Artist Research Part 2

Antonio Russo

Antonio's vibrant abstract expressionist works come from the creative mind of a truly liberated artist who works on the principle that imagination is more important than knowledge; knowledge is limited, imagination is endless. It was mainly the natural world, which inspired him - flowers, rocks, sand and water - with their innate beauty, free flowing lines and lack of formality or symmetry. These two influences have combined in artwork of great visual power and emotional impact. Antonio describes his work as abstract expressionism, as he expresses his mood and emotions through the very act of applying the paint to the canvas in response to pieces of music; his influences and inspirations range from classic rock to modern day rap. He comes to his blank canvas with no preconceptions in an attempt to create freely with no boundaries, no rules, no judgement and most of all, no fear. The vibrancy Russo used throughout his work is what intrigued me; he is partially the inspiration for my work being so graphic and bright. I feel the more expressionistic and colourful a piece of artwork is, the more likely it will catch the attention of the viewer and stay with them.

Steven Campbell

Steven Campbell is a contemporary painter, working on a large scale, depicting bulky figures with an outlandish look in peculiar settings. This fantasy world he has created bears a strong influence over my work, especially my collaborative pieces. Like my work, Campbell’s has a strong post-modernist context, in keeping with the mood of the times, where knowledge was seen as dependant on historical circumstance. The world Campbell created made no rational sense, although it had a perverse logic. In my work, I take a variety of visual imagery and combine that with a graphic, abstract colour palette and style, giving the post-modernist context, connecting my work to Campbell’s. His characters roam across the countryside setting and become embroiled in bizarre, nonsensical occurrences. Beasts and men compete in a hostile garden environment, performing strange rituals which defy nature’s logic. This narrative that goes hand in hand with Campbell’s paintings is what I attempted to put into my work. Even if the myth was foreign to the viewer, their imagination would take over, picturing great battles and adventure. Campbell’s paintings constantly question the way we see and represent the world, they are about the impossibility of fixing knowledge. Although there is an obvious delight in the use of paint and kaleidoscopic colour in these works, the joy is just as evident in the improvised nature of the dramatic events they represent. While experimenting with painting Norse Gods, I painted in a more dramatic and abstract way, influenced by this quote, painting straight onto the paper without planning. Due to this, these Gods appear to have more expressionistic and dynamic presence, like Campbell’s scenes. I attempted to create a more atmospheric piece by placing a creature into a scene, as I had not yet started to add detailed backgrounds. This also created a freeze frame-like effect, as if the Hydra was moving through the Cathedral. Despite not directly taking from popular and well known mythological stories, Campbell had the most fundamental aspect needed throughout his work, by questioning what is real and what fantasy is.

Paul Noble

Noble is most known for his 15-year monumental drawing project, Nobson Newton, in which the artist acted as social engineer, architect, and archaeologist to produce an imaginary city that has been called an, “impassioned satire of Britain's new towns.” Noble's dark, meticulous vision—including aspects of bestiality, cannibalism, decapitation, and other horrors among its dense detail—alludes to such diverse sources as ancient Chinese scrolls, military cartography, Fabergé eggs, and the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. He was raised on the northeast coast of England, and this has conditioned his aesthetic. He thinks like the flat, grey skies of wintery Whitley Bay - tonally. He uses very hard pencils, very rarely softer than 4H. Noble’s work is most relevant to my tattoo design illustrations, the intense detail is a good inspiration, and however his style is not what I am aiming for.

Paul Morrison

Morrison is characterized by monochromatic botanical visions. These boldly rendered gardens and landscapes are magnified, distorted, and cartoon-like, appearing through various mediums in paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, and film. Morrison consciously shifts scales and takes inspiration from timeworn engravings, botanical illustrations, comics, animations, and found images. As a result, Morrison’s work reminds me of Alice in Wonderland. I enjoy how Morrison’s work remains bold and eye catching without the need of colour, the harsh black lines convey enough detail.