Week #34 ('20) Art Appreciation
Welcome to my weekly Art Appreciation post, where I provide a list of some amazing album covers, single art, and random art that have come out within the past week. I’ll give you the artist/photographer/painter/magician’s name, as well as any social media or websites where you can go and check out more of their work. Click here to go back and see some other Art Appreciation posts.
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I’ve been doing these Art Appreciation posts for about three months now, and I’ve got to say the reception has been stellar. These artists are hella important to music culture, and to be able to shine the light on them and be able to highlight their work and their businesses has been rewarding as fuck. So to everyone out there who has found a dope new artist to follow on Instagram, and to all of you artists who have reached out to me over the past few months, all I’ve got to say is: thank you! Let’s keep this shit going in style. I’ve got four pieces to show you today, more than usual, so strap in and get your eyes ready.
Remember, use this post to follow and subscribe to these artists; they deserve as much recognition as the musicians they are attached to.
Artist(s): Ivan Merlin
Hoodrat Noir, by NCL-DøøFus
The first piece I got for you is by a guy named Ivan Merlin, who is a master of surrealist and cubist art. This cover-art here is a bit special out of everything I’ve seen from him thus far, as it looks like a culmination of all of his different talents and styles into one epic and detailed work. A lot of the work I’ve seen from Ivan is much sparser, relying more on mind-bending geometry on some Pablo Picasso shit, but I can see that the weirdness of artists like Dali run underneath everything he does. That’s really the best way I can describe the man’s work: take Picasso’s unique way of approaching form, but depict the oddities of Dali’s subjects. That’s what we have here on this new cover, but with a lot more time spent building out a sort of legitimate living space or narrative. The thing about surreal art is that it’s very iconographic; here we can see a pistol, pill bottles, dice, lucky 8-ball, and a Tubman $20 to top it all off. I think my favorite part of this piece is the mirror, which is often used in paintings like this to increase the weirdness, but strangely enough the mirror and it’s reflection is the most down-to-earth element about this picture, depicting exactly what it’s looking at without and frills or misdirections. Keep this guy on your radar because his work is superb.
Ivan's Instagram
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Artist(s): honeiee
King’s Disease, by Nas
Now, THIS SHIT, ladies and gentlemen, THIS is art. Not discounting any other artists that have been featured in my Art Appreciations, but every art…guy… like myself has a favorite style or time-period, and for me has got to be late-Renaissance painting. This painting right here takes a lot of queues from the styles of Mannerism and early Baroque art forms, while also throwing on some of the iconographical and colorful leanings of Dutch painters. To break down these elements, you gotta divide the piece into two halves: the top and the bottom. The top-half is much more in line with 16th-17th century opulence of late Renaissance paintings, which was a style that focused more on elegant representation over natural or even logical proportions. Everything is crowded around this central throne, from the beautiful arrangement of flowers to the horde of strikingly red Cherubs, with the idea to get all of these motifs jammed into the small space, making them one with the center-piece of the artwork. The bottom-half is more reminiscent of Dutch still-life paintings, which was popular in the Netherlands while these other aforementioned styles took over Italy. The symbolism and cohesive clarity of the still-life is more important than any sort of message or narrative it can present: the papaya, gold coins, and the boars head look straight out of a Van Eyck still life, an amazingly faithful take on the style that has me more impressed than I have been in a long-ass time with a piece of art. This is the perfect aesthetic for a piece of art that’s named “King’s Disease”, and anyone who values art needs to follow this person. Everything I’ve seen from her is just as quality, focusing more on pro-black teachings that Nas talks so much about on the album. It’s all simply beautiful, essential for you art-heads out there.
honeiee’s Instagram/honeiee’s Website
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Artist(s): Manuel “Cep” Concepcion
Music Is My Religion, by Buckwild
We may as well have a special “Cep Watch” segment on every Art Appreciation, because it seems like every week he’s coming through with hard-ass art that always astounds. This one here that he’s given to the legendary beatmaker Buckwild for his newest project, is a little different than his normal fare; there is religious imagery, which is not unusual for a Cep piece, but it’s not really a subtext for anything deeper. It’s really just a dope image that make Buckwild into a sort of boom-bap saint, the crates of dusty records ripe for the digging. I love the colors in this piece especially, with the purple (which Cep is no stranger to, look below to find even more of it) in particular being standout and bold, especially when juxtaposed against the red. The barbed wire gives it that little bit of edge to let you know this shit is still dangerous, and that Buck hasn’t lot a single bit of his bite. Fantastic, fully-realized piece here.
Cep’s Instagram/Cep’s Twitter/Cep’s Website
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Artist(s): Manuel “Cep” Concepcion
Loyalty + Trust II, by Flee Lord & 38 Spesh
Just in case you didn’t get enough of him this week, we’re closing out Week #34 (’20) with ANOTHER piece of art from none other than Manuel Concepcion. This man is everywhere, both because of his immense talent (which should go without saying at this point, I mean look at this shit: it’s fire) and because of musicians recognition of said talent. Almost anyone in the underground sphere of hip-hop right now probably has some sort of connection to his work in some way, which is a rare and wonderful source of unity in this competitive world. This is a the sequel to Loyalty & Trust, which came out over a year ago at this point, and in that time Flee Lord has cemented himself as underground royalty, dropping almost every month since that project came out. It’s fitting that the album cover reflect that status, the enthroned skull-king sitting on his throne of what looks like ice. Again, like the Buckwild cover above, and almost all of his other covers for that matter, Cep’s use of color here is excellent, colder colors than the vibrancy of Music Is My Religion’s. We get that trademark skull, complete with the third eye, aspects of his design that can be found in many of his other works. I love how there’s a lot more text in this piece than some of Cep’s other works too: the signatures of both Spesh and Flee, as well as the great title card up in the top right-hand corner, and even a little extra on the throne with the chilling “RIP” (“P” in purple possibly for the late great Prodigy). Solid work from Cep here, continuing on with the Flee Lord mythos in very satisfying ways.
Cep’s Instagram/Cep’s Twitter/Cep’s Website
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