Tag: contemporary art

S_V_H Under Pressure image 1

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

underPressure_1What I have here for you, is Under Pressure a Classic Rock song recorded by the group Queen along with David Bowie.  This is the first image of this artwork.  What you see is me putting down some paint, to get this project rolling.  What I like about this first image is that I have roughed in some stripping, something I have not done in the past.  This is interesting, and totally without any logic, purpose, or plan beyond I like blue paint,  and that the strips add contrast to whatever I am up to.

The painting consists of three panels with a height of about 25 1/2 inches, by about forty-six inches in length.  Here is the music.  This video, which confused me at first,  is actually a mix of two different live events,  one staring Freddie Mercury from the band Queen, and the other , a tribute concert for Freddie Mercury featuring, in pale green, David Bowie.

I must say I have not appreciated the music of either of these two rock stars, beyond the hits.  I believe the only album I owned by David Bowie called Reality that dates from 2003.  My favorite song is Bring Me the Disco King.  Here is a live performance:

Trying to get a better feel for the music of David Bowie I found this live performance of Ashes to Ashes.  In this video Bowie kinda has that Robert Palmer look:

I may find more videos for I am on a path of serendipity discovery of the music of both Queen and Bowie.

 

Scott Von Holzen

 

 

 

 

 

 

S_V_H It’s so hard to say Goodbye Final Image

Published on by Scott Von Holzen1 Comment

itSoHard_FinalImageIt’s so hard to say Goodbye was hard to paint, and I must say I am glad to say goodbye to this artwork. This project stretched out over a month starting before the Holidays, and ending in the middle of January.  My original idea was to pay tribute to those of our family that past in 2015, and this artwork ended up being an experiment in woodworking, and attaching wood to canvas in interesting ways. Now, I do not know what I have here.  Fortunately Time may help me understand what the final meaning of this painting will be in my eyes and those of the viewer.

In the way I handled the color in this artwork I see a similarity to the recently completed Embraceable you. My reasoning for using solid coloring for the music flow cam from my use of so much wood.  I ended up spending a lot of time producing all the custom wood pieces for this music.  My thinking then became that by keeping the coloring simpler this would be a simple, clean look,  and help save time.  Although, I still ended up going three weeks over my goal, I would say much of that spent time was for reasons not related to this Art.

I like the use of the wood, because of its thickness accomplishes an important goal of mine to improve the depth of an artwork, which it does,  far better than  applying paint in coats.  Of course,  I saw a lot of thick paint in the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh, and I did take a long look at the work of Gerhard Richter, but heavily applied paint at best became a layering technique for me, because thick paint reminds me too much of past abstract musical art, the antithesis of what this Art stands for.

Bottom line, It’s so hard to say Goodbye, is an experimental and transitional artwork, in the use of wood add-on pieces in different ways.

Of interest,  I received this on the 15th from WordPress:

wordpress

I must say blogging this Art into my sixth year has been educational, difficult, demanding, frustrating, tiring, worrisome, and most important a wonderful tool for documenting the real purpose for starting this blog.  I still have much more blogging to do. Vincent Van Gogh wrote 903 letters, and this post will be my 447.

Without any doubt, I know that the best is yet to come.

Scott Von Holzen

 

S_V_H It’s so hard to say Goodbye image 4

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

itSoHard_5The title of this artwork is,  It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye. This artwork, to my surprise, has gone from a  2015 closure piece to an experimental artwork.  For the first time all the music you see in the above image  I made from painted wood that rises at different levels above the background. I did not expect to be using this many pieces of wood in this work, but as the artwork progress using more wood seemed like the right thing to do. So that you can get a better feel for the why I used all of this wood here is another image that is an angled shot.

itSoHard_5b I wanted this artwork to interrupt this  sentence from the music, “And I’ll take with me the memories to be my sunshine after the rain.” That is the part of this music that sums up my feeling to all the events that occurred in 2015.  What I did not want to have is a long painting. This work measures over 52 inches in length, and at this time, I wanted to keep my artworks around that four-foot range.  In order to make that happen I discovered that I needed to find some way to compress the music flow. I could not do that on either end canvases, because  that is where the words will appear, and I considered the two end canvases the most important, with plenty of interest so I wanted their  look to be well done. That then left the middle of this music, where the interest is even more plentiful,  but lack words.  By switching to the little squares, instead of the circle to represent the music, I am treating this area of the artwork in a less formal way.  The results are that I am maintaining the flow, and  general look, but by simplifying and closing up the spacing in this middle canvas, I have saved space and time to complete.

Next up I have some final pieces of musical interest to add either in paint or in wood. Since I want to get this work done so I can start my 2016 paintings, I will have to make my decisions, probably based on what can be done that will have a nice look, but does not consume a lot of time to complete. This artwork has a start date of December 13th, so I can see why I am getting a little antsy to bring it to a close.

Scott Von Holzen