a blog about photography, design, art, architecture, ephemera, found objects, pop culture, anonymous, outsider art, folk art, self-taught art, illustration, beauty, esoterica, auctions, discovery, art environments, mystery, vintage stuff and the magic that can be found in everyday things.
(Above) Are these red circles painted on the photograph? Looks like it to me.
THE FACT IS, these red circles are painted on the house, and their visualization as red circles only come together at the exact spot one would stand in the top photograph. To move away, even slightly, changes what you see dramatically. I love it.
All paintings oil and mixed media on canvas. Click on any image for larger view.
Click on any image for larger view. (Above) Painter Gottfried Helnwein at work. (Above) Painter Gottfried Helnwein in front of a canvas. (Above) Gottfried Helnwein at work.(Above) The artist’s palette.
AUSTRIAN-BORN ARTIST GOTTFRIED HELNWEIN paints pictures about childhood pain, and horrors seen or imagined. Large and powerful, intimate and disarming, Helnwein can twist reality to the fantastic or the painful, the sad or the horrible. The size of his paintings present something you cannot look away from, like the traffic accident on the highway. You don’t want to stare but you can’t help it. You want to touch, but you shouldn’t. Gottfried Helnwein mixes innocence with life, and he does it better and bigger than most.
Click image for much larger view. Click image for much larger view.
I FIRST FELL IN LOVE WITH WATERCOLOR IN HIGH SCHOOL. I had one of those black metal flip open Prang watercolor sets, with the little ovals of pigment—just waiting to come alive with the addition of water. Watercolor allowed me to find translucency of color, spontaneity of application and a freedom I had never known. It was in college that I saw watercolor reemerge in the masterful hands of Edward Reep, our artist-in-residence at East Carolina University. Reep was an artist during the Second World War, and a damn good one. Check out my earlier post on Ed Reep on this blog here.
I recently discovered the work of Alvaro Castagnet, a watercolor painter from Montevideo, Uruguay who I delivers watercolor to white paper in a way I have not seen in quite some time. This man is a painter! He chooses watercolor because he innately understands the fact that only watercolor can deliver the kind of light one sees everyday. Using wet-on-wet and even a dry brush across dry paper—Castagnet has the amazing ability of interpretation. By that, I mean he is able to look at a crazy busy marketplace or city street (at night or day) and find the soul of the place. Castagnet is not interested in fussy details—things we do not see or remember anyway. He delivers the place—the moment—the essence.
With his talent, his strength, I wonder what his interpretation of say, the war in Afghanistan would be like? I wouldn’t blame him for not wanting to go there, because he would be putting his beautiful life on the line for a cause that is not his. Still, with his ability—I can see that this man could deliver to the world a view of that country—and the hell of the war—in a way that has not been seen.
It does make me wonder—where have the American war artist’s gone? Are the Ed Reep’s of the world not valued any more?
A FRIEND OF MINE SHARED WITH ME a collection of authentic Park Drive Cigarette cards, a small illustrated card given away with a purchase of a pack of cigarettes in the 1930s. This series of cards was called “Champions,” cards illustrating British sports champions (including dogs!). Park Drive cigarettes was a brand from the Gallaher LTD. tobacco company based in Great Britain.
(Click on image for larger view)(Click on image for larger view)(Click on image for larger view) (Above)Click on image for larger viewAn original glass lantern slide photograph, the same image reproduced in Ghosts in Photographs by Fred Gettings, plate 55, with the caption “Photographic Testimonial of Mr. & Mrs. Gibson with spirit image of their deceased child, taken by the Crewe Circle.” Slide size: 3.25” x 3.25” (Above) Click on image for larger viewAn original 1930 spirit photo by the Falconer brothers of London. Image size: 2.5” x 2”
(Above) Click on image for larger view An original circa 1900 photo by Robert Boursnell (1832 -1909) with a spirit resembling Jesus. Image size: 3.75” x 5” (Above) Click on image for larger viewA glass lantern slide (with a diagonal crack) of a sand sediment face inscribed: “This face was formed in the sediment of sand water, after it had been stirred by a finger of the late Mrs. L. Lanchard of New Ulm Minnesota USA (died in 1873 after evaporation of water).” Slide size: 3.25” x 3.25”
GRIEF AND DESPAIR OVER THE LOST OF A LOVED ONE HAS BEEN AN ENTRY POINT for many an unscrupulous person to take advantage of another. Whether by “automatic spirit-driven” drawings, Ouija boards, tapping, voices, noises, bells, sounds and a host of other things, communicating with the dead continues to fool people and take their money even today.
In England, during the late 19th century, everyday people who had lost loved ones were easily fooled simply by not understanding the new medium of photography. They would sit for a photo in a seance-type setting, being told that if spirits were there they could often be seen by a special film. All you had to do was pay for the seance and the photo—come back the next day and Holy Mother of Mary! look who showed up!
The modern spiritualism movement actually began in March 1848 in Hydesville, NY with the Fox sisters who claimed they could communicate with a spirit inhabiting their house by tapping on the floor. Eventually, news of this made it to the great showman P.T. Barnum, who took the sisters on the road and made their “tapping with the dead” a stage act.
Others got into the act, including the Falconer brothers, a gentleman by the name of Robert Boursnell, and numerous others.
At the top of the post, you’ll see old newspaper and gazette articles from England actually attesting to the believability of these charlatans. It is quite revealing, and I hope that they enlarge well enough for you to read. I guess, even back then, these fakes had a good PR firm.
(Above) Are these red circles painted on the photograph? Looks like it to me.
All paintings oil and mixed media on canvas. Click on any image for larger view.
Click on any image for larger view.
(Above) Painter Gottfried Helnwein at work.
(Above) Painter Gottfried Helnwein in front of a canvas.
(Above) Gottfried Helnwein at work.
(Above) The artist’s palette.
Click image for much larger view.
Click image for much larger view.
Click image for much larger view.
(Click on images for larger view)
(Click on image for larger view)
(Click on image for larger view)
(Click on image for larger view)
(Click on image for larger view)
(Above) Click on image for larger viewAn original glass lantern slide photograph, the same image reproduced in Ghosts in Photographs by Fred Gettings, plate 55, with the caption “Photographic Testimonial of Mr. & Mrs. Gibson with spirit image of their deceased child, taken by the Crewe Circle.” Slide size: 3.25” x 3.25”
(Above) Click on image for larger viewAn original 1930 spirit photo by the Falconer brothers of London. Image size: 2.5” x 2”
(Above) Click on image for larger view 
