Erik's Work
Dan Fox
I finally have a few minutes to really look at your work. Taking notes in
Word while looking at the site ….
The Tripoli etching remains my favorite. It is so original that it's
difficult to talk about, because there are few comparisons. I like the use
of the border-frame. Does this mean that there are two semiotic boundaries?
The figures can be interpreted as children or dolls; I think you said they
were dolls. I see them more as symbolizing killing and destruction. The
central image is arresting and very well composed. The tracer lines add
movement, and the bright explosion and road image bring the viewer from the
front to the rear. I found my eyes going from the frame image to the main
image and back; this prevents the work from having full visual unity, but
that may have been your intent. It is the image I can't get out of my head
- always a good sign!
Maize Maya strongly reminds me of etchings of the past centuries, with a
modernistic touch in the distortion of the figure and the surrealistic
elements.
Ghost Crabs has a Dali feel to it, but not in an imitative way. I'm a
sucker for isolated, alienated landscapes and city scenes - love those
surrealistic works with the empty city square and harsh sunlight. I'd like
to see this piece done as a painting, with full color, etc. Again, I think
the frame detracts a bit from visual unity.
Virtual construction is lots of fun - the color and detail are fantastic,
and you've avoided boredom by creating variety in the blue polygons and the
organic shapes beneath them - counterpointed by the identical blown-glass
shapes at the left. The solid, three-dimensional feel is stunning (you seem
to have a predilection for stone-like 3-d imagery!). I see a lot of work
like this that doesn't succeed because the artist feels he or she can do it
quick and dirty and produce something worthwhile. This is so different from
anything I've seen that I have a funny reaction - I like it but don't
really know why (not that I need to).
I think that Chlorofossil is less successful. The value of the green plant
forms is too close to that of the background to have a strong impact; the
background also seems quite indefinite - as though it couldn't quite make
up its mind what it was. Also, I'm not sure about the combination of the
organic forms and the more abstract background. A lot of this is personal
preference, of course.
I liked the verso of this piece (how'd you do that?), Imhotep, a lot. Of
course, it's closer to the kind of stuff I do - a more solid, painterly
background with drawing overlaid. I think the accurate drawing really makes
it.
Little Bang Theory had an interesting effect on me. I like it more and more
as I keep looking; always a good sign. The rich colors, big value swings,
and the repeated central image help to make this image work, in my opinion.
I can see this one as really, really big - on a wall featured in
Architectural Digest!
Greens, Various, finds you getting looser with the tools. I have a personal
bias toward this sort of painterly work, so I have to be careful in talking
about it. I think the main form and the lined background are jarring and
don't work well together and prevent pictorial unity. I'm going to save it
and see what it looks like with that background cropped out - and what
various pieces of it look like. (Remember when we had to do all that by
hand, with the actual piece!!) I think this piece could be a killer.
Concourse du Tarantulas - wow! Looks like you're hitting your stride. Very
painterly,I like it a lot as a landscape. What is the timeline of these
pieces? There seems to be a lot of development from the first to the last.
Very original and varied work. I can't possibly do it justice In a single
post. Thanks for letting me look at it, Erik.
--
Dan
'The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.' - Blake
www.danfoxart.com
Erik A. Mattila
Dan Fox wrote:
> Erik -
>
> I finally have a few minutes to really look at your work. Taking notes in
> Word while looking at the site ….
>
> The Tripoli etching remains my favorite. It is so original that it's
> difficult to talk about, because there are few comparisons. I like the use
> of the border-frame. Does this mean that there are two semiotic boundaries?
> The figures can be interpreted as children or dolls; I think you said they
> were dolls. I see them more as symbolizing killing and destruction. The
> central image is arresting and very well composed. The tracer lines add
> movement, and the bright explosion and road image bring the viewer from the
> front to the rear. I found my eyes going from the frame image to the main
> image and back; this prevents the work from having full visual unity, but
> that may have been your intent. It is the image I can't get out of my head
> - always a good sign!
A good 'sign' as in "sign, signified and signifier?" I had a remarkable
experience once - I awoke from a dream into another dream, and then I awoke
for that dream into yet another, and then I awoke to this...is it a dream?
During this dreaming I was acutely aware that I was dreaming. I think ever
since I liked pictures within pictures. It's not my idea -- but I'm
remembering those Asian scroll paintings, the image mounted on a decorative
sheet. I suppose there are many examples. So if Tripoli only existed as the
TV image, how would it stand? As it stands, the TV Image is within an
ideological image - a thought about a spectacle sort ot thing. But you know,
in planning the work, much consideration was given to the 'decorative.' I saw
an exhibit once of early Soviet products (1918- 1925) and there were these
textiles that from a distance, when seen as design, they were stunning. On
close inspection the design elements were tractors, pipe-wrenches and
screwdrivers. Remarkable.
> Maize Maya strongly reminds me of etchings of the past centuries, with a
> modernistic touch in the distortion of the figure and the surrealistic
> elements.
What surrealistic elements? The background is composed of "Kan" glyphs,
meaning 'plenty.' The corn plant is taken from the stylization in Mayan art.
This print evolved from a logo I did for a group of refugee Guatemalan Mayans
in the early eighties. "Maiz Maya" was going to be their organazational
name. But they eventually realized that if they went public with an
organization of political refugees, the Guatemalan government would retaliate
by murdering family members back home, so the plan was abandoned. What I
really found to be very beautiful was their insistance that 'corn' and
'people' are the same thing. Without corn, there would be no people. And
corn is a rare plant that cannot reproduce itself naturally -- it must be
cultivated my humans to exist.
> Ghost Crabs has a Dali feel to it, but not in an imitative way. I'm a
> sucker for isolated, alienated landscapes and city scenes - love those
> surrealistic works with the empty city square and harsh sunlight. I'd like
> to see this piece done as a painting, with full color, etc. Again, I think
> the frame detracts a bit from visual unity.
That's a very provocative point. I'll have to think about that. Do you
remember the Les McCann Ltd. song "...trying to make it real...compared to
what?" It may be nothing more than the intrusion of literature into drawing.
> Virtual construction is lots of fun - the color and detail are fantastic,
> and you've avoided boredom by creating variety in the blue polygons and the
> organic shapes beneath them - counterpointed by the identical blown-glass
> shapes at the left. The solid, three-dimensional feel is stunning (you seem
> to have a predilection for stone-like 3-d imagery!). I see a lot of work
> like this that doesn't succeed because the artist feels he or she can do it
> quick and dirty and produce something worthwhile. This is so different from
> anything I've seen that I have a funny reaction - I like it but don't
> really know why (not that I need to).
I do love the sentient surface, illusory or otherwise. The jades I did on the
front page or www.impix.com were built from scratch. I found this wonderful
photoshop shareware filter called "Fractal Noise" that resides in the "Noise"
folder. Applied to a layer, it creates wonderful fractal patterns (one of
four types) in a tranparent grey-scale. I build up several layers and color
them greens, blues, yellows, the adjust the transparencies of each layer, or
move them around, until I get a very believable stone texture. You can use
them straight in Photoshop works, or you can save them as pict files and used
them for image maps in 3d applications. It's like being God, I think,
creating these things.
>
>
> I think that Chlorofossil is less successful. The value of the green plant
> forms is too close to that of the background to have a strong impact; the
> background also seems quite indefinite - as though it couldn't quite make
> up its mind what it was. Also, I'm not sure about the combination of the
> organic forms and the more abstract background. A lot of this is personal
> preference, of course.
Of course. Fortunately, these cyberlpaintings can be easily destroyed without
become toxic waste problems.
> I liked the verso of this piece (how'd you do that?), Imhotep, a lot. Of
> course, it's closer to the kind of stuff I do - a more solid, painterly
> background with drawing overlaid. I think the accurate drawing really makes
> it.
Well, if you look behind your computer while viewing the 'recto' image, you'll
see for yourself. What do you mean by 'accurate drawing.' I have friends
who swear by graphic tablets, but I've tried them and the shock is too great.
To make a mark in one place with a metaphorical pencil and have it appear
somewhere else is profoundly disturbing. I like the strangeness of drawing
with a mouse. Hey, that's an idea. Why not tie actual mice on a stick in
lieu of a paint brush. If they stay alive, you'll get a certain amount of
authorship from them.
> Little Bang Theory had an interesting effect on me. I like it more and more
> as I keep looking; always a good sign. The rich colors, big value swings,
> and the repeated central image help to make this image work, in my opinion.
> I can see this one as really, really big - on a wall featured in
> Architectural Digest!
>
> Greens, Various, finds you getting looser with the tools. I have a personal
> bias toward this sort of painterly work, so I have to be careful in talking
> about it. I think the main form and the lined background are jarring and
> don't work well together and prevent pictorial unity. I'm going to save it
> and see what it looks like with that background cropped out - and what
> various pieces of it look like. (Remember when we had to do all that by
> hand, with the actual piece!!) I think this piece could be a killer.
You know, I actually switched programs. The first three were done with
Photoshop, but begining with Little Bang I used Fractal Painter. Have you
ever used Painter? It's really designed to simulate the look of traditional
art materials and tools.
> Concourse du Tarantulas - wow! Looks like you're hitting your stride. Very
> painterly,I like it a lot as a landscape. What is the timeline of these
> pieces? There seems to be a lot of development from the first to the last.
My only intention was to showcase Naples Yellow, which I have found to be the
most mysterious pigment I've ever encountered. I even would buy Naples Yellow
in water-color tubes and use it with acrylic medium in acrylic pigments, since
I haven't found an acrylic color that can approach its mystery. (how could
such a dull color glow). Well, it degenerated into a landscape, obviously --
and here I was trying to be abstract. (I should have rotated the image).
Anyway, all these were done in about six days. If you will remember my
original query, it was how to 'connect' with a problem in abstract painting to
a degree it would sustain my interest to create a 'body." I'm not there by a
long shot. I just lose interest. But thinking about figure/field problems is
good -- thanks for your critique.
Erik
Kay
Erik,
I enjoyed looking at the rest of your site and enjoyed the inclusion of
titles, if only as a reference point, but I won't critique your work here
since I already have and my opinion is pretty much the same. Good stuff.
Kay
"Do you know what he needs? Two or three shock treatments,"
Mary George said. "Get that artist business right out of his head once
and for all." (from "An Enduring Chill" by Flannery O'Connor)