Francois Smit
Artist Scott Waddell describes and demonstrates the concepts he uses to interpret and paint the effects of light on form. The contained animations are designed to illustrate particular points and not intended to represent the actual physical behavior of light.
Cover illustration done for Art South Africa. Although a little tragic to be furthering another senseless Malema-like debate, the article by Karin Preller was insightful and working with this Tretchikoff icon was irresistable. Thanks Bronwyn and Brendon for the opportunity and Vivian for your input. Art, non-art and Zulu Dada.
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The article, titled The Tretchikoff Conundrum and written by Karin Preller, took a look at the critical response in the media and the art world. Here is a short excerpt::
"Humour is a feature of many reviews, mainly as a vehicle to express extreme distaste. Pollak describes Tretchikoff's animal paintings as "riddled with paralysis"; the portraits as evidence of "his mortician's brush imbuing every sitter with rigor mortis"; his technical ability a fallacy "to be viewed with the gravest suspicion" – grass looking like "fried parsley", fur "as tough and abrasive as a new doormat". The list goes on, but Pollak's conclusion is that Tretchikoff's work remained "static and intellectually null".7 In a review on ArtThrob Sean O'Toole focuses on the hype of opening night, eventually linking the work with the sugary snacks on offer: "The painter is really a pastry chef. His specialty is cupcakes and alluring tartlets. I pause in front of a marshmallow that pretends to be a layer cake. It is nominally a still life."8 On a more serious note, O'Toole finds the work "beyond criticism", implying that any kind of critical academic rereading of Tretchikoff would be pointless."
Below: Me signing prints at the Art Fair. The spin-off is that I am now back at gym after being able to view my own alluring tartlets.
I found this a very inspiring few moments of confidence and brush hornyness.
Who is he: Robert Liberace is equally accomplished in drawing, painting, and sculpture. His work is inspired by the centuries of knowledge, skill, and elegance of the old masters. He works in a variety of mediums including pencil, chalk, pen and ink, watercolor, and oil. Rob has been selected to be an honorary member of the America China Oil Painting Artists League.
Screen sketches - faces & features. Experiments with line thickness, length and direction. Combining technical drawing and caricature.
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Quick sketches in bars, on receits and invoices. Tissue paper. Faces, people, bodies. The luxury of escaping one's thoughts, looking and observing for a few seconds with a likeness just a possible bonus.
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Photos taken in Louis Botha Avenue at the time of the 2010 Sandton Art Fair. People's signage, like squashed bottletops in the tar. Proudly made. Acknowledged with blurred eye sweeps through hair-oiled bus windows. Remembered by degrees of colour, complexity and condition. And delightfully lacking in concept.
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A few photos of famlily and work. Trying out the new camera. around the house, family, work.
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Linda - painting in progress. I started this a while ago to get away from the computer and 50% done. Finishing from here on feels more like a restoration process than painting.
It is always sobering to see tangible pictures of how much stuff we produce as a global machine. It helps us to understand the sheer scale and numbers of hopeful individuals roaming our planet today. In the case of earwax the produce is clandestinely, surreptitiously discarded. All we can do is estimate the total quantity per day. Here is how:
This website tells us how much ear wax the average person produces in their lifetime.
They say: "The skin which lines the ear canal moves outwards at the rate of 33mm a year, so it ejects app. 3113 mm2 wax /year. Lifetime (78 yr) = 0.244 sq metre."
Then, take 0.244 sq metres x 6.91 billion people (american billions), divided by 78 (years), divided by 365 days.
So we arrive at 5.913 sq metres. Material density (not mine, hopefully) roughly allows me to convert a square metre to a tonne - sounds much cooler.
Global earwax production per day = 5.913 tonnes.
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A small selection of weekly newspaper illustrations done since 1992. Says Vivian van der Merwe: "The work of Francois is distinguished by a rare marriage of innovative technique, potent yet subtle imagery, and a highly sophisticated sense of visual form.
Like the best traditional visual artists (especially painters and printmakers), Francois uses his digital medium and tools with impressive mastery. Unlike popular work by most of the younger generation of digital artists and illustrators, you never sense or see the medium. The medium, or visualisation process, never intrudes or "shows off". It never postures. Perhaps it is the fact that Francois has literally grown up with the various evolutions of graphics software and hardware that allows him to work almost unconsciously with his medium. Where imagery does pixel-ate, or textures do become digitized, or you do glimpse evidence of digital aesthetics, you always sense that these references to the medium are not accidental or unwanted. Many years ago, when Francois worked with oil paint, these same qualities of objectification of the medium and process were distinguishing features of his art too. This has become a hallmark of Francois' work."
"Whereas a studio painter would classically use a paintbrush, palette, canvas and approximately 20 oil colours, Francois works with Photoshop, Freehand, Illustrator, Painter, Bryce, Maya, Poser and Stratavision in conjunction with hand drawn images, digital photography, scans and 3-dimensional modeling. These have become the tools of Francois' studio.
One of the most remarkable, and "invisible" aspects of this exhibition is the process that has yielded these compelling and often magical images: the fact that virtually all of these artworks were executed in an almost impossibly short time (between 2 and 5 hours, from initial conception to final print-ready completion!) tells a story that most artists and illustrators would find difficult, if not impossible, to believe! It is this rare combination of technical virtuosity, an unstoppable imagination, and relentless creativity that makes Francois' art especially unique. Most artists and illustrators would find working within such constraints, week by week, for ten years, completely untenable, and yet Francois has developed a distinctive visual idiom that resonates with technical depth and artistic insight.
Francois' imagery and artistic style has not really changed dramatically since the "earliest days". His art has simply evolved to become increasingly sophisticated and much more complex. This refinement, or distillation, is something that can only come with experience and time, and something that is underpinned by a vision that is conceptually complex, often satirically humorous, sometimes forbiddingly dark, and always visually compelling. As has often been stated about Francois the artist, he treads the tightrope between contemporary narratives and a kind of universal iconography, combined in images of great pathos and beauty, in a way that few other artists and illustrators are capable of doing with such consistency."
- Vivian van der Merwe