The 2019 Summer Art Collection

The 2019 Spring Collection represented the first time (formally) where I not only collected my non-digital artwork, I studied them against the backdrop of art history, theory and technique. Abstract art was a natural choice: you literally can’t screw it up. Now laugh all your want but the goal is to keep painting. Realism, and goal-oriented painting in general, opens the door to concepts like, “not good enough” and “eww”, which only serves to stop you from painting, which ultimately wilts that best possible future where you end up being phenomenal.

But in starting with Abstract art, I had inadvertently opened the door to new ideas and ideologies about art. New quirks, too. Dirty colors actually mesh better than fresh colors. That one extra stroke you want to add? Don’t. Mistakes are actually luxuriant chocolate commodities. It was all wild, kaleidoscopic stuff for a commercial digital artist raised by studio wolves.

So for the 2019 Summer Collection, I made sure to try to paint for at least an hour every day, always in the Abstract (2019 Spring Collection was a bit more formal). These are all process-driven; done in the heat of the moment and based off of nothing more than rubbing intuition and emotion together to start a fire.

These pieces all hover around the theme of growth balanced on the razor’s edge of ruin. The months preceding these artworks were full of growth and leisure, but perils and sicknesses and deaths as well. These works represent a tonal shift from painting for the aesthetics of it all to painting to express tones and moods. I think that’s interesting considering my UX Designer career taught me to focus on emotion first. Why it took me so long to apply that knowledge to all art is a mystery to me.