News

In my studio with the book "Imagine the Imagination".

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been watching artists posting images of their copy of the book “Imagine The Imagination – New Visions of Surrealism”, that included their artwork, to various websites. I was becoming impatient to see the book as even a collector of mine had a copy of the book before myself. As of yesterday, the wait was finally over and the book arrived in the post.

The book is solid and the printing is of good quality. Many artists included in the book, I’ve come into contact with through the internet. And amongst those are some good friends. The book project started off on a DeviantArt.com surrealism group which includes artists from all over the world.

The photo which accompanies this article is of me with the book and the original painting “Something Fishy”, which is included in the book. Thank you to Paul Barnett for taking time out from his own painting to come up to my studio and shoot the photo for me.

Imagine the Imagination can be purchased from beinArt.org.

Imagine The Imagination - New Visions of Surrealism, availbe for purchase now!

I just received the great news that the book “Imagine The Imagination – New Visions of Surrealism”, in which my painting “Something Fishy” is now finally published and available for purchase.

The book aims to show the variety of contemporary surreal art including almost 100 works in different media: traditional painting and drawing, digital painting, fractals, photo manipulation, photography, mixed media, sculpture, traditional prints, and more. The collection will be classified in 3 groups: Visions, Dreams and Nightmares.

There is also discussion of a possible exhibition of the included artists, either at the Berlin or Poznan, Poland Abnormals Gallery. Some of my artist friends have also made it into the book. The artists included in the book are as follows:

Mr. Borda Danut Adrian, Reinhard Schmid, Jason Hopkins, Amy Kollar Anderson, Scott Façon, Andy Brady, Livia Alessandrini, Arif Bahtiar, Steve Smith, Terevet, Mariana Paola Urzua (Mariana Palova), Bogdan Zwir, Janelle McKain, Nicolas Tcherno-Ivanenko (Naiko), Bernard Dumaine, NoMe Edonna, Ehsan S. Azzuz, James I. Koehnline, Stepan Sergeevich Radibog (neonihil), Alessandro Fantini, Sal Hunter, Robert Steven Connett, Paul Flockhart, Lucian Stanculescu, Aleksander Marek Korman, Max Sauco, Manon Gosselin, David Whitlam, Szymon “Anapt” Siwak, Wojciech Grzanka, James Skelton Smith, Jon Jaylo, Véronique Portal (vic4u), Piotr Zygmunt, Babar Moghal, Christine Morren, Kris Kuksi, Leszek Kostuj, Ondrej Provaznik, Jussi Löf, Joe MacGown, Vladimir Moldavsky, Cenin von Catlien (Burcu Corbaci), Ben Drewry, Ingvild Nilsen, Otto Rapp, Joe Pimentel, Ian Anderson, Leo Plaw, Deborah Valentine, Barbara Wiewiórska, Jaros?aw Kubicki, Héctor Pineda, Gromyko Padilla Semper, Miguel Tio, R. L. Frisby, Adam Scott Miller, I. T. Hammar, Tassos Kouris, David Senecal, Joshua S. Levin, Anita Zofia Siuda (siudajSTEJ), Dan Wininger (Danger), Dariusz Skitek, Christian Exequiel Montoya Flores, Pete Hamilton, Mary J. Sheridan, Sebastian Baumer, Suzzan Blac, Gabriel Pürstinger, Ron Eady, Artur Piotr Grejner, Adam Pinson, Larissa Kulik, Paula Rosa, Brenton Bostwick, Jayakumar (Consciousspace), Aleksander Rymarowicz, Christian Edler (reality must die), Renaldo Renaldo (Rens Ink), Marc Dubord, Pedro De Kastro, Igor Siwanowicz (Blepharopsis), Michael Birnstingl, Jon Beinart, Joseph Larkin, Martin Jonsson, Ben Tolman, Ton Haring, Emily Ross, Amygdala-mars.

The book can be purchased from nEgoist.com.

Something Fishy – Oil on canvas, 90 x 120 cm, 2004

I am very pleased to announce the inclusion of my painting “Something Fishy” in the forthcoming book, “Imagine The Imagination – New Visions of Surrealism“. The book will include 100 works in different media, traditional painting and drawing, digital, photo manipulation, photography, mixed media, sculpture, traditional prints, and more. The collection will be classified in 3 groups, Visions, Dreams and Nightmares. It is expected that the book will be available by October.

The book draws its selection of artists from the Deviant Art group The Surreal Arts. The group has been active the last five years refining its direction and standards. Imagine the Imagination will be the Surreal Arts’ first publication and produced to commemorate their five years online.

To help manifest the project they have teamed up with nEgoist, an independent international group of people fascinated by new art. Their goal is to promote new art from all over the world, across the whole world. nEgoist began in 2008, then under the name of nEgo. A year ago, their activities centered around Polish new art, and now they’ve decided to devote themselves to the promotion of international new art.

The artwork selected for Imagine The Imagination – New Visions of Surrealism can viewed via the following links.

• Traditional Painting
  
• Traditional Drawing
  
• Digital Works
  
• Sculpture and Mixed Media
  
• Photography and Print
  

Invisible College – 5th edition

My artwork was recently featured in the publication Invisible College. It also includes a three page interview and my artwork on the front and back of the magazine. This is the fifth edition of the magazine. Previous editions have featured Marina Hoffmann, Roberto Venosa, Andrew Gonzalez and Maura Holden. Also included in this edition is the artwork of my good friend Amanda Sage. The magazine looks just fantastic. I had already purchased edition 4 which featured Maura and had been aware of the magazine for a while. So it was a great surprise and honour to be included.

Invisible College is a full colour magazine edited by Gwyllm Llwydd. In his own words:

“The Invisible College was born partly out the urge to communicate about the emerging cultural forces of our times, and to anchor these cultural groups into perspective within the continuum of the twin streams of the Bohemian & Acadian memes. The magazine came into being about 2.5 years ago.There seemed to be a serious gap in the magazine/journal world for publications that was tracking and recording what has been evolving in the world of arts and consciousness.

The motivation was to shake the tree a bit, and get the coconuts to start falling. What The Equinox did for London in the teens of the 20th century, and what the underground press did for the US, Europe, & Australia in the late 50’s through early 70’s, and what the zines did in the 80’s and 90’s, we wanted to do for the new century. We were motivated by the examples of Mondo 2000, The Oracle, Oz, the publishing of Little Caesar Magazine & Press… and many more publications that stimulated vast creative changes in society.

We wanted to present art, poetry, tales, interviews and reviews in such a way to lift consciousness, and to engage the reader to consider alternatives to the current cultural systems that have now peaked and are now in decline. As artist and poets have been in the forefront of the various struggles and movements in society from time out of mind, journals and magazines in recent centuries have become an important part of the documenting process and have served as a focal point and organizing organ of the various aspects of what seems to be transpiring in current times.

The Invisible College evolved out of Earthrites.org and my blog, Earthrites.org/turfing. There was a prototype magazine being developed on ER, and Turfing was/is a running social and arts commentary blog. Someone… Roberto Venosa, or maybe Martina Hoffman or maybe Mike Crowley suggested that I consider doing a pdf magazine. After 2 issues of that, we went into printing via Lulu.com. It came out rather rapidly at first, and now has slowed down a bit. We are going to keep going with the print on demand situation until we can find funding to print. We have had some amazing artist, poets and writers grace the pages of The Invisible College… You can go to the Invisible College web page for the PDF versions or order a printed copy of The Invisible College from Lulu.com.

People’s reactions have generally very good. Some people want the online version in html. I understand that pdf’s are a pain, but it is absolutely free via pdf… The printed version gets rave reviews. It is pretty intensive visually. We are in the process of starting a publishing house, for poets, artist and malcontents, dreamers and drummers of various stripes. Here is to the r/evolution in your consciousness, where ever you may be.”

Ütersener Nachricten Zeitung

Time to finally write about exhibition opening in Barmstedt at Galerie III with Anja Brinkmann and Micha Krebs. The show went off nicely with a slew of articles in the local press. I arrived a couple of days early to be present when some of the journalists were due to visit. The gallery’s location is very picturesque, being situated on a small island on a lake. This and a number of historical buildings attract day visitors from Hamburg ensuring that that the gallery has a steady stream of visitors.

When I arrived I found the gallerist, Karin Weissenbacher, who is also an artist busy sculpting in her studio which is down the hall from the gallery. Karin had done a wonderful job of hanging our works by nicely balancing our individual styles across the rooms.

Since I was the only one of we three present, I had to meet and greet the media alone. It was a little difficult to explain Anja and Micha’s artwork, but perhaps more so my own as I had ensconced myself in my studio for half a year and talked to few people about my artwork.  While I know my own feelings and thoughts about my artwork, having to articulate these ideas on the spot to journalists required some creative thinking.

However, over the next days we discovered scant mention of anything I said in the press, but rather a rehash of the basic details sent out in the press releases. Ah well, so much for the 15 minutes of fame. At least my photo was in the papers.

The day of the opening arrived. A number of the local politicians were present with one of them giving us an introduction. It was pleasing to hear that he had dug through my website to find out a little background information to help with his speech. Micha was extremely nervous leading up to his speech but he did admirably well.

Present also was a long time internet contact, Dennis Konstantin, who lives in Hamburg with his girlfriend Natalia. They had both come out Barmstedt for the exhibition. It was our first personal meeting and we had much to discuss. I agreed to visit him at his studio the next day.

The exhibition finished well and we all had a very entertaining time with Karin and her housemates.

Dreamscapes 2009 – The Best of Imaginary Realism

The new Dreamscape book has been released and I travelled to Amsterdam for the book launch and exhibition. The new Dreamscapes 2009 book represents 52 artists working in imaginary realism from around the world and has 164 pages in full color. As always, the print quality is from the highest level.

My friend Ella Buzo from Cabinodd was one of the organizers for the exhibition. She was working with Marcel Salome the publisher and director of the project. It was Marcel who greeted me first as I entered the door to the exhibition. He said he recognized me from images on the internet and welcomed me warmly. And so it was throughout the evening, finally meeting people who were until that time were no more than a data stream on my computer or perhaps images in a book. Meeting all of these artists certainly was one of the things that attracted me to the event, but more overly it was a chance to see a little bit of Fantastic art history in the making.

The book is the third in the Dreamscapes series. I have the two previous Dreamscape books. The project has continued to grow in strength and mature. A large hall was rented to accomodate all of the works for the exhibition. It looked impressive. Dreamscape unites art movements like magic realism, fantastic realism and surrealism under the collective name Imaginary Realism and brings them with various projects to the worldwide and well deserved attention.

I struggled to look at all of the artwork in detail as much of the evening was spent meeting people. What I did see was of superb quality. Amongst the new faces were one or two that I already knew, such as Brigid Marlin, Igor Grechanyk and Rardy Van Soest.

Many artists had brought books and catalogues to give away or swap. I am very pleased to say that I collected a number of them myself, including a copy of Dreamscapes presented to me by Marcel himself. I had also brought my copy of Jon Beinart’s Metamorphosis book along to gather a few more signatures.

Ella Buzo, Marcel Salome, myself at the Dreamscapes Exhibition, Amsterdam

With so many artists to talk to time was quickly gone and the exhibition opening came to an end. However we all made our way over to a boat restaurant. Brigid called me over to join her table, with Steven Kenny, Rene Zwaga, his wife and Rardy Van Soest. Again time passed quickly and people eventually made their way home.

Many artists had made long journeys to attend, some longer than mine from Berlin to Amsterdam. The journey was well worth the effort to meet the artists and see their artwork. I hope we see many more such events to come.

Participating artists:
Michael Parkes · Lukas Kandl · Bruno Di Maio · Gerard Di Maccio · Herman Smorenburg · Michael Cheval · Ans Markus · Bodi · Fabrizio Riccardi · Victoria Francisco · Imke Meester · Richard van der Koppel · Jake Baddeley · Bas Sebus · Jolanda Richter · Ray Donley · Gabriela Garza-Padilla Adam Rote · Daniel Merriam · David Bowers · Gabriel Meiring · Igor Grechanyk · Jean Thomassen · Kinuko Y. Craft · Micha Lobi · Michael Hiep · Olivier Zapelli · Patricia van Lubeck · Paul Jaarsma · Reinhard Schmid · Rene Zwaga · Shiori Matsumoto · Siegfried Zademack · Steven Kenny · Wim Kuenen · Zeljko Djurovic · Christophe Vacher · Sjaak Kieft · Helene Terlien · Ton Haring · Peter Gric · Sergei Aparin · Viktor Safonkin · Yu Sugawara · Iurie Matei · Boris Shapiro · Tomasz Kopera · Michael Maschka · Imke Meester

For more information about the exhibition and the new Dreamscapes book visit:
www.imaginaryrealism.com

Chet Zar at Strychnin Gallery, London.

I seem to recall attending another Strychnin Gallery opening previously on Friday the 13th. However on this occassion I was there to see Chet Zar’s exhibition “Ugly American”. Arriving early I had a chance to take in all of the exhibition and meet a few people, including the artist himself.

I found Chet to be a very warm, open and friendly soul. He’s nothing like his paintings. As he puts it, his intent with his paintings is to reflect back the ugliness he sees around himself in Los Angeles. He’s worked extensively in the movie industry. He had found it rewarding, but now is very happy to progressing to a life as a full time painter, as he did not enjoy the ugly side of Hollywood. This I surmize has given him endless inspiration for his artwork.

I whipped out a copy of Metamorphosis for him to sign for Jon Beinart and myself. My bag went home a little heavier as I also purchased a catalogue of Chet’s artwork. There was also a hard bound limited edition, but this was a little beyond my budget for the moment.

Laurie Lipton who will also be exhibiting with Strychnin Gallery again in Berlin, also attended the opening. So it was a very social evening talking to the artists, other guests, Yasha Young (the gallery owner) and her lovely staff.

Some of Chet's paintings at the Strychnin exhibition.

Chet’s artwork glowed, although the themes were monsters. He indicated that the colour theme was different to what he usually works with. He went on to explain that he was inspired by a dream with incredibly luminescent colours. It is always interesting seeing the real personality of a painting. The layering, brush strokes, technique, all of the things that are lost in four colour process printing or a digital image on a website. The image is always flattened. It was therefore a real joy to see the detail and masterful layering of Chet’s original artwork.

The night lengthened with the conversations, and eventually closing time arrived. Having already been engaged in a number of stimulating conversations, Chet, his friends, myself and mine, all trooped off to a local bar in the Truman Brewery around the corner. This lasted for one drink, until a bright spark pointed out that there were lonely beers waiting for us back at the gallery.

With a less distracting atmosphere, we settled on the gallery floor until the early hours of the morning for further existential and philosophical discussions.

We all eventually parted ways, leaving Chet to bed down in the guest room at the gallery, and ourselves to seek our repose. Did we all dream of monsters that night, or of the comrade in paint?

You can see Chet’s works for yourself at Strychnin Gallery London, 65 Hanbury Street, London E1 5J, UK.

Photos by Iris Bitter of Strychnin Gallery.

My good friend Peter Gric has
released a catalogue of 55 paintings from 1990 to 2008. I was very honoured that he sent me a copy of his catalogue. We had been discussing Print on Demand (POD) as an option for getting our artwork in to print.

While the catalogue is not an offset print coffee table book, I find it good, as did other artists, Brigid Marlin and Laurie Lipton. I think Peter's bold move has been a source of inspiration for others.

I have an earlier catalogue from Peter and I am very pleased to have this latest one in my collection as it shows the range of themes he has worked with up until now.

The catalogue
format is 21 × 29cm, paperback, with 68 digitally printed pages. The
Catalogue can be ordered via the Lulu Marketplace and costs €20.

Like most artists, I dream of seeing my artwork in print and better still that being a book. After watching Jon Beinart go through the motions of publishing "Metamorphosis" (which I am in) I have feeling for the reality of it. There was some serious financial outlay to produce the book, which puts this sort of activity out of the reach of most people.

But then there's on demand printing. With the advent of digital printing, it became viable to do short print runs. Traditional offset printing is still the most cost effective for high volume runs or 500 or more.

The internet has made the ease of getting your idea to print even greater. There are now a number of companies, such as Lulu.com and Blurb.com which allow you upload the files for your book through their website. They then print your book and post it out to you. Both also offer online store facilities to sell your publication through

Both offer templates for those of us who are not professional layout artists. But that said, it still makes a world of difference if you enlist the help of some one who has skills in those directions. Book formats vary from soft covers to hardback and in set size ranges

Charley Parker on Lines and Colors has a more detailed view of on demand book printing

C. B. Newham makes very detailed comparisons between the largest online print on demand pubishers.

Deconstructing Roy Lichtenstein by Charlie Parker

On Lines and Colors I found a post about Roy Lichtenstein by Charlie Parker. Now I did a small amount of study on Lichtenstein for my high school art, and of course have seen him reproduced in numerous modern art books. I never gave a thought to where Lichtenstein sourced his images from. I had assumed that he created them. Rather it is the opposite. Apparently he plagiarised the images from existing artworks with out even crediting the original artists. Now here comes the insult. Because the original art was “comic book” (ahem, graphic novel as we call it today) it was never considered artwork by the art snobs anyway, Lichtenstein then “elevates” it to the level of art, all with out due credit.

The original article points out that there is now a book which shows you all of the original sources that Lichtenstein lifted “his” artwork from.

I must say I view Lichtenstein in another light now, and that being rather dim.