Baconstein Triptych

Monster, Bride of the Monster and The Monster meets Abbott and Costello

In the spirit of Halloween, I thought I’d repost my own set of Monsters

The idea for this triptych was born many years ago on the back pages of a sketchbook. It started with two names written beside one another: Francis Bacon and Roy Lichtenstein. It was a very simple procedure and in a matter of seconds I conceived a monster. Frankenstein was the quintessential postmodern mash-up assembled using the parts of many to redefine the whole and Baconstein would be born of the same stuff.

The concept of combining multiple art styles is not a new one. Lichtenstein himself started early in his career by appropriating comic strips and then later on tackling luminaries like Leger, Monet and Picasso. His artistic style helped redefine their conceptual content. Bacon had referenced Muybridge and Velasquez.

Both artists listed on the back page of my sketchbook have remarkable style and technique, although, their approach couldn’t be further from one another in how they depict reality. Lichtenstein painted in a very mechanical way; rendering flesh in a uniform manner, adopting the print technique of benday dots. Bacon, on the other hand, rendered flesh by splaying it open and using paint as a visceral instrument. The two seemed perfect for one another.

The two paintings I chose to use are from early in the artists’ careers, before they both reached their mature styles. Bacon’s “Painting” and Lichtenstein’s “Girl with Ball” are also close in size to one another and can both be found at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The final composition would be inspired by Bacon’s multiple use of the Triptych format. The first panel is the “The Monster”, then “The Bride of the Monster” and finally taking the Frankenstein reference to its extremity “Abbott and Costello meet the Monster”.  Abbott and Costello could also be considered early pioneers of mashing up genres to create hybrid works.

The final piece is a digital painting using a computer and a tablet. It is an appropriation of traditional painting techniques, using multiple layers of transparent colour to build up volume. I avoided the use of filters and all images are hand drawn. This style of creating the work seemed appropriate to the content and in the end it was electricity that brought my monster to life.

When the Levee Breaks: Tablet Painting

When the Levee Breaks 2012

What’s in a Name?

untitled 2012

Here’s another tablet painting. I’m struggling with a title. Any suggestions would be very helpful, just leave them in the comments. Cheers.

Martha Griffith at Queen Gallery

As part of Scotia Bank’s Contact Photography Festival; Busby Barbie: an exhibition of photographs by Martha Griffith is on display at the Queen Gallery in downtown Toronto until May 23^rd. The photographs in the exhibit document a series of “soft graffiti” installations integrated into the landscaping of our urban environment along waterways and green spaces.

Griffith has a created an array of kaleidoscope-like patterned artifacts that are visually inspired by the work of legendary choreographer Busby Berkeley. Berkeley’s work was showcased in a series of musicals starting in the nineteen thirties. His signature style revolved around the placing of hundreds of chorus girls into meticulous geometric sequences usually shot from a bird’s eye view. Women were used as props to supply eye candy for the people of the depression era. In Griffith’s work the real life girls have been replaced by America’s favorite doll Barbie. She is perfectly suited to be in the chorus line; actually she is the entire chorus line. Griffith picks up on the fact that Barbie never exists in isolation; ask any girl if they have only one Barbie and the answer is a resounding “no!”  If placed head to toe beside one another, every Barbie doll (and friends) sold since her inception would circle the earth approximately seven times. Her patterned artifacts come in many forms including hand cut stencils, stickers, large plastic sails, woven strips of wood veneer and mirror like cut-outs.

The exhibition is accompanied with an example of one her large scale stickers. This gives a wonderful indication of her working process but it is the photographs themselves that command the space. Griffith has a wonderful sense of scale and colour. Many of the colours she uses come from the actual environment itself. Sprayed red clay pops on the background of a frozen creek, green moss acts as the pigment on an erased stencil piece, rubbed dandelions provide the colour for another and the light reflecting off a lyrical line created by a slow plotting snail all illustrate Griffith’s depth and variety with the handling of materials. The end results are both subtle and arresting. The photographs comment on the manipulation of our urban environment and surroundings as nature deals with our constant encroachment. This is especially evident in the work entitled Weave which shows a tree growing through a chain-link fence. The trunk has become distorted and woven into its surroundings.  Griffith illustrates that nature can’t easily be contained or neatly manicured unlike our little plastic friend.

Baconstein Triptych

Monster, Bride of the Monster and The Monster meets Abbott and Costello

The idea for this triptych was born many years ago on the back pages of a sketchbook. It started with two names written beside one another: Francis Bacon and Roy Lichtenstein. It was a very simple procedure and in a matter of seconds I conceived a monster. Frankenstein was the quintessential postmodern mash-up assembled using the parts of many to redefine the whole and Baconstein would be born of the same stuff.

The concept of combining multiple art styles is not a new one. Lichtenstein himself started early in his career by appropriating comic strips and then later on tackling luminaries like Leger, Monet and Picasso. His artistic style helped redefine their conceptual content. Bacon had referenced Muybridge and Velasquez.

Both artists listed on the back page of my sketchbook have remarkable style and technique, although, their approach couldn’t be further from one another in how they depict reality. Lichtenstein painted in a very mechanical way; rendering flesh in a uniform manner, adopting the print technique of benday dots. Bacon, on the other hand, rendered flesh by splaying it open and using paint as a visceral instrument. The two seemed perfect for one another.

The two paintings I chose to use are from early in the artists’ careers, before they both reached their mature styles. Bacon’s “Painting” and Lichtenstein’s “Girl with Ball” are also close in size to one another and can both be found at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The final composition would be inspired by Bacon’s multiple use of the Triptych format. The first panel is the “The Monster”, then “The Bride of the Monster” and finally taking the Frankenstein reference to its extremity “Abbott and Costello meet the Monster”.  Abbott and Costello could also be considered early pioneers of mashing up genres to create hybrid works.

The final piece is a digital painting using a computer and a tablet. It is an appropriation of traditional painting techniques, using multiple layers of transparent colour to build up volume. I avoided the use of filters and all images are hand drawn. This style of creating the work seemed appropriate to the content and in the end it was electricity that brought my monster to life.