Directly from the Red Planet /
Underpainting or what they used to call dead coloring paying attention to the line.
Put everything on the canvas in ochre and meanwhile figuring out how to build out different surfaces. In oil I use the mass of the paint to build out rocks, here I want to use transparent glazes because they look more 3d dimensional in acrylics.
It's counter intuitive to use subsurface scattering for rocks but I want to paint jewels encrusted gold rather than dirt and stone.
Intuitive machines’ Odysseus lander looks really beautiful in space, like a space flower /
Rocky Planet Painting /
I study rocks rather than paint them, I just put paint on top of what I've learned /
And yes, I do use a ruler, it's my cheese bucket.
There is (possibly, hopefully) a squirrel in the attic /
Whenever I make art I make sure it measures up to the best I've seen at the Met, and has to answer the most important questions /
The question number one is why, is it meaningful, is it meaningful to me enough to get the fuck out of bed to do it and to keep me up at night.
Question number two is it archival, does it have the capacity to be around for 500 years.
The third question is, will it be compelling enough once I'm long dead for somebody to pick it up and keep it around.
How the fuck do I know what looks good? Of course I know, I go to where the best art in the world hangs, I look at it, and do the same and better.
I don't know what looks good objectively. But I do know what looks good subjectively. So the fourth question is does it look good? Does the composition work? Do the colors work? If I'm no longer around to vouch for it will anyone else find anything beautiful about it?
Often times I have to work with bad materials like acrylic paints but I do know that if I use pigments that have been around for say 2000 years that no matter what they are suspended in, they will work after 500 years just the same.
People think that artists work with paints, fuck no.
I work on my art in my mind and it's done long before I start doing it.
I always laugh when the tech bros start making art, they love having AI do it cuz they don't want to take responsibility for bad art. One of the things AI doesn't know though is how to do the wrong things and break the rules. A beautiful line is always a mistake, a fluke.
Also art has nothing to do with coloring and actually colorist was used as a derogatory name. It's all about the design, the disegno. The disegno of every single line in the painting.
I'm not painting dirt but jewels encrusted gold /
Imagine humanity’s collective efforts at useless likes and views - we could invent time travel instead /
Guess which planet /
I know some favor Prada but I like shopping at the dollar store /
Tonight I marvel at the treasures of European painting at the Met. Literally makes me dizzy /
I can't live without beauty, everything else I can pretty much live without.
I marvel at the treasures of European painting at the Met.
The astonishing beauty of art.
I've been missing European painting at The Met so much it almost hurt. Now I'm reminded why.
2100 years old Roman Wall paintings from Pompei, below.
New York City is my teacher on the human condition, you can't really study it at school /
And of course art, art and museums and galleries are an enormous part of New York City and that's why although it's a total and utter shithole it's still worth it.
MoMA the museum of modern art has turned into a citadel of Polit Think /
MoMA the museum of modern art has turned into a citadel of Polit Think.
Wait a minute, I recognize this thought police landscape, wherever you turn it's the same directed thoughts.
I grew up during communism and dictatorship, I could recognize totalitarian think from a mile away.
Systematic algorithmic suppression of free speech. Systematic algorithmic dehumanization of society. Automatic algorithmic monopolization and synchronization of thought. The Fourth Reich /
Systematic algorithmic suppression of free speech.
Systematic algorithmic dehumanization of society.
Automatic algorithmic monopolization and synchronization of thought.
I call this the Fourth Reich.
Nothing to do with Germany of course but the dehumanization of society through corporate speech. Corporations are not people and do not have the inherent kindness of human beings. Their speech left unchecked via algorithmic proliferation creates the environment where human beings become less than the sum of their parts.
The Fourth Reich - the proliferation of social media videos where tech bras finger point at homeless people. A disgrace for the human race. /
The proliferation of social media videos where tech bras finger point at homeless people. A disgrace for the human race.
I know exactly what I'm talking about because I spent 10 years in Silicon Valley and still worship the brains that operate and create in silicon valley.
Why these perfect smart human beings have become the Fourth Reich?
The only reason for this in my opinion is the isolationist nature of the California car culture. If you are in the car and only interface with its interior rather than human beings you become a creature who sees the world through the windshield.
Take a fucking walk.
Every time I see a tech bra point a finger at a homeless person, I'm like they've become so attached to the algorithm that they can't see the forest for the trees. Glutton for a GPU.
And I'm reminded why poverty is rampant in Oakland and East Palo Alto. Because the tech bras don't want to face their humanity and mortality. So they point to it and giggle.
I call this the Fourth Reich.