...and other big things painted over pre-existing art)
This post is about my most recent ongoing project which focuses on learning to master traditional looks by painting Kaiju's and other big things into existing classic landscape paintings.
This is a project I´m really passionate about. Roughly inspired by the thriftstore painting movement that started somewhere in 2010. Today there is still a trend to remix existing traditional works of low value to create something new of either equal or higher value.
But this is something I´m not interested in, for one thing it is an ethical question to vandalize original artworks and there is no learning curve attached to it - so in this regard it does not make sense to me.
My approach is about learning.
Structure, lighting and paint strokes used by the original artists have a sophisticated signature - emulating a similar look in Photoshop without even touching the original is exciting! All the objects you see below are painted by hand with the use of a Wacom Cintiq pen display. The difficulty lies in recreating the brushes, the strokes and the general mood.
The result is a series of mash-up-artworks that are both; a declaration of love to the old Hudson River School and a tribute to the popular modern cult icons of our times.
Not only that, every addition is a personal benchmark as to what is possible with digital painting.
Not only that, every addition is a personal benchmark as to what is possible with digital painting.
There is also another edge to the subjects of these creations that could go by unnoticed to the casual viewer, but there is an important message that does lift the series above any master-copy and that is the following art-statement:
"Nature always wins".
One could argue that this is not my work or a copy or whatever. I gave that a lot of thoughts to be honest. A quote by Warren Criswell brought some different perspective to this:
“If you are a true artist and not a copyist, no matter how much you covet the work of others, what you produce is going to be uniquely yours.”
Is the work resulted from this experiment uniquely mine? Do I covet the work of others? No to the latter. If this series is uniquely mine is not up to me to decide, however, so many people who have commented on this and who came to me on conventions or exhibitions have shown to me that I have created something of a unique value to them.
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| Of Risen Moon and Beast |
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| Mortal Engine: Luxembourg - After Bierstadt |
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| Cowboy Bebop: Taking a break - After Peder M. Monsted |
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| Horizon Zero Dawn: Coming home - After Wilhelm Leu |
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| Millenium Falcon at the mountains / Orig. by A.Bierstadt |
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| Abandoned AT-ST in the Forest - Orig. by H. Böhmer |
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AT-ST- Painting Process
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| Cthulhu and the ninth wave / Orig. by Ivan Aivazovski --- |
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| The Iron Giant at the lake in the mountains by Switzerland / Orig. by Aleksey Savrasov --- |
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| A Kaiju Evening At The Juniata / Orig. by Thomas Moran --- |
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| A Visitor In Yosemite Valley / Orig. by Albert Bierstadt |
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| Godzilla In The Mountains / Orig. by Herrmann Herzog --- |
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| California Spring /Kaiju Spring Fever / Orig. by Albert Bierstadt |
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| Kaiju Spring Fever - Sketch Phase |
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| Howl´s Moing Castle at Staubbach Falls Switzerland near Lauterbrunnen / Orig. by Albert Bierstadt |
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Laputa: Castle In The Sky Over Achensee / Orig. by Franz Richard
UnterbergerVideo Process: Close Ups here: |
This Project is featured in a wide variety of websites and Magazines on the web. I thank everyone for the support and give permission to re-post or re-blog this material.
I will keep this page udated when new artworks are finished.
Some noteworthy articles that were brought to my attention can be found in the list below, thanks for the effort in writing about my work, much appreciated!
6 comments:
The AT-AT has obviously been inspired by this:
https://www.behance.net/gallery/3007043/abandoned-refuge
Thank you Anonymous for the link and yes, it is definitely inspired by Dimitri Kaliviotis´s work, no doubt. On the other hand, if it wouldn´t have been his work that helped to develop the idea of how an abandoned AT-AT could look like, I would have found another way to paint one.
I need to own a print of that Godzilla painting.
Hi Kevin, glad you like! Officially I do not sell them in stores anywhere. But I do single prints for conventions as showcase pieces. If you are interested you can contact me (at the bottom of the page) for more info. Best regards,
Oliver
Any chance of painting something with the Cloverfield monster? Very cool, evocative stuff. Keep it up!
Dan
Thank you Dan! Cloverfield Monster is on my list, not sure when it will happen, because there´s so much, but I´ll keep this series up for sure. cheers
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