Ian’s Artpartment Gallery: Part I

"Art is much less important than life, but what a poor life without it" (Robert Motherwell)

   I’ve always had a preference to cover the walls of the areas that I live in with pretty pictures. When I was young and a teen, this desire was fulfilled by posters and glow in the dark ceiling planets. Even in University my dorms were covered in world maps, the Hindenburg explosion and an explanation of Murphy’s Law. Now that I’ve moved into my own place I still have these impulses but I feel like I should try to be a little more tasteful than posters.

   The solution to this was to start buying fanart at conventions and framing them by the cart load. Starting out at Fan Expo where I purchased two pieces of art from ­­­­­Claire Beard, one of an impressive Cthulhu visage of him terrorizing some wayfaring ship, and one of a generic sci-fi scene. I really like them both because they pander to my love of all art Lovecraft related and my general enjoyment of sci-fi in all forms.

   The Cthulhu piece is great because it portrays the immensity that he/she/it is supposed to convey. It is also not creepy enough to give off the impression that I might be some actually Cthulhu worshipping cultist, which is great because I doubt I would be able to get anyone to visit if that was the case. Even if someone isn’t a fan of Cthulhu/Lovecraft, it is still a really neat scene in itself: a terrible sea creature falling upon hapless sailors during a rough storm.

Either that or he's like the King Kong of the Sea

   Her second piece is of a generic sci-fi setting as the entrance to some archology looking construct with flying vehicles whizzing by. It isn’t a dismal utopia however because you can see a bright looking environment just steps away, leading to the idea that maybe it’s a big cave city ala Utapau from Star Wars. She had a number of these futuristic environments but this one caught my eye as most likeable for whatever reason. This is possibly because it was the least oppressive of the three. 

Future-y

   At the same Fan Expo I also found Mike Maydak who had a very distinctive style and a buy two get one free deal that I couldn’t resist. I originally fell in love with what looked like some sort of pseudo-soviet attack on suburbia, but was also intrigued by a scene which I thought was a generic downtown (that could have been Toronto!) but it turned out to actually be Cincinnati. Finally he had a collage of pictures he had done of the Star Wars bounty hunters of Empire Strikes Back fame, and why bother buying the six individually when you can have all of them in one picture!

   I’m glad that I picked these up when I did (at least in print) because from what I can tell from his Etsy store, he does the painting on canvas or giclee, makes a few prints of them and when they’re gone their gone. Sure he might be able to get more prints but I’m sure it would take a while. I currently have a goal to own one of his originals to hang in a future house somewhere.

   The one that caught my eye originally was the assault on Suburbia; he appears to have a thing for drawing these tanks in idle, tranquil settings coming in and roughing up the place. For some reason I just found the concept really neat and decided I must have it!

The Soviet Union? I thought you guys broke up... Mmhmm Yes That's what we wanted you to think!

   The second was the cityscape which I thought was generic due to the name of the banks (First Third Bank? Really) but as I said ended up being Cincinnati, which is fine. I enjoy that the buildings look like they’re part of a set from a 1920’s cartoon when animators had to make all the buildings move up and down to impress the audience that they were viewing moving pictures. That or what a downtown city scape might look like if you took a bunch of drugs and then went to an observation tower (which would be an experience in itself). Either way, again the style gets me.

Either that or the future of building materials are super cheap but get osteoporosis as they age

   Finally, the Star Wars Bounty crew was just awesome. Not just for Boba Fett but all the others like Bossk, 4-Lom, Zuckuss, IG88 and Dengar, all of which are amazing. Mixing the awesome style with even awesome-er characters? That is an art piece that I would enjoy gracing my house.

As a bonus is allows you to get hours of entertainment from Star Wars nerds arguing which Bounty Hunter is best.

   That’s it for now, although I’ve got plenty more and hopes to acquire more while at the Providence Lovecraft Convention this August.  Maybe one day I will graduate to actual original art pieces, but for now I have to satisfy myself with framing $20-30 prints since I don’t have the resources to shell many times that for the canvases or the hundreds of dollars for the originals. One day though.