zak smith – Mixy's Art Blog

Yesterday I was telling you how Zak Smith’s art was the starting point in this little project of mine. At the same show I got to see the work of another favorite artist IRL, Dominc McGill.

Moloch - Dominic McGill — Moloch – Dominic McGill

Again there’s a lot of mono with splashes of color, intensified contrast. I love the mishmash of text in art, increasingly it’s something I use in my own work. It was around this time the Tate Modern was showing Mira Schendel.

Much of Schendel’s work was displayed hanging so you could walk round, through and between the pieces, be involved, enveloped, almost engulfed.
So I’m aborbing this work, there’s an osmosis going on. I’m gathering ideas and doodling them together.

Some Klimt, some Zak Smith. Little bits of color

Elements are coming together to form something new, something else.

Not so much with the straight directions and the boxy, something else.

I really don’t know where I’m going with this, but I’m riding the wave.

Gallery postcards, chopped up, collaged.

Destination is way down the list. Would probably be a distraction right now. Fuck destination.

As is my way (whenever I can) I moved on from here to screen printing. I’ll show you where that went next time.

There’s a project I’m working on, a commission that’s a continuation from a college brief last year (I’ll share that with you in a future post), which has led me on to begin a series of self portraits.

Pre- art school days I would have seen this as a self-indulgent vanity, but, (of course) the art school years have shifted my perspective. My subject is simply the face I’ve seen the most often. (Although I’m mainly on the inside looking out, but that’s another discussion for another time.)

Inspirations that bobbed up my horizon and found their way to develop the style for this came from a London gallery trip a little over a year ago. Firstly, Zak Smith at the Saatchi gallery. I was quite entranced.

Things I Drew and Pinned to the Wall – Zak Smith

Do love me a bit of monochrome! And the boxy, graphic-novel-layout going on here. This picture tells a story, and it looks like a story.

Girls in the Naked Girl Business: Mandy Morbid (II)

Girls in the naked girls business is a series that speaks to Smith’s parallel career in adult movies. Splashes of vivid brightness in the field of mono. More metaphors.

zak_smith_girls_detail5 — 100 Girls and 100 Octopuses (detail)

100 Girls and 100 Octopuses is just that, and visually combines the storyboard layout with the chunky blocks of color. Largely blue.

One of the reasons I was so enraptured was the instant association with an artist I’ve adored for such a long time. You’ll know this image, even if art isn’t your thing