Bruges, Belgium and in art galleries in Knokke-Le Zoute (I was there on vacation) I would here the same thing. (I am always kind of pissed when I get back out from those galleries. Yes, I understand they have a business to run, expenses, marketing, shows etc, and they want to be somehow sure of the 'product' they have. But none of the galleries would even entertain the idea of me proposing to do even some sort of joint venture (read: share upfront costs of marketing). Anyway, back to the 'missing soul' in my works. I know what they are referring to: no shades, no highlights to create depth or 3 dimension. No visual brushstrokes, no paint splashes and no suggestive topic... Well yeah, that is my art. Representational, iconic, pop art. I like what I do, I like my style. When I have my camera handy, I'll take a picture from them. I think I remember that I did not want to expose those paintings as they have a completely different style than what I currently do and did not want to be known for that. I thought then that you 'have to work on a style' another starving artist myth.

Innocence painting - work in progress

In my previous post I described the idea behind this work and promised to upload some pictures of the work in progress. Today I finished with the sketch and then I projected on the canvas. Drew a rough outline, then started with the collage of the vintage magazine clips centered around women. You'll see how far I am at now. You'll also see the finished collage with the sketch projected over it. This work is far from done. Now I have to wait till it dries. I'm thinking now on the background color and whether I should do the dot pattern I always have in my work or not.

The current art work I am working on called “Innocence”

It has been said that the world once belonged to men and that that has now changed in this era. Male achievement was always recognized while occupations performed by women were regarded as less important.

Cultural differences between the eras of the 50’s & 60’s and now are enormous. The era of a view of women as passive sexual objects; as devoted mothers, and as dutiful wives. A world of subordinate standing.

Now, women are social actors. Women are now recognized as equal to, or even more powerful than men. Woman now (from what we can gather in advertising/the media (a reflection of the society?) is that she has to be gazed at. The woman now is slender & sophisticated and self confident in her obvious social prestige. I am wondering if this change is a good thing. ‘Everything women’ now is sexual suggestive and not really that “innocent”

This work is a sort of an ironic play portraying the earlier era of innocence and what society has come to now. I really wanted the female subject to be a bit more erotic/pornographic to make this point more shocking. But, on the contrary, I have left the female subject in this work completely “innocent” I guess I am playing along.

I am not sure if my writing above is clear and translates my opinion well. Just as the visual art, you can perceive it in your own way, which would ultimately be - perceiving yourself.

Pictures of progress following soon.
The work is a collage of advertising of the 50's and 60's represented as the skin of the woman depicted.

Paint on canvas or on board?

Why are we going through the diffulty of painting on canvas if we can also paint on a board? Board seems to be ideal, less preparation, nice and straight, no sagging canvas issues, you can rest your hand on it while painting etc etc. The advantages of painting on board seem to be endless. Yesterday I was on a site from a company that makes canvas stretcher frames. They say that canvas is the best to paint on for archiving issues. A board deteriorates... can crack & rotten; where the paint would chip off.

I really would like not to keep myself busy stretching canvas and making my own frames or prepping a board and just buy ready made canvas, but the sizes are not interesting and the cost is too high. Maybe when I get successful I wouldn't have to worry with it and have the canvas stretcher frames custom made. Damn! I just want to paint and be creative!