“Lynia” is my first and so far only sculpture. It is dated circa 1978 maybe 1979, I would have only been 22 or 23 years old. I sculpted it at the Free Academy Psychopolis in The Hague, Holland. It was a marvelous school, no teachers! They had models everyday, all day, and they had facilities for printmaking, sculpture, and life drawing sessions. I did this as an exploration to see if I could do it. Even today, I think “wow, this is really good look at that ear!” Even more remarkable is I was never taught figure in drawing, painting, or sculpture–my 3 years of fine art at USC, didn’t teach the figure. They just left us to our own devices and played with postmodernism.
30,000 years before there was religion, before there was writing, and 33,000 years before philosophy there was visual art—the first and most important step in humankind’s evolution. With the pull and roots so deep anyone touched with the art gift feels a calling that only death can extinguish. It is a sacred calling holding the weight of humanity’s wellbeing and hope.
Newberry discusses the influences of Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Michelangelo in his current work in progress.
I use drawings to accomplish something specific. In John’s Sunset I prepared for taking along as it would take to fully explore the loss of my brother. If I only have 5 minutes I might only concentrate on line, shadow groups, or gesture. But whatever I am focused on it is to do or learn something new.
As soon as the first artists started painting real things like horses on two-dimensional cave walls there was a paradox that it was a lie and a truth. The advantage of being able to work with radically different color schemes gives the artist more emotional range and visual options. And it gives the viewer more to look for in the world around them.
When I am teaching workshops there is always plenty of time to compose the work, it is the set up before the rush begins. In the following tutorials I show some issues you can focus on as you are mapping out the composition of your painting.
Michael Newberry’s presentation of the contrast between insanely praised postmodern artists with the most innovative and forward looking figurative artists practicing right now.
This is my tribute to Michelangelo’s God reaching out to give the spark of life to Adam. Icarus’ dialog, in contrast, is between himself and Earth, just as my art is between me and the universe.
Isn’t it the height of pretentiousness when a visual artist throws way visual perception and expects the audience, who have mastered visual perception, to contemplate their mind-numbing, nonsensical works?!
What makes painting interesting is transforming forms, depth, and light from the real world to a canvas. It is a very complex visual language that conceptualizes how we see and it rewards us with triggers of movement, suspending disbelief, and light.
