Portland Artist!

Okay, so we saw this guy at one of the galleries in Portland that we visited on our field trip, but he had fallen to the back of my mind. Michael Knutson does crazy abstract-geometric paintings. Looking at his website, it is clear that he can do true-to-life art, but this is where his interests lay. He paints blocks of color that make it look like the canvas is covered with 3-D prisms. The colors he chooses are awesome! I am just fascinated by how he can do something so repetitive as this in nature and make the piece look complete/ finished. They look like those optical illusion, "Magic Eye" book things-- maybe if you squint just the right way, an elephant will pop up.... His work also reminds me of the movie Labyrinth, with David Bowie.... anyone else?

Looking at his gallery, you can really see the progression of his work from more basic fractals to page-covering-spirals.

FIRST INSPIRATION ARTIST

Okay, so the first person who I've recently been into is Dave McKean. He does a lot of comic book art among other things, but it's not at all the typical Superman style. McKean uses many different media in his pieces, which is something that I have never been able to accomplish very well. There's a very surreal and almost grotesque feel to many of his images. I discovered him because he's worked on numerous things with Neil Gaiman, who is basically my favorite author. 

now to find a local artist.... Hmmm.

march pics

So, I'm not really sure what I am going to do for my next concentration pieces. I was thinking of doing one based on a water reflection pic from the zoo (I actually started it in class but it is at the very-unfinished stage so I might change it). This is not the same picture I was using but it's of the same place, so here's the general idea of it:

The other picture I am thinking of doing is this one, of Sarah Bartell's and my feet reflected in a glass animal cage.

Does anyone have any recommendations for expanding the boundaries of my reflections?