Bloggers are always making lame Top-n lists.  I’ve always thought it was a cop-out to writing actual content, but I decided I’d try my hand at it.  So here goes nothing!  This is the list of my five favorite artists (well, the one’s with nice websites at least).

This list is written in no particular order.  I guess if you want to be technical, it’s more of a set than a list.  Also, I’m no art critic or anything and I’m not trying to be.  I’ll just try and explain why I like each artist as best as I can.

Alex Pardee – EYESUCK INK

I first encountered Alex Pardee when I was in Portland.  After me and Alix were swindled for two dollars by a large black man, we were left with a card advertisement for a gallery Alex Pardee put together titled “Self Portraits of Other People That I Drew by Myself Pretty Much. “  The idea to me seemed interesting, but we had missed the exhibit, so we went to the website instead.

I find his art absolutely exhilarating.  It’s surreal, colorful, and at times a little scary.  A lot of the work he does involves taking those cute little characters you always see graffiti artists working on, and putting them in grotesque situations.   The color choices alone are worth a look.

Eduardo Recife – Misprinted Type

Misprinted Type is the personal portfolio website of Eduardo Recife.   He also has a commercial portfolio, which was actually the original way I found out about his works.  I discovered his art as I discover most things, on StumbleUpon.

Apparently, he originally created the website to publish his fonts, but it has since blossomed into something truly amazing.  Most of his work seems to be these seriously awesome collages, which have a pretty vintage feel to them.  Reminds me of the kind of stuff produced by dada artists, and we all know how much I love dada.

Iwona Stephanczuk

I originally found her work floating around on some other website, with a link to her portfolio at the bottom of the page.  To this day, I can’t remember what the original website was, but I really liked her art, so I checked it out, and was amazed.

Her art is extremely colorful, and I am a fan of colors.  Conceptually, the paintings she does are simply incredible.  She really has a mastery for laying elements together.  She incorporates a lot of faces into her paintings, and even in the paintings without faces, brings life to almost everything.  Her style is something I would really like to pick up on a little in my own painting.

Mary Capan – Mary’s Art Gallery

Mary appears to operate an art gallery as a self-represented artist.  She sells her paintings through the website and also on eBay.  Many of her pieces span multiple canvases.  If I had the money, I feel like I would definitely want one of these pieces hanging in my living room.  It would really set the mood a little better than our current decor.

Anyways, her art is rather abstract, incorporating some pretty mellow color choices.  I think that her main focus is on textures, as the textures in some of the paintings seem really exciting.  Again, she is an artist that I would really like to see influence my work.

Blu

Blu’s identity is rather obscured.  I am not sure exactly who, or what Blu is, but it is my understanding that Blu is some kind of prolific German graffiti artist.  I first encountered Blu a couple years ago, when I saw Muto, which is a video done entirely in graffiti.  It’s something really very awesome.

I recommend exploring the Blu website, and especially take a look at the drawings.  Blu’s style of drawing is very intriguing to me.  It’s a little awkward, but at the same time, the way everything is put together and the conceptual elements of the drawings intrigue me.  Check ‘em out.

This is a followup paintint to Attempt at Abstraction.  I have decided hands-down that this is not my style of painting.

Something about attempting to make the edges pop just doesn’t seem natural.  Seems like I’m trying to do in paint what I can do in Adobe Illustrator 100x better.  I forgot why I started painting in the first place.

If you even want to see it full (doubt it) click

I was planning on doing more to it, but in the end deemed it unworthy.  Maybe someday when I have the necessary skill, I will revisit it… but I doubt it.

This was the result of our first ever official paint jam.

We began by eating a couple sandwiches in the car while parked in the driveway.  We then proceeded to set up all the materials: paints, brushes, frisbee, and of course, the canvas.  We then got our watermelon and had it.  The end-result, shown below (click for full-size):

I know, you’re impressed.  Prints are available, $500.  Make checks payable to Kevin Mother Fuckin Dolan.

Collaborators: Kevin Dolan, Jaime Fanzo, Michael Mast, Michael Sharps, and Chris Trepagnier.

This is, as the name indicates, my first attempt at abstraction.  I bought some flat brushes and I wanted to make big bold sections of color.

I started without any particular plan, but quickly found myself less and less happy with it as I went on.  Overall, I’d say it’s a failure as a painting, but a success in that I am slowly learning more about controling my brushes, colors, and painting in general.

I’d call this one more of an exercise in control than a real attempt at abstraction.  I think I will continue to try painting in this style, to see what comes out.  I still have two more canvas panels.

See it BIG.

Whatever  it means to you: everything goes in circles.

Well I finally made it to the point where I’m considering learning how to paint, instead of just painting.  So I went online, and took the advice of some e-art-classes and decided to begin practicing painting spheres.

I painted the spheres in order, from right-to-left, top-to-bottom, so you can see my development (for better or worse) as time went on.  For the record, however, I spent approximately 30 minutes on the first circle and just 5 on the last, so there was definitely some improvement in my ability to paint spheres quickly.

My biggest concern was with the shadows.  In general, I imagined light shining a different direction for many of the spheres, so they aren’t all consistent, but this was intentional.  On the other hand, even if you look at each sphere individually, the shadows look strange.  Ah well.

I think it’s a good job for my third solo painting.

See it BIG!

To quote my good friend Ariyan Basu, “Painting is neat.”

So I just flew in from my Portland, OR trip with a head full of ideas.  The next ten years seem just so promising and I have a newfound sense of freedom.

That being said, I’m staying with Ariyan in NJ for a couple days and then driving home and moving into the new place.  Yen is also here, visiting.

We were trying to think of something interesting/productive to do not, and we were at a loss.  Aside from watching another episode of  Drop Dead Diva, we decided it might be interesting to get some paints and check that shit out.

So we bought some real cheap combo-pack type stuff.  We then proceeded to eat a couple peaches, play two episodes of Planet Earth simultaneously on mute while listening to some traditional Persian/Indian music, and just start painting.

The result: pure genius.  We’ve all decided to drop out of school and become full-time painters.  Sure, the bohemian lifestyle has its pitfalls, but to quote my good friend Ariyan, “Painting’s neat!”