Surreal Decalcomania

Decalcomania, what is it? Simply put, apply pigment to glass, plastic, or a similarly smooth surface, then apply to paper, canvas, or other material by pressing the two surfaces together. The application of pigment can be entirely abstract or more structured. Whatever, no rules. Do what you want. I love this technique for starting random surreal artwork. Basically, it gives me a backdrop for a mixed media drawing. One of my favorite surreal artists, Max Ernst, used this technique in his artwork. 

Here is an example of one I did a few years ago that I entitled "Facing the Future". 

Facing the Future, by Joe A. MacGown

Today, I randomly applied various colors of acrylic paint and colored inks onto a clear piece of thin plastic.

Palette of acrylic paint

Some of  my colored inks

pigment on plastic

I then put a fresh piece of plastic on top of that pigment and mashed the two pieces together. Next, I pulled the top piece away. Then I pressed pieces of smooth bristol paper against the pigments, and finally, pulled the paper away.

Bristol paper with color transferred  from plastic

bristol paper with color from plastic

Next step, let the now colored paper dry. When dry, I can started adding details with pens, pencils, paint, or whatever. Updates forthcoming!

Earlier in the day, our crazy redneck, poetry writing, guitar playing friend Gentry Lewis stopped by. He has recently grown a trippy beard deal and resembles some insightful philosopher dude.

Joseph MacGown and Gentry Lewis

Starkville PTO Art Contest (Buzzy Art Contest)

The Starkville Public Schools Parent Teacher Organization (PTO) had some art/writing contest deal for grades kindergarden through high school Monday February 25th with an awards ceremony was at 5:30 pm at the Greensboro Center. I believe the contest was called the Buzzy Arts. Five categories: Graphic design, drawing/painting, photography, poetry, and creative writing. Really nice event and great idea. Joseph entered all five categories with some pretty nice entries. He ended up winning first place in the first four and 2nd in the creative writing. Pretty cool. But, unfortunately, many of the kids in the SHS art classes did not participate. So, that was disappointing. Regardless, if you don't enter, you don't win! In fact, SHS art students not entering local competitions is not unusual. For some reason, students taking art at Starkville High rarely submit their work to local art events, nor do they seem to take advantage of attending the many and varied art exhibitions in our area. Conversely, the elementary and junior high classes typically participate in these events, and their teachers actually expect them to do so. I have judged student art shows at our local Cotton District Arts Festival and found the same thing. Entries from all elementary and middle schools, and entries from all area high schools except for Starkville High. Occasionally, some students not taking art there enter and also occasionally a few of the kids in the photography classes will enter on their own, but that is it. So, they don't get to participate and the public does not get to see the wonderful artwork that they do. I just don't understand what is happening over there. The students produce some nice works and typically have several students do well at the Mississippi Scholastic Awards each year with several students also typically receiving art scholarships each year. But, the lack of participation in anything else, especially at the local level, is mind boggling! A large reason artists create art is for people to see it, and we should do everything we can to encourage this, rather than discourage this. Not having high school art classes come to local exhibitions is equally disturbing. Viewing art by different and varied artists is eye opening to say the least, and talking with those artists is a unique opportunity that should not be missed. I have had local shows in our area in which I was requested by art teachers from some of our county schools, and even other county schools, to give talks to their classes. How cool is that? But, never from SHS. So many missed opportunities!! And, we have so many great shows here. I simply do not understand this.  I wish somebody could explain this to me.  Mississippi loves to hold itself back whenever possible it seems, and here is yet another example. Kudos to the ones who rebel and enter contests, show their art, and view the art of others! After all, what is art anyway, if not some sort of rebellion? Fuck the status quo. Be an artist. Be yourself. 

Joseph's Graphic Design entry (or part of it), the front cover for a CD of his own music. 

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.