Inspiration

Essentially I took the day off today other than organizing photos and spending time looking through art books and finding new work of artists I admire on the web.  As an artist there are so many things that influence your work and among those are the work of other artists.  With this post I thought I would do a little show and tell.


Robert Birmelin is an artist that Jerry Schutte (my life drawing and life painting professor) back in art school shared with the class in slides and set my mind a lit. I love the movement within the works and how he captures the small details of urban living that seem to be overlooked or not consciously considered when your walking, riding or driving down the street, but if any of these details the sidewalk cracks, chipping paint, and the pan handler weren't there it would be noted that something wasn't right. It would feel like you stepped into the twilight zone.

                                  Giving and Taking by Robert Birmelin

                          City Crowd - Cop and ear by Robert Birmelin

Many times I have searched the web and only found a painting or two, but tonight I found that he now has a new website. 


http://robertbirmelin.com/index.html


Now if only I can manage to purchase a book of his works.  I'm still very much in love with books and haven't managed to conform to the idea of reading books  off a screen yet.  I need the physical, tangible, and tactile object in my hands with it's wonderful pages to flip through to be content.  


I've been searching out for the last three years the artists from Jerry's slide shows.  It's odd, but somehow the works shared weren't within assessable books at the time and only occasionally within art magazines.  Nonetheless, the works have stuck with me. A few more to add to this list are Alfred Leslie and Jenny Saville (who's book I purchased at SFMOCA on my trip last month)

                      The Telephone Call by Alfred Leslie

                      The Cocktail Party by Alfred Leslie

                      Fulcrum by Jenny Saville

It's nice to finally own art books of these artists or at least be able to find more visual samples of their work online.  I'm starting to wonder if figurative art is moving back into vogue due to the increased availability?  My interpretation is that figurative and realistic art haven't been seen as important since the development of the camera.  The irony is somehow the paint although an abstraction of reality can often times capture what a camera can't - the soul of the creator of the image.