Month: June 2015

Bruno Surdo

Bruno Surdo, “Notice Me”, Oil Painting, 1963

Bruno A. Surdo is a native of Chicago. He studied drawing and art history, and pursues the mastery of the human form with inspiration from the Renaissance masters. His provocative works center around the human condition and are known for their allegorical imagery.

Surdo has had numerous shows and commissions and his work is held in many prestigious art collections around the world. He lectures often and is a teacher who believes in nurturing others. The artistic forms Surdo has created are images that communicate a personal commentary on the issue or question in mind. These shapes are then arranged in a pictorial space using the human form.

Cullen

Cullen from Dragon Age: Inquisition

Trained from a young age, Cullen has devoted more than half his life in service to the Templar Order. He saw the Ferelden Circle fall during the Blight and was witness to the mage-templar conflict that tore Kirkwall apart. In the aftermath, it was Cullen who rallied what remained of Kirkwall’s templars to restore order to the devastated city. His leadership and integrity caught the attention of Cassandra Pentaghast, who recognized in him a vital component in forming the Inquisition. He’s determined that the Inquisition will make a difference for the people of Thedas.

Jesse Ares

Photographer Unknown, “Jesse Ares”, Photo Shoot

“He would fall. He had not yet fallen but he would fall silently, in an instant. Not to fall was too hard, too hard; and he felt the silent lapse of his soul, as it would be at some instant to come, falling, falling, but not yet fallen, still unfallen, but about to fall.”

-James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Robert Motherwell

Robert Motherwell, “Wall Painting III”, 1952, Oil on Fiberboard, 48 x 72 Inches, Smithsonian American Art Museum

Robert Motherwell was an American painter, printmaker, and editor. He was one of the youngest of the New York School (a phrase he coined), which also included Philip Guston, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko.

He described his working process as follows: “I begin painting with a series of mistakes. The painting comes out of the correction of mistakes by feeling. I begin with shapes and colors, which are not related internally nor to the external world; I work without images.”

Charles Dickens: “. . .In Clear and Radiant Glory”

Photographer Unknown, (Bathed in Sunlight)

“The sun,–the bright sun, that brings back, not light alone, but new life, and hope, and freshness to man–burst upon the crowded city in clear and radiant glory. Through costly-coloured glass and paper-mended window, through cathedral dome and rotten crevice, it shed its equal ray.”

― Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

Asmat Tribe Ancestral Skull

Asmat Tribe Ancestral Skullwith Carved Bone, Feathers, Fibers and Seeds

The first apparent sighting of the Asmat people by explorers was from
the deck of a ship led by a Dutch trader, Jan Carstensz in the year 1623.
Captain James Cook and his crew were the first to actually land in Asmat
on September 3, 1770 (near what is now the village of Pirimapun).
According to the journals of Captain Cook, a small party from the HM Bark Endeavor encountered a group of Asmat warriors; sensing a threat, the explorers quickly retreated.

The Asmat are an Indonesian cannibalistic tribe on the island; Papua. The Asmat live in mangrove vegetation near the sea and rivers, on the south side of the western part of New Guinea. The Asmat venerated their ancestors by decorating and honoring their skulls.  Asmat decorated skulls are displayed in sacred places inside Asmat domiciles.

Nightwing: The New Robin

Nightwing/ Dick Grayson ( formerly know as Robin)

Nightwing Created by Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Jerry Robinson

DC Comics:  Illustration by Jem Allman

The original Boy Wonder turned into quite the leading man. He has the nicest hair, the slickest costumes, and the best backside in comics, plus a weird propensity for accidental villainous bondage. Long before Noh-Varr, Nightwing was the male superhero who was written as sexy when most of the other guys were still boy scouts at a bikini convention. When it comes to sexy guys in comics, it always comes back to Robin.