ArtPrize 2011 Print 3
This of course is the night time side. I had playing for this one a DJ called Amon Tobin. He has very dreamy, spacey, out of this world sound. I can listen to him for hours. I usually do. I recommend Amon to all painters for background music.
The meaning of this one for me while I painted it was about no sleep. I had gotten very little sleep during ArtPrize. I was given coffee from the peoplein the BOB all day. (They were very very cool to me there.) I could not have done so many paintings in such a short time without some java juice (and support).
I had seen the full moon the night I painted this one. I remembered all the nights I had stayed up all night to paint murals and how the stars and moon are always there for every mural I have done. Watching me always. I have done over 500 murals all over the country and the moon and stars are the only ones who are always there. I sleep under them on jobs, and this one was no different. I had been staying in the parking lot with my tools and paintings because I didn’t want any stolen. (behind the paintings was my tent and my “urban camping” spot). I wanted this painting to evoke memories of staying up late to paint and look at the moon and stars. A kind of allegory of the night sky. I love the stars.
If you notice, there are cracks in the sky to the right of the moon. Those cracks came the day the winds picked up. It was the last day of voting and the voting servers went down, and the winds of Michigan took some art. I did expect this possibility of strong winds and I had put the paintings on hinges to swing in the wind.
All the paintings survived but one was lost. (I still don’t know what happened to that one.) And number three got some cracks from blowing in the wind. This was the only painting to get any cracks. so I decided to leave them there. Like the Liberty bell, or the Sistine Chapel, I felt the damage told a story relevant to the painting’s creation.
This particular project was one of my favorites of my entire career to date. The entire mural took about one week of hard painting all day and late at night. Each painting was painted separately on stretched canvas measuring 42 inches by 60 inches. All with standard house paints donated by Repcolite Paints, I painted to the pace of different types of music and sounds. All the works were done on my spinning easel with an audience of about a million. ArtPrize is a wonderful experience and an outstanding experiment for the city of Grand Rapids. I look forward to returning to ArtPrize 2012.
- There are two styles available of this work. All are of a limited edition printed of 100 and each signed and numbered by the artist, (excluding photo prints).
- Each of the signed prints comes with a Certificate of Authenticity and will be archived upon purchase.
- Prints will NOT have water mark in the final version.
- Signed Archival Prints are limited to 100 pressed.
- Photo Prints are not limited to 100 and are not signed.
- Please check out the other painting made available to purchase from ArtPrize by clicking here.
- You can go to my ArtPrize Profle by clicking here.