Sci fi surrealism, rust monsters, and a few more unicorns.

Aside from working on a lot of oil paintings recently, and waiting for them to dry, I have a sort of unthemed mixed bag of things to share for the moment.

 Earlier this month I contributed a piece, "The Sea Corridor," for a greyscale art contest at Jerry's Artarama in Houston. I got a nice set of oil paints for my efforts, and the painting (18 x 24 inch on a gallery wrapped canvas) is taking up a big chunk of art closet real estate here now, in case anyone within driving distance of Houston is interested in making an offer on it. :) Blurry photo with glare courtesy of my perpetually poor lighting conditions and lack of a professional grade photo studio.

The "fish-owl" was inspired by a couple of lines in the book "Babylon" by Rene Crevel, and there are tiny little fishes budding off of the branches that were inspired by lines in "The Goose of Hermogenes" by Ithell Colquhoun, unless I'm getting my surrealist novels confused. I tried to put some of my favorite elements in this -- woods, corridors full of billowing curtains, gliding down a passageway like the famous scene in Jean Cocteau's "Beauty and the Beast"...just some things that I like, blended into a sort of collage.

I also have prints available of a colorful, surrealist-inspired painting I did a few years ago and kept in my personal collection. This is a 5 x 7 print for sale but I can also make 8 x 10 (or 9 x 12, even) on request.

"Beneath the Green Sky"

"The Lair of the Rust Monster"

On a completely different note, I'm slipping an 8 x 10 print of another of my "personal stash" paintings into the mix this week -- I love D&D module covers from the early 80s, which was my formative era. I liked the art more than anything else really, since I rarely got to play with other people. In fact, check back for a post about those soon. 

"The Shadow and the Candle"

Back to surrealism, this oil painting is also in my personal stash, just a stream-of-consciousness piece I did, of whatever came to mind at the moment that I wanted to see. Subconsciously inspired by my love of Leonora Carrington, in ways I can't quite put my finger on. I'm keeping the original of this, but 5 x 7 prints are available at the link above, and 8 x 10 can also be made on request.

Finally, I have prints up now of a couple of the unicorn paintings that I did last week.

"Beneath the Purple Unicorn Tree" 5 x 7 print

"Groovy Unicorn Room" 5 x 7 print

And soomehow when Easter rolled around I think I neglected to post this picture, that I did for the season. But really, aren't moonlit bunnies suitable year-round?

Thanks for looking, and I hope that my next update will be a little more focused, but really, what's so great about focus?

Haunted carnivals in the fog

Sometimes an image will linger with you for a while, and quietly percolate in the back of your mind as it shapes itself. About a year ago, a carnival was set up down the road in a bank parking lot. At this time of year, February/March, there tends to be a lot of fog at night, as the temperatures and humidity struggle to sort out the seasons, and what may seem like a nice evening for a stroll can quickly turn into one sliced through by biting wind, or muffled by thickening mist.

It goes without saying that a late night drive in the fog has an otherworldly, ethereal atmosphere. If you've watched enough horror movies it may seem as though a shambling figure might burst through the shifting mists, arms outstretched, clothed in shredded garments from the grave. Add an empty carnival in a parking lot and you begin to feel a little post-apocalyptic.

This isn't a tutorial but I wanted to show how experiences and viewing other works of art can act as inspiration, over time, as I started a foggy painting back on that night over a year ago but I never filled it in until recently.

"Carnival in the Fog" is available as a 9 x 12 original acrylic painting on Etsy
or by request as a print

There is something unspeakably haunting about an empty carnival at night. Countless horror films, and a few video games (I'm thinking of Silent Hill 3, since I haven't played any new games in the last 10 years) use this as a stage for creeping, lurking characters and creatures to stagger and slink from out of the fog.

You can tell that the colors are bright and festive, but they are muted and dampened by the darkness and oppressive, damp mist. Even the streetlights are diffused and distant, hovering like landing UFOs in the background. The machines of amusement are poised robot-like, painted clown colors and raised in threatening positions around the perimeter.

A ferris wheel could almost be a torture device, against this misty monotone, creaking in the dampness, swaying uncomfortably.

A pendulum cage hangs still and silent, painted with gaudy colors, waiting for daylight to bring it back to life.

In other words, it all puts me in the mood of a film like 1962's "Carnival of Souls," which speaks to this same surreal, nightmarish mindset, and captures a solitary, drifting journey through the horrific wonders of the abandoned pavilion.

That feeling of being lost, alone, disoriented, and in a dream state, is one that no romantic-minded person can resist when coming across a bleak, abandoned landscape.

In filling out my own thoughts and impressions, reflecting on my favorite scenes of abandoned amusement and surreality, images like these flashed through my mind, of lost and haggard figures, stumbling, emerging from swamps and lakes, hung with seaweed, moss or the clothes they were buried in.

Sometimes the threat is palpable, and discernible...

Sometimes a shadowy figure merely lurks in the doorway or at the edge of vision, and you can't be sure if it is friend, foe or a reflection.

I think I had my carousel in the fog looking at me for months as I wondered what to place around it. I thought about the photographs of abandoned amusement parks around the world, that I've come across online over the years, such as this one in Pripyat, Ukraine, that has been well-documented:

Photo from Wikipedia, public domain

While images of shattered carousel horses, grimacing clown faces, broken bumper cars and forgotten snack stands, festooned with popcorn garlands and tiny colorful flags and lights, were all appealing features to consider, at the end I just wanted a few balloons, and a couple of ambiguous figures. Like the shadows I see outside at night, moving around in the March fog, they could simply be fellow wanderers, or perhaps they are something much worse.

 

I hope your own experiences and viewing habits help to inform your personal expression and creativity, as we look around and within for inspiration in all manner of places, but strange and familiar.

A few colorful horror movie picks for Halloween

This week the Internet is knee-deep in Halloween horror movie lists, and TCM is running its annual marathon of classic horror, so the world is very much where I like it to be right now. I feel compelled to join in the list-making, but I don't have a definitive favorites list, really. If I was asked, I'd say my favorite horror film visually is "Shiver of the Vampires" by Jean Rollin and my favorite "serious" horror film is "The Shining," but any attempts to make a top ten list just fragments into endless sub-lists by genre.

What do I like? In a sentence: visually compelling 1960s and 1970s gothic horror with lots of color and psychedelic flourishes, and a great soundtrack. To be clear: things like plot and acting are not important to me. I don't need things to make sense. I just like the progression of haunting imagery from certain times and places, and the atmosphere these films create. Decrepit mansions, haunted castles, ruins, lush decadent interiors, gorgeous gowns, statuary and portraits, forbidden rituals. I do not think these films are "funny" or "cheesy." I love them deeply as moving works of psychedelic gothic art and I love the dream logic present in many of them.

Here is a random handful of a few colorful favorites of mine. I'm not going to try to write a plot synopsis or a review...not this moment, anyway. For me, just seeing a still image from one of these was enough to make me want to see it, so that is mostly what I'd like to share right now.

Curse of the Crimson Altar (The Crimson Cult) - 1968 

 This image right here is pretty much all I need to know, to want to see this. Barbara Steele is blue, and has a rams-head headdress? Why yes, I'd be interested in that.

And things just keep getting better. Christopher Lee is a reason to see any film, but the promise of occult rituals and masks in a film from the 1960s is irresistible. Not pictured, incidentally, Boris Karloff also appears in the film...his last film appearance, if I'm not mistaken.

Once you have people in animal masks, I am pretty much there. This film is supposedly based on HP Lovecraft's "Dreams in the Witch House," as it involves dreams of a witch cult, but the connection is pretty tenuous. Tigon released it, so if you enjoy British horror, this might be one you haven't seen before. It is on Youtube as "The Crimson Cult," which was how I initially saw it on late night cable, some years ago.

Vengeance of the Zombies / La rebelión de las muertas - 1973

One of the many fantastic Paul Naschy/León Klimovsky films. I'll just go ahead and append the imdb summary, as it gets the job done: "An Indian mystic uses magical chants to raise women from the dead, then sends them out to perform revenge killings for him." The main thing that I retain from my viewing of the film are Paul Naschy's bizarre roles here. First we have, well, the devil. And he plays the Indian mystic, of course, because...for whatever reason, movies did things like that in the early 1970s. It's worth suspending your disbelief, in this instance.

You also get these lovely ladies.

The film also had a jazzy score that seemed out of place, but added to the charm, if I recall. While "The Werewolf Vs. the Vampire Women" (aka Werewolf Shadow) is probably my favorite Paul Naschy film, this one made quite an impact on me as well and I need to go back and view it again.

Fascination - 1979

 My favorite director, Jean Rollin. It might be his best, although it's not my tippy-top favorite of his films (Shiver of the Vampires gets that distinction) or the most visually out of control (La Vampire Nue might be that one), this image, among many others, has made a lasting impression. It has one of the most fantastic movie posters of all time as well.

Set just after the turn of the last century, a group of women lure men into a fog-shrouded chateau and drink their blood, amidst lush, decadent and surreal surroundings. Trying to write one or two sentences about the complete aesthetic experience that is a Jean Rollin film, may be beyond my abilities, but Halloween would not be complete without a re-viewing of one of his films.

Murderous, bloodthirsty Victorian women in white, in a foggy chateau, or waltzing on a stone bridge to the tune of an old phonograph...Rollin is simply the master of atmosphere.

Messiah of Evil -1973

Another dreamlike film, this one American -- and for some reason it took me forever to get a DVD copy that didn't have a flaw that caused the film to stop a little over halfway through. Remembered perhaps most for its scene of zombies in an eerily empty supermarket, gnawing on meat, or filling in all of the rows in a movie theatre around a single living patron, one of my personal favorite things about the film is actually the weird setting in an artist's house full of pop art murals on the walls.

I called them zombies but they're not zombies the way we normally think of them. They are denizens of this strange town, under the malevolent influence of the Blood Moon.

Above, one of the interesting murals, this one on the bathroom wall. Whenever a horror movie has an artist as a part of the plot, it is extra interesting, because you have a chance to see some really interesting artwork. See also: Juan López Moctezuma's "Mary Mary Bloody Mary" which contains artwork by the surreal artist Rosa Rosenberg. Here is an example of her work....very grateful to that film for making me aware of her!

The Blood Rose - 1970

Let's make this a five-movie list and come back another day for some more. I haven't seen a lot of people talk about this film, but "La Rose écorchée" by Claude Mulot is as stunning and decadent as they come. Just look at this picture.

This scene is at a costume ball, but once you paint someone gold, you have my interest. The film is one of the genre wherein a mad doctor's wife is disfigured, and others have to die to restore her beauty. The madman in this case is a botanist/artist which is even better for my purposes, because that means we get: lots of plants and flowers, and a very arty environment.

 Oh yes, and you get these two guys...

And candelabras...

Oh so many nightgowns and candelabras.

This concludes my small attempt to capture a few images that inspire me from 1960s and 1970s horror films, though I would like to write a more proper summary and discussion of them other than "Oh my god there are so many candelabras in this movie, you HAVE to see it!"

But for a sampling of a few that probably aren't going to make the rounds on cable this year...look for these on Youtube, and some may still be available on DVD in some form or another.

Etsy Front Page!

Much to my surprise, one of my paintings showed up in an Etsy front page treasury today. I think this is only the third time this has happened! It's a painting that has been up for a couple of years -- a surreal circus scene, probably suitable for the misty humidity of late summer -- a surreal dreamscape of mixed memories of childhood and wistful nostalgia.

It is always pleasant when this happens. I should add that any of my paintings that I have for sale, which don't already have an option listing for a photographic print, can be made into prints. If the original size is 8 x 10 or larger, I can make a print that is 8 x 10. Otherwise they are all available as 5 x 7 upon request. This particular one can be made as an 8 x 10.

This painting recalls some recurring lifelong dreams I've had of exploring portions of New Jersey that only exist in my dreams. There was a place in Florence NJ for a long time where the Hunt Brothers Circus had their winter quarters. There was still some sort of a structure there when I was a child...my memory suggests something wooden that looked like a tent...but it is very foggy and dim. Perhaps there is a photo somewhere in my family photo boxes, as my dad was a professional photographer.

At any rate, I have a recurring dream of stumbling upon some sort of Weird NJ, out of the way forbidden circus ruin in the woods. Don't we all? 

Psychedelic Sunday

Maybe it's my proximity to the fantastic Menil Collection lately, a museum in Houston with a fantastic surrealism room, but I've been in a very surreal mood so far this year. It's really my favorite art movement -- that and the Symbolists, and the Pre-Raphaelites, but it's the one that I think stretches the furthest back and the deepest for me.

And on the other hand, I watched Yellow Submarine the other day, a lifetime favorite, but which I haven't seen in awhile. Stir in a healthy helping of going through a Bonzo Dog Doo-dah Band phase this week and you've got an interesting cocktail of images and ideas and weirdness to be swirling around right now.





So with that, I give you some recent paintings. "Lucy the Snail in Dessertland", above, was inspired by a little character that I saw several times in the background in Yellow Submarine, which was a snail with a colorful shell -- but I mistook the shell for a cupcake! I thought that was a nice idea though so I gave this snail a cupcake shell back.

I thought I'd take that idea a step further and make another mollusc into a dessert treat. I admit this is a little odd. I took what I think is an auger sea shell, the long pointy ones that look a bit like an ice cream cone, and made it into an ice cream cone animal underwater.



01.16 - edited to add one more painting, I might put him in a separate post too but I did him last night after completing this entry. It was kind of impossible to resist once I started doing molluscs with desserts. This one doesn't have a dessert as part of his structure though, he's just carrying the ice cream around, but I had to do it once the idea occurred to me!




On an unrelated note, I also completed a painting I've been wanting to do for awhile. My ghost bottles print has an extremely well-viewed and liked item and I took the idea of ghosts in bottles and transported them into lava lamps for this piece, "Spectrum of Psychedelic Spectres." The original ix 6 x 12 inches but I also made a print that is 8 x 10 inches on photo paper, and it has a wide border at the top and bottom to make up for the strange size.


Here is the painting (above)...


And here (again, above) is the print.


Some of the other things I've been messing around with are the surreal alien landscape paintings I did about three years ago (in January) and working on presenting them as prints. I don't think I ever gave this piece below a more complicated name than "Alien Moon" but it's one of my favorites. I kept the original but I have prints of this now available.



And finally, on the psychedelic theme, I uncovered this painting I did in 2010 and decided to bring it out to share, with some of the flora and fauna of the warmer climate that I am currently enjoying, with flowers known as firewheels (or Indian blanket flower) and passion flowers, as well as my little friends the lizards. I wound up calling it "Sunset in the Magic Garden" (below):



I am working on something for Valentine's Day right now and a few other odds and ends I need to scan or write up a little something about but it's a busy time for art right now -- and enjoying the nice weather and lack of snow, and later sunsets!

New art for the new year!

I didn't manage to get one of those "end of year" things going this year but I do have a "first of the new year" to share -- immersed as I am in surreal and psychedelic things lately I feel like doing some circus inspired art despite the fact that I have never been to a circus or particularly interested in them. But the images are stuck in my brain, so what can I do but obey! This is "Hydrangea" so-named because her three-headed snake is something like a hydra...and I like hydrangeas, the flowers. She seems very pretty, innocent and flower-like.

I don't think I've done a lot along these lines in the past (circus themes) -- here is the most prominent, "Night Circus in the Pine Barrens," still available on etsy:



I have several two-headed woman paintings that I will have to repaint in order to offer them as prints (the originals were done and sold before I had access to high-resolution scanning that would allow for print-making):




'Lili et Rosa" was something I painted about 10 years ago, maybe 9...I think I would definitely like to do a new version of this so I can offer her as a print.


And continuing that theme, another painting which I unfortunately didn't record the name for so I will have to come up with a new one!


Finally, one that I do have a print available for, since I think she has kind of circus or carnival atmosphere to her...


So that's where things are at right now. I'm watching a lot of colorful arty movies and reading some surrealist books so that should be fueling some more things in the months to come...and I am in no danger of seeing any snow right now so I guess I am well out of the winter art mindset already!