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Monday, October 7, 2013

October 2013 Art Design and Dine at CAG

Kevin Phillips and James Overstreet
  Featured Artists during October Art Design and Dine 
at the Cheyenne Artist Guild
1701 Morrie Avenue, Cheyenne WY


October 10th, 2013 from 5-8 pm 

This month the Cheyenne Artists Guild will be featuring two of our newest members. Both of these talented young men are Art Majors attending Laramie County Community College.  We are excited they have joined and welcome them to the Cheyenne Artists Guild! Thursday, October 10th your invited to come see their work in person. Till the show... enjoy their paintings and their comments about their art and what inspires them to create! 

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Kevin Phillips
Art by Kevin Phillips

Art by Kevin Phillips

Art by Kevin Phillips

Art by Kevin Phillips
Kevin Phillips:

                 " I’m inspired by many different elements of art.  From 3D artist such as Ron Mueck, 2D artist like H.R. Giger and Salvador Dali that work in both 3D and 2D like myself.  I want to refine my skills in both dimensions by working with clay and other elements like graphite and paint.

            Ron Mueck has an amazing talent to make his sculptures appear to be super realistic even despite the scaled size being larger or smaller than life.  “I never made life-size figures because it never seemed to be interesting.  We meet life-size people every day.” (Ron Mueck)  Muecks uncanny ability to show hyper realism in a surrealism way inspires me greatly.  I’ve always been drawn to make something as real as possible.

            H.R. Giger has a “don’t give a shit” attitude that lets him do whatever he wants.  He does many phallic and other sexually disguised pieces of work.  It’s blatantly obvious but doesn’t let it be the main focus. My reason of inspiration by Giger is he can take something from fantasy and make it appear real.

            Salvador Dali is the “weird” artist that I really like.  Dali was one of those people who took something popular and brought it to the next level.  Surrealism was executed by painting things such as Christ of St John of the Cross, Eggs and Elephants.  Although Dali is known today as the guy that painted the melting clocks, I’m inspired and more intrigued by his other works.  Like I said earlier with Ron Mueck who makes things super real, Dali makes me want to push myself to the impossible realm more.  The impossible realm not only inspires of the cartoon characters that I like to draw but pushes my realism ideas to a whole different level. 

            What I want my artwork to be is “real.”  Not just looking visually real, but feeling visually real.  I want my viewers to be stuck in that painting or drawing and walk away from it feeling like they were there, and they experienced the event.  I plan to continue and refine my skills through college and eventually become a self-working artist. "

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James Overstreet
Art by James Overstreet

Art by James Overstreet

Art by James Overstreet

Art by James Overstreet

James Overstreet:

As I grow I realize it is absolutely crucial to gain an understanding of how and why art is done. Art has existed throughout the beginning of humanity. As humans progressed in art work so did the meanings and understanding of art increase. There are spiritual and religious aspects recorded since the very beginning. Other cultures even incorporated beliefs and artwork from previous cultures into their own, which is called syncretism. Cultures even incorporated art work to help teach their beliefs and scriptures which is known as didacticism. “Teaching through pictures.”

Before college my art work reflected a lot on who I am. My art consisted of monsters, videogame/ cartoon/comic characters, and a lot of surrealism.  Mostly splash panels containing a lot going on at once. I gradually started  getting into painting and focused on abstract ideas and surrealism. I wanted to improve my skills. I was lacking the fundamentals and I was mostly self-taught in painting. This is what made me want to go back to school.

After getting a crash course in the basics, my whole perspective changed on what art work I was creating. Before my images was from my imagination, now I have the concept on creating realism through observation. Hopefully focusing on realism through observation in the future when I do create pieces from my imagination I’ll have a better concept of how light and darkness and other concepts of art come into play, giving my artwork a better since of quality.

I have a tendency of trying to get as much detail into a painting as possible. I want to break away from this approach and try something new. Like Diego Velazquez, he still achieves a level of detail even though his painting is based upon a loose formula. Personally I do not think one is better than the other but I would not mind to be able to do both ways of painting.

I have a broader understanding of art from when I first started going to college. It is enticing to learn and expand every day. I have much to learn from instructors, piers, and past artists. Hopefully one day I can take what I learn and leave a positive mark on this world to inspire and teach others as others have done to me.


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