Collection #12 Salvador Dali

I know Salvador Dali is very well known and probably defeats the purpose but I like the surrealism of his paintings and wanted to look him up. He was born in 1904 and died in 1989 living as a Spanish painter, graphic artist and designer.
I chose a couple painting I like of his the most to talk about.
I really like butterflies and some of his paintings have butterflies with a surrealist approach which I find very inspiring. I couldn't find the name of this first painting but I love how the flower's leaves are the wings of a butterfly. There are also little people walking around the flower, there's a lot that can be interpreted in this painting.

Salvador Dali is best known for his paintings of the melting clocks. I like these because time to me is such a mystery and there is never enough of it. Time can heal and hurt, time is not infinite and one day time will catch up to us all. Time is scary.

Collection #11 Jasmine Becket-Griffith

Jasmine is a full time artist who lives with her husband who works for her in shipping out her pieces. She paints, makes sculptures and t-shirts. She paints all the time, she is now 30 and has been painting since 1997. She has many different galleries from fairies and gothic to alice in wonderland.

The first is in the fairy collection and can be bought in many sizes and are all acrylic.
"The Three Fates - in Greek Mythology known as The Moirae - of destiny  - as a universe of galaxies swirls behind them.  Clotho is on the viewer's left - a portrait of innocence in angel wings as she spins the thread of life on her spinning wheel.  Lachesis is in the center, measuring the length of the thread of life between her careful hands.  Atropos glares out from the viewer's right hand side - with her "abhorred shears" - scissors snipping the thread of life with a final cut."
I chose this one because it has a good story behind it. I'm very into mythical things and spirituality of things that cannot be seen. 

 "Darling Dragonling 2"
I like this one because it's Halloween like but also has a cute quality.

I chose this next one because it's bright and cute =] 
"Snow Bunny"

I love this next one because she put Alice in a salvador Dali painting. 
"Alice in a Dali Dream"

"Winged Seer"

Collection #10 Mark Ryden

Today in my drawing class this one girl I talk to told me about this artist after we were talking about Tim Burton and his art. She suggested I look up this artist and I have to say I do love his stuff, more morbid art. :)
Currently working in Los Angeles, Ryden has paintings exhibited in museums around the world, including a retrospective "Wondertoonel" at the Frye Museum of Art in Seattle and Pasadena Museum of California Art.
http://www.markryden.com/index.html

To me his artwork renders a type of fantasy and morbid nightmarish quality, with some political and religious views makes one think about the meaning behind it all. There seems to be a lot of meaning behind what he paints and is trying to portray in his works.

This work is called "Incarnation" and was also the inspiration for the meat dress worn by lady Gaga at the MTV music awards.

 This piece is entitled "Christina" in the collection "the meat show" and I chose this just because I love Christina Ricci. This collection, also involving the one above this, involves slabs of meat in random places which could have a political view of how meat is used, but I'm not sure. I guess every piece of art is open to interpenetration.

For instance, in the next couple paintings, Ryden portrays things like the devil holding meat and the girl in the photo is holding a cross. It may be the struggle between good and evil with innocence of the young. He uses alot about pop culture and the dark side of things.
"Slayer" Oil on panel 13x15

This painting has a little girl going into a butcher shop and she is holding the hand of Abraham Lincoln, who shows up in a lot of Ryden's paintings.
"The Butcher Bunny" Oil on panel  16x16 1999

 I like this next painting because it's more peaceful and my kind of scene.
"Just the girls" 21x21 1998

Morbid stuff is my thing, so I found one of his collections called "Blood" The painting seem like they were set back in older times with a type of elegance about them. The detail is amazing and with such simplicity shows a certain story of hurt maybe with the subjects.
I like this painting because the little girl seems to be at great peace as she stands bleeding to death, her eyes are closed tight but she shows no pain.
"Fountain" 12x6.25 oil on panel 2003 

Here's another one with Lincolns head in it, not sure why the significances but it's pretty morbid how it's sitting on this little girls bed. We also disgust in class that the frames can also be part of an art piece, I think this is true with his paintings also.
"Lincolns head" 4.5x6.5 oil on panel.

 I just think this painting is cute, there isn't anything creepy about it per say and Christmas is always a magical time. I like the way he captures the snow and the sky.

"Santa Worm" 14x10 oil on panel 2000

I like paintings that show a type of religious view because I'm not particularly religious and theres a lot of different things one could say about "God" and the way life should be lived. I do believe in a higher power, a life after death but I also think religion has been twisted so many ways that people have lost the sense of simply being a good person.
"Piano Player" framed 29x39x3inches 2010

  

Collection #9 Greg "Craola" Simkins

Let me just start off saying that I am a BIG fan of Blink 182, probably my favorite band I grew up with, I think all their albums are great. I have their page on my facebook and they posted about their friend's next showing to be taken place at Merry Karnowsky Gallery in Los Angeles, CA.

This is the website to the gallery he is showing his work :
http://mkgallery.com/index.php

I chose to write about this artist because his work is of the morbid side, which I love but also because there is a lot of detail in all his pieces. I believe he did some work for Blink but I'm not exactly sure what. The collection he did for the Merry Karnowsky Gallery was written about in the American Art Collector Magazine: 
http://www.americanartcollector.com/
Doing a little snooping, I found his Facebook page :

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Greg-Craola-Simkins/126782594001871?__adt=3&__att=iframe
Which then led me to his website :
http://www.imscared.com/
Simkins started drawing when he was as young as three years old with crayons and pencils which turned into using pen and other ink forms, and is now into acrylic paints. Movies which bring about the outside world is mostly where his inspiration comes from, the "falling down the rabbit hole" effect of imaginative and alternative realities. His art incorporates these worlds and different aspects of nature which until he has painted it so, could never interact with each other. He describes how certain land animals would never be able to live alongside the ecosystem of the sea and brings them together in his work. By the age of 18 he began creating graffiti art under the name "craola" which gave him the opportunity to experiment with large spaces for canvases. He then moved on to working at Treyarch/ Activision and did work on Tony Hawk 2X, spiderman 2 and ultimate Spiderman.

After looking through the extensive gallery on Simkins page, I am blown away, utterly inspired because i havnt done much painting lately, and he is now my new favorite artist!

This is the first painting that really caught my eye, yet after that they just kept getting better. I love the originality of his work and the morbid type of quality, theres so much in one painting if you look close enough there are a lot of different creatures. It's beautiful, how they're sitting on a cloud yet they're head stones in it. He did do some work for AFI and this painting reminds me of some of their albums.
"Elil and Fu Inle"-36x30 in Acrylic canvas. 2011

Everyone knows South Park and how Kenny dies in every episode, here's a rendition of Kenny being an angel. I love the detail and shading in this one, in all of them.
"Kenny Angel"-18x12 in- Acrylic on canvas, 2011

The last painting I want to show, I love because they way he painted the pumpkins just give it a morbid but beautiful quality. I really love Halloween and you can see closely different symbols he was trying to make like how the crayon says "escape", in other words that he is implying how art is an escape.
"Join Me"-20x30in Acrylic on canvas, 2011

On his website he has an abundance of drawings, paintings and graffiti work that he has done, I left his website at the top so you should definitely check him out. Simkins has generated a lot of fan bass and many of his fans have went as far as getting his art tattooed on them.
This one is pretty sweet, it kinda looks like a more morbid Blink bunny coming out of this guys chest.

Looking at his work, makes me have better ideas for what I want tatted on my back. hmmm this is a thought now.

Had to add this one! Rendition of Edward Scissor Hands!