Will not escape

in-studio vanity

It's been over a month since my last post... for shame.

whats been up? I'm making a scroll... it's currently 15 feet long (hopefully it will reach ≈ 4oft) featuring a time-traveling afropunk band in Meiji era Japan. Just thought I'd document some inspiration photos:

prostitutes at yoshiwara

badass movie still...

sick topknot and tats

and something i've been obsessed with lately:

These ridiculously badass yukata from Tsukikageya.
Good god. All I want for Christmas is a suitably pouty expression and the white leopard print one. Fresh. To. Death.

Conceptualize THIS, you punks.

What's on the plate this time? Just spending too much time in the VES department, I think that I am perhaps a little overexposed to contemporary conceptual art... sometimes we just want something real, beautiful, complicated in a different way. And what's more complicated than a good male nude (or semi-nude). Here's just a little to get your heART back where it should be.

A couple Saint Sebastians:

My favorite by Odilon Redon, so beautiful and so luminous...

Superdrama - Regnier Nicolas
Botticelli (It's not my favorite, I just think that expression is priceless)

¡¡¡¡Warning!!!! The next picture acknowledges that men have genitalia!!!
AVERT YOUR EYES IF YOU ARE TOO YOUNG TO HANDLE A WEE-WEE.

The New Adam, 1962, Harold Stevenson
It's so monumental, it's just about perfect.

I don't really know why but I think its about oversaturation, so many artists have done the voluptuous, vulnerable naked-lady shdig... also, why not admire the male body in a non-submissive, excellent way?

Weirdbeard the Great and Terrible

Those closest to me know my deepest fears. These are not fears of the slippery tentacles of death or the blunt gnashing teeth of hippopotamuses/hippopotami. Rather, one of my deepest fears, is that of the alienation, the totally life destroying phenomena of...

female facial hair.

My greatest fear? It's spontaneously growing a beard.

Illustrated in the Style of Hashiguchi Goyo... but much less beautiful.

Also, note feathered headbands, by yours truly.

What I've been up to...

Just a couple paintings from this semester:

Gummy bears glued to a paper-wrapped column.

...still life of toys and various cultural artifacts

Still life of moose antlers, antelope skull, and my mother's necklace

Crappy figure painting of Max and Cripple-Me-Elmo

Painting of Barbie Geisha, Tattoo Lace, and Drag Queen

Painting of the execution of Philippine hero, Jose Rizal

To Bob Ross With Love - Gym Class Heroes

Hello Inspirator

Leslie Holt, Leslie Holt.... I swear that I know that name from somewhere. In any case she's a really wonderful artist that I've just come across. As an artist myself I always choose a brightly colored narrative perspective and something in her work feels just as narrative but without being as literal. Art is nothing without a story to tell and Leslie's tiny paintings (often 6" x 6") really push something out of her as well as out of these standard (and sometimes stuffy) masterpieces. Thats really something. I am never troubled by whether or not something in art is new or innovative, only whether the idea itself is worth the expression.

It feels like an easy game of Where's Waldo, yes, but theres something to be said about the (oh God I can't believe I'm going to use this word) juxtaposition of the classic and definitely art pieces and the questionable artistic merit of the Sanrio product. But then you just shove those feelings aside and enjoy the way Hello Kitty brightens up everything... even La Guernica.

Her website.
"Leslie Holt’s recent work includes several series of paintings that weave inter-related experiences-- including her experiences growing up with a mentally ill family member, pop culture and famous works of art. Leslie’s work often displays an unsettling intersection of childhood and the adult world. Leslie’s work has been exhibited throughout the United States and has been featured at the Aqua Miami Art Fair and Scope Hamptons."

I wouldnt mind seeing this series with landry or keroppi too.

Dalliance in New York

I did have a bit of fun in NYC this past weekend.
We toured the MoMA and argued the artistic merit of "Modern" (yet not Contemporary) artists:

of course, I had a mongoose mackerel of a time looking at my favorite works in the flesh... or canvas as it were.
For instance .. there was Miro...

...odilon redon.... rousseau...

...picasso.....klimt...

And as we came to the Rothkos I forced my brothers to split themselves Freud-style --- id, ego, superego and all that jazz...

goofed around, like a naked Matisse.

"oofed" around a bit too.

and one outfit pic to round it off:
theres no lioncoveringcamera so its not proper, but you know I had to: