Week #49 ('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 talked about the collage in previous Art Appreciations, but while before I’ve referred to pieces with a large number of elements “collages” there are actually several different ways of thinking of what that actually means. Collage as an artistic medium has been around for thousands of years, going all the way back to the invention of paper; when talking about a collage in this sense it’s usually bits of material cobbled together in order to create a larger, eclectic whole (like our first piece from Gallery Provence below). But you can also have what can be referred to as a collage of ideas, bringing together ideas and figures into one sweeping landscape of images (like the piece we have from msudrawings at the bottom). They are both conveying significant amounts of information by dumping them out in front of us for our viewing pleasure, but there can be a running layer of structure down at the skeleton of the piece; let’s look at a couple different examples.
Remember, use this post to follow and subscribe to these artists; they deserve as much recognition as the musicians they collaborate with.
Artist(s): Gallery Provence
We Know the Truth, by Drakeo the Ruler
What we have here from Gallery Provence is a true-blue artistic collage, incorporating somewhat traditional paper collage pieces to build a massive tribute to the illustrious Drakeo the Ruler. Having just recently gotten out of prison, I don’t think there’s any better way to celebrate his release than show how much of a fuckin’ boss he is with a piece highlighting all of his… pieces. Dude’s got jewelry for days, money for days, way more shirts than I thought he owned if I’m being honest (I swear every other image I see of him is without a shirt). It tells you a lot about the kind of career that Drakeo is looking to conduct, one of a high-rolling boss-don that doesn’t give a FUCK what y’all think. But back to the actual art here: it plays more into the 20th century version of a collage, more of a collection of disparate ideas rather than any sort of unified whole, with the ransom note font, while not really being associated with the collage as an art form, fitting well into the aesthetic of a DIY piece of art. If you’ve been reading my Art Appreciation posts, you seen Gallery’s work before, but you probably don’t recognize this as his trademark look, given that most of his work is in cartoony rendition’s of popular artists (a perfect example would be Drakeo’s last project Thank You For Using GTL, whose cover was also done by Gallery Provence).
Gallery Provence's Instagram/Gallery Provence's Twitter
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Artist(s): msudrawings (Marcsu)
FAMILY, by DJ Scheme
Now here is the collage of ideas I was talking about; bringing together characters, stories, and vibes together into one colorful mess of charm. I know this is going to sound like a stretch, but hear me out, as a lot of art sort of travels back to the same beginning points: when I look at this piece, I think of the Renaissance. Paintings from Da Vinci, Veronese, and especially Raphael ring true to me as a painting like this’ great-great-great-great-great-great(and probably many more greats)-grandfather, combining both eye-catching spectacle, recognizable faces, and a adoration of color that is imperative to sifting through the chaos of what we’re seeing. It’s a very visually pleasing image, with the clear blue of the pool giving a nice sense of serenity to come back to as a sort of cleanser, from which you can go back to trying to find your favorite artist in the throng. But I think what I love the most is the unique character type that Marcsu has created here, with the jerky and lanky bodies giving the subjects unnaturally expressive postures, as well as facial features that are some of the coolest I’ve seen. I love how the teeth play such a big role, being just as much a window into the soul of the subject as their eyes are, which Marcsu has created in such a unique way that is immutable fun (look at the dude up top with the hoodie over his head; his eyes cut through the clothes because they are that important to the artist). Heavenly balance, great colors, fun “where’s waldo?” of fame, and an illustrative uniqueness give this all of the elements for a successful celebratory cover of an album worth sharing.
Marcsu's Instagram/Marcsu's Twitter
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