Artist of the Month-Marcel Duchamp

"I don't believe in art. I believe in artists."
M. Duchamp

More than anyone else the face of Modernist hatred seems to be focused primarily on Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968). I think this stems from a fundamental lack of knowledge and understanding, which is a shame, because his work is so accessible. Personally I love Duchamp. There's nothing to get. Its not about classical mythology or esoteric historical figures. His work is funny, self-deprecating and iconoclastic, qualities that I admire in any artist. Duchamp was the ultimate anti-art-artist. (Banksy and Warhol are amateurs compared to Duchamp). He went up against a centuries-old academy of stuffed shirt authorities with their Victorian salons and Gilded-Age aesthetics and tweaked their handle bar moustaches.

You gotta love Duchamp for the absolute punk he was. At a time of classical ateliers and Ecole de Beau Arts he was the first garage artist. Nothing was sacred to this guy. If it was classical or institutional he laughed at it, turned it upside down, drew a moustache on it and pissed on it. (literally and figuratively.) You don't have to like it. You're not supposed to like it. If you want nice, easy, likable pictures, look at Bouguereau, but if you want art that challenges, look at Duchamp. He was a crazy, Dada-Surreal, Steampunk, Mad-Scientist! The Einstein of the art world. Art became Relative. He wasn't saying that an upside down urinal is art, he is saying that ALL art is upside down urinals. 500 year old traditions of smearing colored mud on canvas with sticks is just as silly and random (or more) as bicycle wheels on stools. There is nothing intrinsically sacred or artistic about paint or marble, but rather the conceptual, creative process of the artist is where the value lies, and he reveals that with humor and sacrilegious glee. He was the first Concept Artist. If inspiring emotion is a prerequisite of art than Duchamp does it in spades. It is a hundred years later and he's still pissing people off. He makes every sophomore painting student scream in red faced wrath, "Its not Art!!" and Marcel just smiles from the grave and sardonically quips, "Exactly." For that alone Duchamp is awesome.

Enjoy.

WOC

at top:
Bicycle Wheel
1913 mixed media
Museum of Modern Art. New York

















Fountain
1917 porcelain and ink
Tate Gallery. London.

W.I.P. Dragonward

I have the opportunity to share a work in progress for a book cover that I'm painting. This is a pencil drawing and a grayscale rendering in photoshop to establish my values. The final will be in oil. I hope to share with you when its finished. I'm looking forward to working in oil for a client again. Its a lot slower but I like the process.

Once moving to paint my technique is a process of layers with some alla prima touches. I use glazes to enhance color and tone.

Enjoy.

WOC



"Dragonward"
12"x16" oil on paper
©2011 William O'Connor























































































©2011 William O'Connor Studios

Artist of the Month-Lucian Freud

Reflection (Self Portrait)
1985
oil on canvas

I would be remiss if I did not do an Artist of the Month of Lucian Freud (1922-2011), who passed away last month. Called the greatest English master painter since Gainsborough, Freud was by far the most famous and successful painter of the past generation and regarded as the painter laureate of Britain. For a generation every artist who has struggled to do alla prima life studies can thank Freud.

As a student in the 1940's and an emerging career through the 1970's Freud is remarkable for his stalwart resistance to abstract modern painting. Facing contemporary painters like Stella and Rothko in America, Freud painted unabashedly figurative portraits with classical oil techniques. The first response to his work is the surface of his paintings. Having been known to work on his portraits for thousands of hours, the surface of impasto, tonal brushwork is built up in thick layers until the paintings take on an almost sculptural quality bringing dimension and life to his work. The realist and candid compositions of his subjects creates a voyeuristic mood relating the model to the painter and then to the viewer. Looking into Freud's work for me is like looking into art history. I see Courbet and Rembrandt in his brushwork and palette, as well as Manet and Cezanne in his stark presentation of the figure. Freud's work is also reminiscent of some of his contemporaries such as Alice Neel, Chuck Close and Eric Fischl.




















Night Portrait
1978
oil on canvas


In the 1980's the advent of Post Modernism and the emergence of figurative art and Neo-Expressionism, made Freud extremely popular. He quickly rose to the top of the art world where his paintings remained big sellers for the rest of his life. In 2008 his 1996 painting Benefits Supervisor Sleeping (below) set a world record for a sale by a living painter, fetching almost $34 million, and in 2000 was commissioned to paint the portrait of Queen Elizabeth II.

In the past decade however, Freud's legacy has been debated. Was Freud a revolutionary painter who reinvented the medium of painting and the subject of portraiture? or was he merely an artist who's popularity exceeded his talent and spawned a thousand copy-cats? Only the perspective of time will tell. This debate always takes place with the death of a great artist who is great during his own lifetime. Picasso and Monet fared well, while others like Gerome and Bouguereau were cast aside. With his passing, Freud's place in the pantheon of the art history canon will be argued and discussed by much more learned academics than me.

Enjoy-

WOC
















Benefits Supervisor Sleeping
1995
oil on canvas






©2011 William O'Connor Studios

Mobilis in Mobili

"Mobilis in Mobili"
16"x20" oil on panel
©2011 William O'Connor


I have been working on an illustrated edition of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. This portrait of Captain Nemo began life as a study for a larger painting, but I thought I would share it. Trying to capture the dark and exotic aire of Nemo as he sends the capitol ships of the world's navies to the bottom of the ocean!

This painting will be on display at The World Science Fiction Convention in Reno Nevada in a couple of weeks.

I've got studies and schematics on the drawing board...hope to share more soon!

Enjoy.

WOC

2011/12 Convention Schedule

Greetings Friends and Fans.

I entered this year resolved to not do any conventions, preferring instead to stay close to home and work. Well we all know how plans go, and it turns out I'll be doing at least three this year, and 2012 is shaping out to be pretty full! I love to see my old friends and meet fans, so I'm looking forward to an exciting convention season. I hope to see a lot of you at one of the following venues.

World Science Fiction Convention (mail-in). Reno, NV. Aug.17-21, 2011
New York Comic Con. New York, NY. Oct.13-16, 2011
World Fantasy Convention. (mail-in) San Deigo, CA. Oct. 27-30, 2011
Illuxcon 4. Altoona PA. Nov.3-6. 2011, 2011
Boskone. Boston, MA. Feb. 17-19, 2012
Lunacon. Rye, NY. March 16-18, 2012
Big Apple Comic Con. New York, NY. May 19-20, 2012
World Science Fiction Convention (Chicon). Chicago, Il. Aug.30-Sept.3, 2012

Have a Great Summer Everyone!, and I'll see you soon.

WOC

Artist of the Month-Hasui

Being a traditionally trained American Art student, Asian Art never played an important part in my education. The Asian wing at the Met was merely a short cut to the Armor Room. I was familiar with Japanese art in as much as it influenced the Impressionists, and in my early work I illustrated extensively for AEG's Legend of the Five Rings.

In 2005 however, I was in Chicago and had the opportunity to see an exhibit of Japanese woodblock prints at the Art Institute. It was one of those formative experiences that you don't expect or look for, but changes the way you work for the rest of your life. Represented were Hiroshige, Hokusai and most importantly Hasui Kawase (1883-1957).

Directly influenced by his predecessors in the tradition of woodblock it was obvious that Hasui was also influenced by western modernism in his simplifying of forms, dramatic compositions and cinematic use of lighting. I was mezmorized by these alluring, beautiful and candid snapshots of an Asian landscape that straddled the 19th Century woodblock tradition and the 20th Century modernism.

Today Hasui's influence continues as evidenced by contemporary artists like Hayao Miyazaki (1941-present). Every time I watch Ponyo or Totoro with my daughter I see his influence, and his images are some of the few prints I have hanging in my home. I am glad that my daughter is being exposed to this amazing artist long before I ever was.

To view an extensive gallery of Hasui's work, and acquire one for yourself visit:

Hasui Print Gallery

Enjoy

WOC

Artist of the Month-Anselm Kiefer

Dark paths wandering through ancient forests haunted by ghosts, barren landscapes scourged by a thousand years of armies, echoing halls filled with the voices of un-remembered stories. Lord of the Rings?, Wagner?, Grimm's Fairy Tales?

There is probably no living artist who has influenced my work more than Anselm Kiefer. (b. 1945) Embodying the essence of Post-Modernist ideals Kiefer's work discarded the modernist concept that art should have no ties to the past and that traditional story telling and painting should be abandoned. Surrounded in my college years by teachers who were steadfast devotees of Modernism, Kiefer for me was an unparalleled inspiration. He not only made paintings, he made Huge paintings, about epic subjects. War, Death, Religion, History, all shrouded in the mythological context of his German heritage.

Kiefer's moody and titanic works appear like massive relics of some ancient ruin which still inform my work today. His use of found objects, raw materials and the layering of text and surface to create tonal mood is echoed every time I overlay a texture into my digital paintings, or create a custom brush. His reverence of mythology encouraged me to read the Norse myths and Authurian Legends which furthered my love of Fantasy and works of Tolkien. Although I know that his neo-expressionistic collages are depicting Germany's dark past, for me, whenever I look at his paintings I am equally reminded of Tolkien's bleak descriptions of Mirkwood, The Mines of Moria and Mordor.
Enjoy.

WOC

at top: Varus. 1976
oil and acrylic on burlap
Royal Museum of fine Arts, Antwerp















Shulamith. 1983
mixed media on canvas 114"x 145"
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)














Nuremburg. 1982
mixed media on canvas 110"x 149"
Private Collection, Los Angeles

POSTSCRIPT....
I assume that it is not by coincidence that the artists who designed The Ministry of Magic in the 2007 film Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix made the black-tiled walls look like Keifer's "Shulamith"...