Here's a sketch of Bruce Springsteen (one of my favorites) executed using as an impression of a velvet painting. I used charcoal, pencil, pen, acrylic paint and then scanned in the image and made some edits on photoshop and indesign. No velvet was used in the process of this painting. I wondered what message it would send if my aspirations were to resemble the tackiness and artistically inadequate nature of the velvet painting while trying to glorify one of my favorite artists...

 A lot of art enthusiasts would consider the velvet painting to be the epitome of kitsch. Kitsch is "a German word denoting art that is considered an inferior, tasteless copy of an extant style of art or a worthless imitation of art of recognized value." What happens when you attempt to copy, celebrate, and essentially glorify the style of a velvet painting?  I thought perhaps it made a larger statement about society in trying to imitate a velvet painting, which is generally considered cheap, gaudy, and shallow. 

The style is typified by subpar portrayals of celebrity and pop culture figures, glaringly emotive melodrama and cheesiness. In essence, we value lurid melodrama, sentimentality and unoriginality everyday (i.e. reality television, gossip magazines) which pays little attention to the intrinsic value of genuine aesthetic or attention to detail. It lacks integrity, doesn't challenge us to think outside of the blatantly obvious, and serves virtually no purpose other then second-rate celebrity association. At what cost?  ... and is it necessarily bad?

Kanye West with Phoenix caricature

Here's a portrait of Lil Wayne I did a little while ago. 

Here is my portrait for Worldwide Shelters; a non profit organization that provides high quality shelters to people displaced from their homes because of armed conflicts, other forms of violence, development projects, or natural disaster. 


Here's the website: http://www.worldwideshelters.org/index.html