Painting is poetry that is seen, but can't it be felt as well?

In all or most of my paintings, I believe and try that my work should have a physical & emotional appeal, and to boot, as much texture as possible! So Leonardo the great, you are both right but also wrong!

Proof

I have quoted below, some comments about some of my work and how my paintings have evoked feelings when they were viewed:

Melancholia

- "Beautiful visually and works very well – tags at the heart."

- "Stunning portraiture …totally evokes the emotion stated in your title…fabulous artistry!!"

The Solace Without

- "I love that the Spirit figure is lovingly cradling what could be a nest with small birds, or a whirlpool with beings at the center. Either symbol works for me. And he seems to be balancing everything, with his body position, keeping things level and in check, which again would symbolize the care given to our need for peace and restitution. Very thoughtful 

and meaningful, Eddy"

-"…I like the powerful emotion you display in this work of art. Just wonderful to study."

Leaning On The Wall Of Recovery & Hope

- " guess I could spend an hour analyzing and discussing this. Allow me now, just to say that, again, this is one of your finest works. It’s a beautiful story within a story— a child amazed at the largeness of a “human”, and our enchantment with the idea of creative imagination of the statue’s artist, and the artist’s tiny audience of one, under five years old, bound in amazement! But you go deeper, into the already three dimensional space, and tell another story about the art on the back wall, the backdrop of life, so to speak— history, shifting cultures, escape from the danger of one country to the relative safety of another; what is one man’s history is really the world’s history. And you anchor this story, figuratively and literally, with a candle of hope, chaining the two stories together, allowing us to draw analogies about the largess of mankind…"

- "This work actually humbles me. It’s so moving and the thought process involved with the creation of the backdrop astounds me."

He Prays While Watching Over Us

- "Eddy, this now tops my favorites of yours. My gosh this is inspired, inspiring, and beautiful. I love the gorgeous hands. The sky full of mystery and promise, beautiful symbols, the meaningfulness of the work… all touch my soul." And here is one of my personal favorites,

"Viewing your work is like having a “aesthetic orgasm of the senses”… if you don't mind me saying".

Even Leo Tolstoy agrees with me when he was quoted as saying, "Art, he believes, is a sincere emotion transferred from an artist to others and, as such, is a uniquely human activity. Tolstoy defines genuine or real art as the communication of emotion transferable to, and felt by, all persons; consequently, art is to judged by the universal (religious) spirit of brotherhood of an age. Great art, he thinks, unites humanity." (Leo Tolstoy, What Is Art? Translated by Aylmer Maude. London: The Brotherhood Publishing Company. 1898)

Thus art and painting for me is, a vehicle and a tool for making inner thoughts and feelings visible and, therefore, more objective. Thereby giving me an inner peace when that communication has taken place.

The Proof Is Also In The Touch 

At a very early stage in my artistic development, I had come to realize that I needed an art form or style that could communicate to all human beings. Whether they were rich, poor, blind, deaf, young, old, I mean everyone. And to achieve this, I started to introduce texture to my paintings which made it possible for the visually challenged to enjoy and interpret my work for themselves.

So while at a recent Art & Poetry workshop (see more photos in my Facebook Album, video on Youtube), I intimated participants, on the need to communicate feelings through art to all, even to the blind. I challenged them to interpret my art with their eyes as well as their hands. And though the interpretations were different, there was a consensus that something was being communicated by the artist to the viewer and the 'feeler'.

In conclusion, whether all of this should be considered a yardstick for measuring of good art is still under debate and has been for as long as I can remember, and might still be well after I'm gone. 

Taking my daughter to the nursery the other day, I saw this on the side of her school bus, "It takes a mother to bear a child, but it takes a village to raise that child" (taken from an old African proverb). Taking a second look on my way back, I couldn't help but to think how things like this influence my paintings,art, and me as a person.

Couldn’t find the school’s mini-bus so I got this off their school wall

I've always loved things with deep meanings, be it words and/or images. They will make you think and ask relevant questions. I tend to see my art beyond it's physical attributes, and I value it's spiritual pontential and conotations even more.

Let me cite an example of how this can often occur in my work. I produced a landscape painting a while ago, but I didn't finish it, because I believed, that it hadn't attained spiritual attributes yet. But after seeing that proverb on that school bus and reading about 'Ubuntu' (not linux) and what it meant, it suddenly lept out of my being and imprinted in my memory what this particular landscape was saying.

Ubuntu Landscape

Ubuntu is a philosophy if South African origin. With numerous definitions. But the most concise definition that I find most related to my work is this one, Ubuntu means in a nutshell,

"I am what I am because of who we all are." Also meaning, "A person is a person by and because of other people".

And that, is exactly was this painting stands for, those tiny homes all contributed to making that great big house. You can see, no, feel the force and energy of these people in the dramatic sky. 

Nobody in the landscape and you are talking about people? Yes, deliberate but of no consequence to the effect of this painting. Why? Because I personified the houses (or call them homes) to represent communities and families together.

 

Harry Callahan, pl

ayed by Clint Eastwood (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This portrait was made a while ago, just discovered that I haven't posted it to the website's gallery yet. I've attempted to capture Clint's rugged looks and character in the hit movie, "Dirty Harry". Lots of rough texture was applied to help create the hard looks of dirty Harry's character.

Medium: Acrylics, Acrylic heavy gel medium & Acrylic gesso
Ground: Stretched & painted on Daler Rowney acid free 120lbs paper.
Process: impasto, finger painting, brush, and pallete knife.

Mel·an·cho·li·a 
/ˌmelənˈkōlēə/
Noun
1. Deep sadness or gloom; melancholy.
2. A mental condition marked by persistent depression and ill-founded fears.

This is my attempt at using portraiture to evoke an emotion through the subject's facial expression. I paid particular attention to the eyes and tried to show, the powerful effect of the eyes in portraits. I've found that if done properly, it can help to make a simple looking portrait to transform into a powerful artistic statement.

To further enhance a portrait painting, sometimes subtle or bold visual symbols and colors can dramatically change the effect of the painting. This I have done via my use of color and the deliberate blotting of the subject's mouth to give a feeling of eerily forced silence but at the same time, having an overall expression packed full of stories in those eyes. I enjoyed this a lot and I will be looking into to producing more like this in future.

Title: “He Prays While Watching Over Us”

Size: 38.5cm X 50.5cm
Medium: Acrylics, oil pastels (mixed media), Collage, glue, paper maché
Ground: Stretched Paper

This painting is inspired by the greatest inspiration of all, Jesus Christ and those verses in the bible that depicts him as a great teacher of prayer and peace, constantly watching over us (and still watching). Looking back & ahead of my life, I realize that someone is not only watching over me (us), but also, he is constantly advocating for me and all that is mine. 

I filled the sky and the background with symbols of life and growth, with the five houses in the bacground represents the continents of our world. His robes I painted in regal and life colors (because he gives life & is of royal priesthood) and repeating the textures of the sky too, further enhancing his link to life, power, and growth. Every color, every stroke, and every texture focused on his radiating energy. I also delibrately stylized his hand, making it larger in proportion to his body to depict the enormity of his task while at the same time, showing his capability to undertake such a task.

I poured a lot of my heart and emotion into making this,  and I was thoroughly satisfied with the end result of my efforts. The feedback about the painting has been huge! Comments and group awards on my favourite art site, RedBubble  has been very inspiring.

It came as no surprise then that this painting was nominated by the Lozells Methodist Community Centre as the theme image for the mission in Britain’s, national advent prayers for 2013. The minister of the church kindly asked for my permission to use the painting as a compliment to the prayers for the work that the centre was doing in the community.

I was very excited when I got the link to my work on the Methodist.org.uk site. See for yourself how my work looked alongside the prayer…

You can see the pdf file here: http://www.methodist.org.uk/media/691752/mission-in-britain-additional-advent-prayers-201112.pdf

This came soon after I had done a one day workshop with ministers of the church at their annual Methodist Birmingham District Synod held at The Public<add link>. The workshop involved me and Bob Cooper (a minister of the church and award winning poet) delivering a workshop that challenged the participant’s visual, creative, and writing abilities. And how this ability could be used to, creatively tell the story of the good news. You can see photos of that workshop on my facebook page photo album: Creative Art Workshop 2012

New work…

Title: Leaning On The Wall Of Recovery & Hope
Medium: Acrylics, oil pastels (mixed media), Collage, glue, paper maché, and ball point pen

My Art the internet, And Social Media

I use the internet, social media tools and platforms for my art (like a lot of visual artists do) to market my work, show it to the world. Artists like myself, utilize social media tools and platforms for three major purposes,

a. Seeking out inspiration for new work;

b. For exposing my skills via completed work & work-in-progress;

c. And, for marketing my finished artwork

I mean let’s face it, you would be hard pressed as an artist not to use it. And from a visual artist’s point of view, I constantly visit and use the internet and especially, social media almost daily to be able to get inspiration for my art, show case my abilities, and to market my product.

Inspiration, Exposure, & Marketing My Art

I currently use the following social media tools and platforms for my Art:

Eddy Aigbe – Artist @edy4sure
I started using twitter a couple of years ago, and I visit and post a couple of tweets everyday. My primary reason for using twitter is for gathering information about interesting and career building events in the art world, getting to see work-in-progress and finished artwork photos of other artits that I follow. I also use it as a platform to showcase my current art works and progress updates to keen followers. Another essential for me is having an app called “twicca” on my phone for keeping up with twitter updates & twitting while on the go.

Eddy Aigbe Artist/Painter

My facebook page, is used to show my work to the facebook community and any upcoming events that I may have like exhibitions and/or workshops. On the side, I also use facebook as a way to get ispired. All that is needed is spare time and using the search box and discovering links to other artist pages on facebook. Simply click the like button, and you will be given a fantastic feast of great art plus getting constant updates about the artists and events that they may be doing. Another advantage of my use of facebook is, the ability find facebook pages of galleries liking them thus, keeping me in the know of when there maybe an oppurtunity to participate in an exhibit and/or to be represented. Oh, and I also use a facebook app on my phone to use if needed while I’m on the go.

My Art Website

EddyAigbe.com

After the need for having my own art based website hammered into my head by friends, and colleagues (Okay, I got the point guys), I registered my art website early this year and proceeded to quickly use a free template from wordpress for it. Unfortunately, I soon realised that I needed something more personal to suite my specific needs. So recently, I got a cracking website designer by the name of David Tims  who has whiped up something well beyond my expectations. And as result, I have a cleaner, easily navigable, and fun to browse & use website.

Here, I show case my artwork in my gallery pages, a blog  to tell people stuff about what I do (news, work progress, upcoming events, announcements, art exhibitions, workshops, tutorials, etc.). It has also been great place for potential clients and galleries to come and see my body of work and possibly commission me or represent me and to contact me with requests & enquiries.

RedBubble

Redbubble is a diverse creative art community and marketplace that I’ve grown quite fond of, I have been gained quite a lot of inspiration from it since becoming a member in 2011. Here I post images of my work and I get constant feedback by way of comments, features, awards and support from individual artists and the various groups. I’ve also participated in various art workshops online and juried international art exhibitions through this artist’s social media platform which has lead to, more recognition of my work and also winning many prestigious awards through this privileged participation. There are also tons of awesome artworks on show here by artists that it would’nt have been ordinarily possible to meet in real life. It’s great place for an artist to share art, test the effect of their work,to be inspired, and to build self confidence.

Bluecanvas

Blue Canvas

Just joined this great site which I also found through some great artists in RedBubble, and like redbubble, bluecanvas is also an international, multi-genre, online community of artists and art lovers. Bluecanvas also has a magazine that is published quarterly. It shares the same qualities of RB but with (in my own opinion) a more user friendly site. Anyway, I’m still a baby here, and while keep you informed as to how I’m getting along with it as time passes.

Tumblr

Tumblr is a great microblogging platform and social networking website for all genre of artists. I’ve been visiting tumblr for awhile now but only just recently did I get an account with them, so I have only one post there at the moment (but will have a couple more soon enough). I find tumblr to be an artists haven, beaming with so much creativity. I come here almost daily now to see what the talented people here have to share (with the hope of contributing my bit soon).

I will be checking out, instagram, deviant art, and others that I will gladly share, so watch out for an update of this post soon.

“The Public” Art Exhibition

My Painting Is On show At The Summer Art Exhibition at “The Public”

I’m delighted to announce that my work, ‘The Symbolic Pride’  is currently being exhibited amongst other great works of art at ‘The Public’s  annual summer art exhibition. This collage and acrylic painting got selected from artists with a connection to the Sandwell region in the West Midlands, UK, who submitted close to 300 pieces of artwork to be considered for our third Summer Exhibition, which according to the organizers was, double the amount of entries from the previous year.

Out of which over 170 pieces of artwork got selected for display by the panel of judges from across the region. These included artwork from a selection of varied media including photography, paintings, drawing and 3D work.

The exhibition has since opened and will run from the 18th of June until the 9th of September 2012 and it will be at:

The Public Click here to go to the public website
New Street
West Bromwich
West Midlands
United Kingdom
B70 7PG

At the Private viewing Ceremony

Attended the private viewing ceremony (Thursday July 26th at 6.00pm), which was opened by Graham Peet (the exhibitions Manager) & Gemma Hadley (Project Manager, Summer Exhibition 2012). The atmosphere was electric, the work in view was fantastic but, it was the general consensus of the artists & invitees that, the organizers should have used a bigger gallery space. However, I made a lot of new contacts, prospective clients, and I talked and critiqued positively with a few fellow artists.

A few additional images of the PUBLIC :