Matisse competing with Picasso inspires, 'Light Welcoming Shade' by C.T. Rasmuss, 100 years later.

Light Welcoming Shade  C.T. Rasmuss, Oil (July 2013).

Where do I start...

Well to be short, this one went through a few changes; if you care to know..it was supposed to be a mix between Picasso & Matisse's way of displaying a beautiful woman, with me being the deciding factor.  And this is what you were supposed to see here; where I went wrong I believe, is in the fact that I haven't the luxury of a live model to work with...something I surely hope to remedy sooner than later!!

Also this is a 16"x20" canvas, whereas the masterworks I was modeling after, are much larger and practical for detail, specially when I used a palette knife, haha!  I came up with my own composition of course & story-line, but when the woman turned into a blob; I turned the landscape into a pueblo like city-scape, and headed to the museum to sketch some Native American women.

..Oh yeah and the city-scape is formed after my memory of work by Georges Braque:

Viaduct at L' Estaque  George Braque, oil (1908).

Houses at L' Estaque  George Braque, oil (1908).

In the end, the sun was modeled after the fan I wanted blowing the woman's hair(inspired by Picasso's model); The face in the sky to the left, inspired by my interaction w/Mayan culture/museum trips & Matisse Fauvist style, and overall color - mostly by J.H. Sharp works at the CAM(widely known for his portrayal of the American Indian culture.

Again just another lesson on how to learn from the masters independently, and finding out where to go next possibly...what else is needed in my personal tool box of creativity.

Here are the two masterpieces referenced above:

The Italian Woman  Henri Matisse, Oil (1916).

Woman with A Fan  Pablo Picasso, Oil (1908-9).

Joan Miro, The Naive

Ode to Miro, The Naive  C.T. Rasmuss, oil (July 4, 2013).

                 
I recently came across an interesting art book titled, Naive Art by Nathalia Brodskaia; what caught my attention was the painting cover, Myself, Portrait Landscape by French Painter, Henri Rousseau.  After finishing an exciting chapter I, it's my understanding that Rousseau's the 1st/main icon of Naive Art Movement.

Myself, Portrait Landscape  Henri Rousseau, oil (1890).

As I began to read chapter II, I was surprised to see it start with Miro as the focus, but I shouldn't really; given his style and goals in his art, "to assassinate painting", where he set out to create a new set of archetypes, etc.  Here's where a definition of Naive Painting helps:

Naive Art-is a classification of art that is often characterized by a childlike simplicity in its subject matter and technique.

Femme III  Joan Miro, oil (1965).

If we replace 'childlike' with the widely accepted term, Atavism - the tendency to revert to ancestral type; we now include works even more familiar artists such as Picasso or Matisse, who were greatly influenced by African & Eastern artifacts/primal art, respectively.

               

Nude with Towel  Pablo Picasso, oil (1907).

Girl with Green Eyes  Henri Matisse, oil (1908).

Now back to Rousseau, who exhibited periodically with the Impressionists from 1884-1910, it made me think of Gauguin, then I thought of his statement: to Van Gogh: "try to capture your sunflowers by memory".  Given the statement by Gauguin and Miro's work presented in my art book....I closed it and tried Atavism -

Miro style, but yes!! in my own language:)

C.T. Rasmuss & DJEZUP present...the B-Side.

                             Landscape of Confusion, B-Side;  C.T. Rasmuss, acrylic (July 2013).


In the style of the famous Kandinsky, I flipped Paranoid Sunset(refer to previous post titled: C.T. Rasmuss & DJEZUP present) over and began on the other-side, ending up with Landscape of Confusion!

Here's the song list, again by color and in order of application:

1.  Red- E.L.O.,  Ma Ma Ma Belle
2.  Green- K.C. & The Sunshine Band, I'm Your Boogie Man
3.  Blue- David Bowie, Space Oddity
4.  Orange- The Lovin Spoonful, Summer in the City
5.  Payne's Gray/Purple- Genesis, Land of Confusion
6.  Yellow- T-Rex, Bang a Gong
7.  White- Billy Joel, Only the Good Die Young

So there you have it, how the B-side is constructed, for further details, attend one of our events as they come up...we hope to put as much energy that you see here, as well as the energy fed from You, the audience!!

I will leave you with a little more on Kandinsky and his influence on the idea of the B-side, visually presented, other than the obvious Cassette/CD format of the past, which converges here and part of our process in mind.

Two Riders and Reclining Figure/Study for improvisation V (is, or are) the only known Kandinsky painting that was (or were) known to be painted on both sides. However, it was a common practice among hungry artists of early 1900s to paint on fiber board - on both sides, and then split them up and sell them as separate pieces. (Anonymous internet source).

click here to see the Paranoid Sunset blog, referenced above

                                         Two Riders & Reclining Figure, Side A; Kandinsky.

                                             Study for Improvisation V, Side B; Kandinsky.

C.T. Rasmuss & DJEZUP Present..

      Paranoid Sunset-Ode to my friend, Phil Pope,  C.T. Rasmuss; acrylic sound recording (July 2013).


So a buddy from way back & I are teamin up together at a venue coming near you, to bring you live music from DJEZUP, my buddy Wayne Lee Rogers; as I, C.T. Rasmuss paint what I hear.  I have titled the piece above as Paranoid Sunset, it's the 1st experience(informal rehearsal) specifically geared toward our upcoming collaborative; I've performed many times via 'Live Action Painting', as he has Dj'd, but never together in this form.

Here is a List of the 5 colors I used in the artwork above and corresponding songs, in order of application:

1.  Yellow-Nirvana, 'Drain You'
2.  Orange-Rage Against the Machine, 'Take the Power Back'
3.  Green-Incubus, 'Wish You Were Here'
4.  Magenta-Beastie Boys 'You Gotta Fight'
5.  Blue/Purple-RadioHead 'Paranoid Android'

It will be my 1st time performing to original music by an a musician, DJEZUP.  Through this, as a painter I'll be able to focus more artistically and experiment with ideas of how music & painting are related, largely considering theory by Wasilly Kandinsky of course!

DJEZUP will be able to see what his music looks like, I hope, as well as the crowd that attends:)

'Struggle' Turns into 'Heavenly Dutch Windmill' by C.T. Rasmuss.

                      Heavenly Dutch Windmill  C.T. Rasmuss, oil/acrylic colle (June 2013).


With this one, I started off with a blank canvas(of course), but the finished work shown here, is entirely different from what it was just the nite before last.  I finished a painting that I wasn't sure about, if it was finished or a just complete mess.  It was very dark & chaotic, and I saw it as a metaphor for my struggles, I mean clear as day; but it showed me winning in this struggle...I was 'stamping' out the enemy.  And after a few days my victory was obvious and I was tired of looking at the ugly residue!!!

                                        'Struggle', no longer exists...reference above work.


So I decided I was going to 'stamp' this image out of existence, for real..."I want Beauty", I thought to myself..."I don't need to be reminded of its ugliness, not in the least".

When I started out originally I had no idea what I was going to do, I was practicing a subconscious technique, which obviously worked, "but could it be done again? is this the final product or is there a second part to this interpretive metaphor?"; only one way to find out and I took the hard way out!

I recalled a student of mine asking me "do you ever paint off the top of your head?";  that day I answered with a quick painting(Top of the Floral), off the top of my head...and now this day I realized, after spending many more hours on 'Struggle' that The finished piece now known as 'Heavenly Dutch Windmill' is what was off the top of my head, the 1st ugly one is what got me there, a Metamorphosis if you will.  I win!

                                            Top of the Floral mentioned above C.T. Rasmuss

Paul Gauguin's 'Still Life with Mandolin', 1885; featuring a remake by C.T. Rasmuss.

Opening statement from one of my art-books on Paul Gauguin:

"Gauguin has reworked the traditional still life and brought it up to date.  He has retained a number of conventional ingredients-the rose...however he's not studied the different textures of the objects-the peonies are solid as the wood...The picture on the wall belonged to Gauguin(painted by his artist friend, Armand Guillaumin), similar to a view out of a window as in his own, 'Vase of Flowers', 1881."

                                          Still Life with Mandolin, Paul Gauguin; oil (1885).

The following is my interpretation/Remake of the above accompanying statement/composition:

                       Remake of Gauguin's 'Still Life with Mandolin' (Lily); C.T. Rasmuss (CHAD), oil (2013). 

I see now after looking at the table, that I have a larger angle sloping downward from the left, changing the space and composition via vanishing line.  Where the vase sets, this vanishing line is briefly interrupted, here I'm reminded of Cezanne's still life's; where many of his lines were adjusted, sacrificed for the overall feeling of the work, which played a big role in Gauguin's work(and later the Modernists)..

From the beginning I set out to fill a space similar to Gauguin's original, which included color.  I planned on leaving out the Mandolin & possibly the China bowl(another reference to Cezanne); due to my unfamiliarity with such iconic objects, as I've never had a use or interacted with either one.  Once everything was in place, including place-mat(pun intended) & vase, I then started with the darkest leaves(undergrowth) continuing to use a brush, experimenting with technique; then I tried the peonies, but being unfamiliar with them up close, I had trouble to get them to work for me.  

Solution:

I turned my attention to the opening statement above(from my art-book)...I said to myself: "This is not me" and reached for the palette knife, from then on I never left my array of knifes, end result:

Thinly brush on 1st layer over entire canvas, brush on texture and objects as far as the brushes will take you; when all else fails: "Pick up the palette knives..and don't look back"!  In other words, study all you can and when you like something, don't copy it, but "make it your own", same as Gauguin had done over 100 years ago; hence my Lily instead of his Mandolin, I'm very familiar with Lilies:)

 

Van Gogh's 'Undergrowth with Two Figures', an Inspiring Work of Art.

                    Undergrowth with Figure at Sawyer Point C.T. Rasmuss, Oil (June 12, 2013).


I set this composition according to Van Gogh's 'Undergrowth with Two Figures' (June 1890), created in Auvers-sur-Oise, France.

I don't live in France and have never been, and I've never saw undergrowth such as in Van Gogh's painting...so when I was out on the Riverfront scouting for a good place to paint for the day, I was surprised to notice what was available to me on the Ohio River.  I've studied this painting every time I go to the Cincinnati Art Museum..and I absolutely love it(featured below)..

                       Undergrowth with Two Figures  Vincent Van Gogh, oil (June 1890).

My painting is a mix of an intriguing 'figure' (a brilliant white venue overhang) surrounded by 'undergrowth', I also replaced the trash cans with tall outdoor vases w/ flowers.  My favorite part as well as in Van Gogh's masterpiece, is the large tree smack dab in the middle right of the work; I saw this in his as a broken rule and  an obstacle he set to overcome..which I believe sets up the ultimate view of the two figures, and otherwise would be bland and ineffective if it weren't for the purposeful obstacle!

Enjoy!!!