Bellevue Landscapes

All paintings are oil on canvas panel, 9" x 12" These are part of the Bellevue Landscape set on Flickr - Slideshow

Leave the Work Alone

Let's set the background.


Andre Lepecki:

What dramaturgy as practice proposes is the discovery that it is the work itself that has its own sovereign, performative desires, wishes, and commands. It is the work that owns its own authorial force.

This seemingly fairy-tale description of creation was once made clear for me by Alexander Kelly. Whenever working on a piece, there is always a point where the question that takes over the process is: What does the work want?

But here's another question: Why? Why is it the work's work?
After all, beyond a question of "ethics" (Lepecki uses the term), it is hard to justify why something being made by an artist should not obey the artist's ideas, needs and desires.

The most superficial answer is, because it works. A work needs coherence, as in, it needs to be a work to be a work, and the focus on the work's identity allows to be more effective and less prone to the artist's varying ideas, humor and temper. If the work wants it, there is little you can do but obey it. Consequently, you will think twice before introducing a foreign element. The piece needs to fit in the piece, not you.

Which brings us to another level. The work, here, becomes master. This means the artist is working for "someone else", and his burden is smaller. "Don't blame me - blame the work".

But also, this means the artist does not really "create". He "executes". Which is a comfortable movement towards the neo-platonian idealism we know best from Michelangelo. There is something, an idea, hidden in that matter (be it solid matter, movement or words), and the task is only to dig into it.

The above creates an important advantage for the worker: he can suspend his disbelief. For the duration of the work, he can be a believer, no matter how much doubt he has in regards to his own work. He is now free to move in whatever direction is necessary to deliver this being. And once delivered, he can complain. He can even complain while delivering it. But this, here, is the job, and one has to do whatever it takes to complete it.

All this is very nice, but most of the time, the work sucks. Most of the time, even those who claim to do the work's work make an impressive quantity of uninteresting, though certainly in a way uncompromising projects.
How do we deal with it?
Or, to put it more bluntly, who's to blame?
If in the beginning, "no one (except for the piece itself in its atemporal consistency) knows what it will be", than how are we to analyze its failure? Where are we to look for its sources?

Then there is the other scary option: the work doesn't suck. It works. Only it says something else than I do. The dream dreams another dream - which is not mine. How dare it! How dare it speak in my stead! How dare it take my moral will into the immoral pit hole, or the other way around, turning my cynical irony into a moralist's sword? How dare it ignore all the work I've put into being who I am? I do not want this thing which is not mine. I want it somewhere else, let it grow somewhere else, let the cancer move to another soul, I am cured, I tell you, I am at peace and no pro-ject can take that away from me. Consider me to be the PR manager for the daimonion, I might do what it pleases, but I am somewhere else, you will not find me here, the artist cries. I have worked hard to sell my soul, now please, do not let it keep on being mine.

Magazine Art - GW Review Fall 2011 Issue

Three of my paintings are being displayed in the GW Review for their fall 2011 issue.
GW Review is George Washington University's nationally recognized literary review publication.
GW Review website




Strangers, Oil on canvas, 24" 30"



Abbey, Oil on canvas panel, 22" 28"



Seattle AsiaTown - Temple, Oil on canvas, 36" 24"

Ford Festiva Crushed Art Car - Still life with stone and car

Festiva Crushed Art Car - Still life with stone and car

"Still life with stone and car", was created by Arkansas-born and Berlin-based artist  Jimmie Durham who dropped a mammoth 3 ton rock onto an unsuspecting 1999 Ford Festiva hatchback rock art car.

They used a crane to hoist, then drop the rock onto to the art carand then it was moved to final resting place, a roundabout in Walsh Bay Sidney, Australia for an outdoor sculpture display in 2004.

In the article I read it says that he and he wife went looking for the prefect art car for sale at a local car dealership. They went looking for a small sedan - or possibly a hatchback, preferably Australian-made, and definitely red; somewhere between $5000 and $10,000, and capable of supporting a two-ton rock dropped on its roof. Can you imagine the look on the car salesmen face on the last point but after some negotiating, eventually agreed to sell the car for $7800.

Here is what the artist had to say about his work:

"Like most of my recent work, this piece is concerned with monuments and monumentality, but also with 'nature'; that implacable hard stuff. In the first instance I am using the stone as a tool; to change the shape of an object. But I also, as usual, want to make stone more light, more moveable, even if it is in a fairly horrible way - like a road accident.. I do not think the piece is humorous; even though it turns out to be. The kind of face painted on the real version will, of course, depend upon the shape of the stone, but it will in any case be placid, and neither 'realistic' nor cartoon-like. To my way of thinking if the stone is simply a stone without a face it becomes a gesture but with the face painted on it, the work develops a strange narrative. "

I think they got rocking good deal on this ford festiva

Festiva Crushed Art Car - Still life with stone and car

Festiva Crushed Art Car - Still life with stone and car

Festiva Crushed Art Car - Still life with stone and car

via smh photos via madwips

3 Cars + 3 Artist + 3 Skaters??? = The 3 Chevy Sonic Urban Art Car Series

3 Cars + 3 Artist + 3 Skaters??? = The 3 Chevy Sonic Urban Art Car Series

What do you get when you have 3 Cars + 3 Artist + 3 Skaters??? Obviously you have the Chevy Sonic Urban Art Cars Series. But if you ask me I don't really know how the math works out on this one especially when you add three skates into the mix but the folks over at Chevy know something I don't.

Not to be out done by Avis Art Cars, Chevy commissioned three artists to paint their new Chevy Sonics as part of their Urban Art Series. The series was sponsored by Chevy to bring together artists of different mediums. More specifically they paired urban skaters with visual artists to give the "fuel efficient" Chevy Sonic an urban art makeover that would let the car feel more "coooooomfortable" in urban settings.

In Part One the Chevy Sonic got the once over by Queens, New York, artist Alice Mizrachi who was paired up with pro skateboarders Rodney Torres and Eli Reed. Here is what we got, a Chevy with a cityscape wrapped around the car with Flushing Meadows Unisphere in Queens on the hood.

Chevy Sonic Urban Art Car Part 1

Chevy Sonic Urban Art Car Part 1

In Part Two Brooklyn tattoo artist John Reardon to put down some fresh ink on a Chevy Sonic, inspired by Queens, NY native Luis Tolentino showing off his skateboarding skills. The sonic got a complete flame job with skulls called "death" and the good part, the car didn't feel a thing.

Chevy Sonic Urban Art Car Part 2

Chevy Sonic Urban Art Car Part 2

In Part three LA Artist EnikOne throw down some amazing artwork on this brand new unsuspecting Chevy Sonic, featuring a design inspired by skater Keelan Dadd. EnikOne is a diverse multidisciplinary artist who has found the balance between graffiti, street art, graphic design techniques and the use of screen printing and stencil methods that allow him to make multiple copys of his work.

Chevy Sonic Urban Art Car Part 3

EnikOne Chevy Sonic Urban Art Car Central Part 3

EnikOne Chevy Sonic Urban Art Car Central Part 3

Mutant Vehicle of the Week

An the Mutant Vehicle of the week, goes to this Mad Max beauty from Burning Man 2000 taken by photographer Aneel Nazaret. Welcome to Art Car Central.

Photos via Aneel Nazareth - Copyright 2000-2011 - Images used with permission

Avis Getting into the Art Car Business - By Artist Dea Vectorink

Avis Art Car by Artist Dea Vectorink - Art Car Central

Avis Car Rental in United Kingdom for the first time has unveiled its exclusive art car available now for rent and one Alfa Romeo car you really don't want to trash.

Their art cars were created as part of a European-wide Facebook competition run by Avis to encourage members of the public to design their own art car.

There were more than 1,000 entries from across six European countries including the UK and the winner was Andrea-Victoria Halbroth aka Dea Vectorink (pictured above), an illustrator and tattoo apprentice who was born in London and currently living in Germany.

Her art car design will join two other art cars designed by Si Scott and French born animation expert McBess, creating the first ever public art cars to be available across Europe.

Avis is the first car rental company to join the art car movement, embodying the postmodernist philosophy that anyone can be an artist.

Recognized to have started in the 1960s and 1970s, the Art Car movement has recently seen a huge revival with high profile car manufacturers and artists getting involved like Art Car Central did back in 2007.

via breaking travel news
 

Avis Art Car by Artist Dea Vectorink - Art Car Central

Avis Art Car by Artist Dea Vectorink - Art Car Central

Avis Art Car by Artist Dea Vectorink - Art Car Central

Avis Art Car by Artist Dea Vectorink - Art Car Central

photos via DeadLens