New Art, Mr. Manhattan Find the Life

Just finished up this picture. This was a fairly quick one, really a study of sorts for a large painting type deal I might want to do. I called it "Mr. Manhattan Finds the Life".  Not much much to say, as I feel the title is self explanatory. It was done with colored inks and Rapidograph on hot press illustration board.

Mr. Manhattan Finds the Life

In other news, I went to an awesome cool watercolor demo by Wyatt Waters at noon on Thursday. For the demo, Wyatt did a quick painting of another great Mississippi artist, Bill Dunlap. Later that evening, I attended the opening of Bill's show at the Cullis Wade Depot Gallery on the Mississippi State campus. Great show. Go if you can! These two dudes are really good. Check out their art at their respective web sites: Wyatt Waters [http://www.wyattwaters.com/] and Bill Dunlap [http://www.williamdunlap.com/]. 

Joe MacGown Art on The Real Story

The editor of the Real Story, Joseph St. John, wrote up a very nice article about me and my artwork the other day. This relatively new source of news and events is published out of Columbus, Mississippi both in printed and digital format. You can view the story about me here [link].

Additionally, Joseph made a YouTube video of some of the images included in the piece. Here is the video if you want to see it.



Thanks to Joseph and the Real Story Publishing for this wonderful article!

Omnia Scrolls International Art Collaborative Art Project

I will be involved with a cool project coming up called the Omnia Scroll Exhibition. This amazingly awesome project has come about largely due to the efforts of Penelope Oakley. In addition to original artwork on display, large scrolls are being created featuring the artwork of international artists, including me! The next installment of this exhibition will be in March in Venice, Italy! Sweet. Penelope plans to have this show travel to various venues throughout the world. As for me, I have two pieces, Mayan Awakening and Organic Cosmic Lock, that will be printed on scrolls and included in this very unique show. 

Mayan Awakening

Organic Cosmic Lock

The Omnia Scroll Exhibition II, 2013

Art Studio, Via Calnova 9/A San Dona di Piave, Venice, Italy March 2 at 7:00 pm until March 16 at 10:00pm in UTC+01 Beginning in the UK in 2012 this global arts collaboration and exhibition will be touring the world annually. Connecting new artists, exhibitors, galleries and the public alike.  Artists will exhibit their original artworks and each work exhibited will form part of the collaborative work thus creating “The Omnia Scroll” an ever increasing, continually growing work of art, images transferred onto silk fabric cotton canvas panels which will be connected and embroidered with gold thread.  The Omnia Scroll and Exhibitions explore the interconnectedness of all things (Latin for all things is Omnia), with each other and our planet. The curator Penelope Oakley being inspired by and fascinated with ancient wisdoms, science, quantum physics, philosophy and spirituality. The untangible mysteries and invisible connections that merge, from the undiscovered depths of our oceans, of nature, the stars with each other and ourselves. Embracing the connections and similarities of ancient wisdoms and quantum physics. The theme of the exhibition to promote positive connections and explore the visual interpretations of each artist, in doing so increasing connections to a wider audience and to each other. From each original exhibited artwork, a print of which will be transferred onto fabric panels, each artwork creating and becoming a piece of a whole new one, “The Omnia Scroll” will be exhibited alongside the originals. As each exhibition takes place and grows so does The Omnia Scroll, one piece of art, many artists creations, continually evolving.  Two thousand years ago, “Omnia vivunt, omnia inter se conexa.” Everything is alive; everything is interconnected!” Cicero, Roman Philosopher.  The Omnia Scroll now consists of 36 different artists amazing art & 4 panels so far of the Scroll being the growing collaborative work...connecting artists from all around the world.  Artists exhibiting original art at the exhibition include: Tatiana Carapostol James Eddy Alexander Osipov Jamie McCartney Katy Holford Alberto Martinez Carmelo Di Certo Penelope Oakley Federico Sirini Rudolf Lichtenegger Ivana Vavreckova Jenny Lynne Sessions Rachael Linton Lynne Ridden Stuart Griggs Iain Dub Svetlana Belenkin Artists who have contributed artwork for the scroll panels (but did not send original artwork) in The Omnia Scroll Exhibition in Venice include:  Joe MacGown Gary Iles Natalia Bucio Sue Taylor Maria Gorino Alicia Hunsicker James Gill Claudia Vázquez The existing panels from the first exhibition works from the 12 exhibiting artists from that show along with those exhibiting in San Dona di Piave will be exhibited alongside the original works of the above artists.

In other news, I am getting ready for my one man show this summer at the Rosenzweig Center in downtown Columbus, Mississippi. The show is slated for the entire month of August with an opening reception on the first Thursday of that month from 5:30 to 7:00 pm. This will be a pretty good sized show with a nice selection of my art. The originals will be for sale as will a variety of prints. Should be a good exhibition.  I hope to have lots of folks show up to see my unique artwork.

New Art from Joe, "Cancer"

I just finished a new painting/drawing.  It is entitled "Cancer".  I started the piece by applying watercolor washes to a piece of cold press illustration board, the nice thick stuff. Then, started adding detail with a Koh-i-noor Rapidograph pen. Came back with some colored pencil, and some more pen. The picture was originally 24 X 30 inches, but I did not like some areas, so cropped it to the final size of 15 X 15 inches. This may sound crazy, but it was not really unusual for me, as I have done this same thing many times. Sometimes, the entire image just does not work for me, but there may be something salvageable. Anyway, in this case, I thought it was appropriate that I cut away a large portion of a drawing called Cancer. To me, this was similar to the way in which we often try to treat cancer, continuously cutting it away, but often not getting it all. Maybe this was a dark topic, I don't know. Many people tell me that my art is dark, but I don't usually feel that way about it. However, this one is not really happy and is about the insidious growth of cancer both physically in our bodies and metaphorically in our society.

Cancer, by Joe MacGown

Some people have told me that they think the "growths" in this image look rather happy, instead of appearing to be devious, insidious, angry creatures. Now that I think about it, if cancer could be personified, would that being (or creature) feel bad about doing what it does? Probably not. Do parasites feel bad about feeding on something that nourishes them? Do they feel at all? We as humans often eat meat, and even express feelings of happiness when devouring a juicy steak. Does that mean we are bad people? Or, does that simply mean we are doing what is natural to us. So, if cancer cells were thoughtful living creatures, why not show them as being happy, or show them with various mixed emotions.  I was not feeling particularly unhappy when drawing this. And, I was not thinking about cancer at the time I was drawing this. However, after I was about halfway through, it suddenly came to me that this could be interpreted as a a cancerous type growth. In fact, the way this drawing spread across the board was cancer-like in its movement. For us humans, as the recipient of a cancerous growth, there can be no worse form of pervasive evil. Cancer strikes down the weak to the strong, with no rhyme or reason. My father died of cancer a few years ago. He lived with me at the time, and I saw first hand what it does to a person. Interestingly, he was an artist, scientist, and musician. Even at the end, he was taking cells from his body to examine under a high powered compound microscope in vain attempts to find some answer.  I guess in the end, this image should be perceived as slightly dark, at least from our human vantage point.

An earlier state of Cancer, before I had cut and cropped large areas away. 

Animal Planet Video about crazy ants with Joe MacGown

Well, this is not exactly art related, but comes from my other life as an entomologist.  I was interviewed by the producers of "Infested" on the Animal Planet network for an episode about crazy ants. The show recently aired and will be seen periodically throughout the season. You can also watch the video online at: http://animal.discovery.com/tv-shows/infested/videos/hairy-crazy-ant.htm

Please note that this is not really a scientific show, but in this case is more or less accurate. The format of the show is somewhat strange in that interviews done are of me and the homeowners, but the video at the property is of actors who supposedly look somewhat like us. Kind of strange, but that is how they do it. Anyway, I was on Animal Planet, so that is pretty cool.

New Collaboration Finished, "Nemo's Surprise"

I just finished an Exquisite Corpse collaborative drawing with Sander Jansen of the Netherlands. He started this graphite piece by drawing on the bottom half of a piece of drawing paper, then covering his side with thick paper except for a one inch strip along the top edge of his half, which he left exposed. He mailed the image to me, and I finished up the top half of the drawing using the one inch exposed strip as a guide. Sometimes this is difficult, but not so much in this case, because Sander was smart enough to show enough of his style in the one inch that he left exposed.    Additionally, I am quite familiar with his work and style, which helps a lot! After I finished my half, I took the covering off of his part to view the entire image. Very cool. This collab turned out very nice. Typically, I don't do graphite drawings, and really, my technique leaves a lot to be desired! In fact, of all of the graphite collaborations I have done with various artists, my technique was always inferior to my partners. It is always an honor to be able to work with these wonderful artists! Despite my ineptitude, I think the end result here was pretty good. Because I finished the piece up, I had the privilege of giving it a title. I called the piece "Nemo's Surprise". See the images of the piece below.  See more of Sander's work at http://sanderjansen.deviantart.com/?rnrd=15191

'Nemos Surprise" by Sander Jansen and Joe MacGown. 

Nemo's Surprise

New Art

Just finished up a collaborations with Elle Gottzi (http://ellegottzi.deviantart.com/). Ella is an awesome artist as well as a tattoo artist. She has blue hair. I like that. Its pretty cool. For the collab, I put some abstract watercolor down on a piece of illustration board and drew weird stuff on the right side, covered my part except for a one inch strip down the middle, and left the left side for her to complete. Mailed it to her, but forgot to tell her which side my part was done on. Stupid Joe. So, she flipped it upside down and did the right side of that. It still worked out quite well, because it is all weird crazy stuff, and it does not really matter how it goes. Elle titled the finished piece "Incubation". See it below....I think this might look good on a ceiling?

Incubation by Joe MacGown and Elle Gottzi

Here is the image of my half of the collab by itself. I call this "Orangish Madness". My scanner apparently gives a different color to the image as compared to Elle's. But, you get the idea.

Orangish Madness, by Joe MacGown

I also just finished up another colored ink and Rapidograph pen drawing on birch plywood. This one is 8 X 24 inches. I could not come up with a great name for this one. Ended up calling it "Going Green".  Why not, right? Its the thing to do.

Going Green, by Joe MacGown