Another invitation to Loutopia

The Raft of the Lotus Roots, French painter Théodore Géricault's famous painting (Raft of the Medusa) recreated using vegetables by Chinese artist Ju Duoqi.

An invitation to Loutopia

Grant Barnhart is a painter who is exploring the idea of "too much." His painting is about spectacle, excess, and America (clearly that is a train I can get on board)

I like his use of cliche I am also a fan of his paint handling... he is combining many different ways of applying paint in a fresh way- stenciling, dripping, airbrush, old fashioned "painterly" quality, etc. There is an exuberance in his paintings that I don't find in the installations as much. I think I am clearly biased towards the paint. However, the self-contained "world" of a painting might be better suited to his over the top thesis than a self-contained corner of the gallery in his installation. Go big or go home message translates better in painting (as least over the internet.)

Fun with food!

Thanks Brooke and Chris at Proud Larry's for the pizza and Katherine for the cake!

Preaching to the choir

Pricing your work is one of the hardest part of being an
artist.

One of the best ways- I have found is to pay yourself for
time and materials. You could figure out how many hours you
have spent on the piece. Some will triple the price of
materials. I would never price something original (painting-
not a print) for less than $100. The more you sell, the
easier to price...

I would err on the side of too much... art is the only true
"free market." It is only worth what someone is willing to
pay for it.

On a more cynical note, the skull image is a work by Damien Hirst proving that a greedy artist is a rich one. He used $20 million dollars in materials and the reported asking price was $100 million.

introducing... The Nut House

I have been working on this painting all semester. I am so ready to see it done-- maybe Thanksgiving break.

It has been slow... partly because of the wild and crazy semester, but also it has a ton of browns. I miss real color.