Flotsam and Jetsam

I'm back! for now...

2012-02-11T08:19:00.000-08:00

So giving this another try- my website is now updated! www.seevanminnen.com

Lots of shows coming up this year of 2012!! More info coming real soon... like days, not years, sorry 'bout that.

Christian

30 yrs concentrated

2010-09-13T19:11:00.000-07:00

focus! FOCUS! It's there

bff in your facer

2010-09-13T19:06:00.000-07:00

blaow!

stains

2010-09-13T19:04:00.000-07:00

stains

in your face

2010-09-13T19:03:00.000-07:00

!BFF! in your face

drawings

2010-07-20T16:33:00.000-07:00

drawings

2010-07-20T16:32:00.000-07:00

drawings

2010-07-20T16:25:00.000-07:00

touchy feely

2010-07-03T17:25:00.000-07:00

pokin around in the goo

slowly reappearing through the blogfog

2010-07-03T17:15:00.000-07:00

2009-12-06T18:33:00.000-08:00

A few blog posts ago I posted 4-5 pictures showing how I start a painting and pull it from abstraction into figuration; this is the final result.

devil in the details...

2009-11-15T16:16:00.000-08:00

Still-life 1.4

2009-11-15T16:15:00.000-08:00

Corsage/Boutonniere for Self Immmolation

2009-11-13T16:04:00.000-08:00

A choreography of self-deceipt. A formal meeting of one's self. Neck cuddle hot horror, dancing towards terror's shadowy corners, and falling through freedom's threshold.

Out of the blue

2009-10-19T11:03:00.000-07:00

This one is in a great place right now, I almost don't want to push it into fruition, buuut, I can't resist. Something feminine about the triangle, somehow beautiful, sympathetic, soft. I saw a woman with this horrible facial growth once covering almost the entirety of her face with this rough blackish purple sponge-like form. I could tell she was really gentle and kind and sweet, it was heartbreaking to see such a dichotomy. I suppose life is like this, no?

a sense of urgency

2009-09-16T18:47:00.000-07:00

So much time on the road. Existential terror suspended. A still life is a portrait. Fleeting inspiration, momentary epiphany, creeping duldrums, cankersores. Cold and wet, neck bent backwards, road level perspective, no silence. Two bowls of chili, settin' the woods on fire.

Today I took a different approach

2009-07-08T16:10:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I couldn't figure out how to reverse this order, but above is where I stopped today; I basically have used no white in this process, instead, creating light by removing paint. Once this is dry, I am curious if the forms will appear brighter than if I'd used thick underpainting with lead white.

My goal is to keep the making of forms spontaneous, more free and to allow the oil ground to come through in the end.

It's wonderful to see the scratches and abrasions create their own forms.

This was the beginning. The pigment is a mixture of burnt umber, prussian blue, and raw umber. nice and simple.

road-life/still-kill

2009-05-29T16:21:00.000-07:00

I drive around all day long for my day job and I see a lot of roadkill. It really breaks me up sometimes, I try not to look but I always do and I can't help but feel a tremendous amount of sadness when I do. Especially if there is some semblance of a gesture or expression in the form like a bloody grin or body curled up fetus style with outstretched arm. Those damn roads. It's especially gross when the inards are launched away from the body from the rapid applied pressure of the tire. It has influenced my latest works for sure. I'll post some new stuff soon.

My drawings

2009-05-03T16:53:00.000-07:00

These are good examples of my drawings lately, a lot less careful and precious than my earlier drawings and current painting style. This is what lays underneath the paintings- far more abstract and gestural. I get to be much more violent with drawing and in the early stages of oil paintings- it hurts my shoulders sometimes.

It's all in there.

Composition, value and geometry are more important in these than the finished, polished product.

I like this one. I think it was inspired by Gregory Jacobsen's work. He's doing some great work.

this one's beautiful too...

2009-04-08T16:59:00.000-07:00

Otto Marseus van Schrieck

I found another van Schriek

2009-04-08T16:58:00.000-07:00

Dug this up on the internets, another marvelous work by Otto Marseus van Schrieck.

some details

2009-02-17T18:42:00.000-08:00

Some details of finished pieces...many more coming along...

drawings

2009-02-08T21:24:00.000-08:00

some sketches- in the past I haven't really used sketches, but my process is changing a bit.

2009-02-08T12:28:00.000-08:00

a detail of Manfungus 1.4, should be done today.

I like this stage of these still life based works.

Pretty figurative right off the bat. I am being more open to representation. It is as if this piece, where it is right now, is a kind of blank slate, a mannequin of sorts. I think I will be minimal with this piece, we'll see.

My earliest documented oil painting

2009-02-04T21:43:00.000-08:00

I did this when I was 16 or 17, in High School art class. I thought it was interesting to look at this in comparison to what I am doing now. Still driven by the idea of portraiture, or identity, something. and flesh- individual and collective. I think that painting has always exercised the suffering, shame, anger, and guilt out of me. I am grateful for the means of expression of painting. I am getting nervous about my opening coming up.

abstraction in grisailles

2009-01-24T10:24:00.000-08:00

That first picture is a detail of how all the work starts- a whirling, liquid mass of lead and earth- pure potentiality. Eventually, all of this gains form with light. more soon....

Studio snapshots

2009-01-23T14:16:00.000-08:00

Here are a few images of my new works when they were early on in grissaille or early wash. Incorporating the floral element is a new evolution of my work and I am excited about what it does to change the feeling and texture of the painting. They have all changed a bit. More to come.

Getting Ready for Roq la Rue Pt. 2

2009-01-14T17:16:00.000-08:00

This is a detail of a piece that has been a great challenge and it is coming along nicely now. I started this piece just as I started exploring the idea of a 'keyhole portrait' that revealed a great infinite pile of flora and fauna- the portrait merely cropping a much larger universe. All this coming from the manfungus series, I think.

Getting Ready for Roq la Rue Pt 1

2009-01-12T11:39:00.000-08:00

I have been painting day and night for the past couple months getting ready for my two-person show with Yoko d'Holbachie at Roq la Rue Gallery coming up this March. I thought that I would document some of my studio progress as I move towards the deadline. There is definitely a new feel to this series, not sure what to call them yet. I've been highly influenced with the works of Otto van Schriek and other Golden Age Dutch painters, also in the genre of Dutch game pieces- subjective nature, or human-nature- affected nature.

Spiders in the head

2009-01-04T13:10:00.000-08:00

This is one of my more recent works, Keyhole Portrait 3.4. Perhaps this is post-rationalizing, or over analyzing, but I think the spider in the head could be inferred to mean control, or control over the uncontrolable, similarly how the spider lays it's orderly web amidst the chaos of its environment. This spider is a conglomerate of several species of spider in the genus Gasteracantha, whose opisthosoma is heavily sclerotized and armed with hard spines, resembling some sort of a jewelled broche.

Brush quill

2009-01-04T12:59:00.000-08:00

I like this method of keeping brushes close, clean and available. Only requires glue and foam and ghetto LA garage, voila!

Ocean dwellers

2009-01-03T15:05:00.000-08:00

This older painting (2006) is from a series called "being-colors"- the image an inspiration from nature and abstraction and the negative space/background color being selected in the final stages of painting. This mauve/purple color fits this figure nicely I think. I am thinking about these pieces in today's paintings.

Spore

2009-01-01T02:54:00.000-08:00

A closet, in a church, in New Orleans.

My Old Ceilings

2009-01-01T02:51:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it's right above you.

My artistic mentor

2008-12-20T14:54:00.000-08:00

"His greatness is so obvious. He straightened up the locker room. He's gregarious, not shy. " - excerpt from Randy "Macho Man" Savage's song "My Perfect Friend" from his epic '93 album entitled "Be a Man." Stan Bonnes is a genius of rare proportions and I had the privelage of being his assistant from '0something to '0something. I learned how to discern metals and pound very small nails amongst other things that make me a ton of money right now. He's managed to keep a hot dog alive for over ten years.

The Game of Operation!

2008-12-20T10:31:00.000-08:00

Take a universe size pile of piles. Take a dark matter cookie cutter to it. Open your eyes. Voila!

Feelin it

2008-12-20T10:28:00.000-08:00

This is where I am going today. another gem by van Schriek.

MANFUNGUS! into the fire, ye go.

2008-12-18T18:21:00.000-08:00

RIP "Manfungus 1.1"
Died tragically in a Miami beach fire December '07.
You will be missed.

Francis Bacon comes a knockin...

2008-12-15T19:21:00.000-08:00

"I want a very ordered image, but I want it to come about by chance...as deeply factual as possible and at the same time as deeply suggestive or deeply unlocking of areas of sensation other than simple illustration of the object you set out to do; isn't that what all artists set out to do?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2gKkOAwsqY&eurl=http://beautifuldecay.com/&feature=player_embedded

Just right...

2008-12-15T16:05:00.000-08:00

In airy, web and wing, dusted light under wooden planks, lurks on taught lines.

Personality vegatables

2008-12-14T13:04:00.000-08:00

Do you identify with this pile?

James Gleeson's "Psychoscapes"

2008-12-14T12:42:00.000-08:00

Australian artist James Gleeson recently passed away at the age of 92. I think he is one of my favorite artists, similar in style in someways to Chris Brown or even Max Ernst. I can relate to and understand his process in that he is pulling form from raw information within the paint- figuration from abstraction.

Homonculous fuckin crybaby

2008-12-14T12:36:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I act like a big baby. Not virtuous like little baby Jesus.

My kind of Cthulhu

2008-12-09T20:44:00.000-08:00

I like this art work, don't know who's it is. Reminds me in a way of a hybrid of HP Lovecraft and Cleon Peterson.

Monkey see, Mickey do

2008-12-09T20:38:00.000-08:00

The source and the rendition.

no title needed

2008-12-08T20:01:00.000-08:00

Biomech-Kaiser

2008-12-08T19:49:00.000-08:00

An early digital piece I did with original drawings- probably about 2001- early signs of my interest in portraiture.

LA L'Amour

2008-12-07T21:58:00.000-08:00

Crazy teepee party at Jared David Paul's "Urban Settlement" in East LA. His g-pa was a OG Astronaut or something- he's the land based equivalent in LA. In real-time, the projection of the rocket onto the teepee was amazing, with explosions and blue sky and ice- plus there was a crazy Rob Zombie meets God Speed You Black Emperor-type band playing on the skateboard ramp behind this pic.

Keyhole Portrait 3.4

2008-12-07T13:25:00.000-08:00

This is my latest painting, the latest in the Keyhole Portrait Series. It is up at Bert Green Fine Art in Los Angeles.

El Cueva Del Carne

2008-12-07T13:19:00.000-08:00

I miss my hot, stinky, LA studio. At least I have a bathroom now.

2008-12-07T13:13:00.000-08:00

I am Sheephead in another reality (www.theyummies.com) and was working with Ray Young Chu on this massive mural. I'm sure we'll finish it in a decade or so. Ray is the conceptual genius behind this biblical digital frankenstein and only he knows it's true meaning.

Ashley's Dream World

2008-12-06T23:08:00.000-08:00

Speaking of horses... I forgot about this painting- Ashley once dreamed about spontaneously combusting, shaking horses. Somehow it is quiet, besides that burning, shaking, horse.

Rhode Island offloading...

2008-12-06T23:04:00.000-08:00

I was named after a boat; I imagine it to look like this.

Godfungus

2008-12-06T23:01:00.000-08:00

This picture reminded me of when I gutted a church (First Thessalonians Baptist Church) in New Orleans post-Katrina and scraped moldy bibles off the floor with a snow shovel. It was redeeming in the end to see the church as just a space to be filled again. I don't know if it is yet. I've been thinking a lot about this experience lately.

2008-12-06T10:16:00.000-08:00

This is beautiful.

2008-12-05T16:33:00.000-08:00

I was on the radio today sharing a story about gutting out post-Katrina houses- like this one in New Orleans- and sorting through the flotsam and jetsam for stuff to save for the owners. I was nervous and my heart was pounding. All these piles and the debris has been food for thought in my recent paintings.

British frolickers in my duodenum

2008-12-05T16:04:00.000-08:00

2008-12-01T13:55:00.000-08:00

I've really been into this guy, Marseus Otto van Schriek- it's not quite a still life- not quite a genre scene- something inbetween that I love. A somehow, not so objective observation of nature. Something human here.

it has begun...

2008-12-01T09:30:00.000-08:00

eyes like wrecking balls- colab drawing with some folks back in the south of california. ryan's mustache is sweet.