SARDINES!

Thank you for all the feedback on the Psychomachia sneak previews.   I appreciate your patience on seeing the full images.

Here’s another piece of the puzzle… Chastity!

I’ve been working on Psychomachia show for 1 1/2 years now, and we have booked the opening at Perihelion Arts on March 31st of 2011.  It is a series of 14 pieces from myself and Arizona artist Jerry Portelli. 

I now have all 14
of the images completed. 

 Although I still have to finish the reveals.  This work reinterprets the Seven Deadly Sins and the Seven Holy Virtues in a series of 14 diptychs, one from me and one from artist Jerry Portelli.  The aesthetic theme is the sideshow freak from the circus and fairs of yesteryear–nature’s artwork, if you will. 

Follow the progress by Email!

Glorious

I’ve been working on Psychomachia show for 1 1/2 years now, and we have booked the opening at Perihelion Arts on March 31st of 2011.  It is a series of 14 pieces from myself and Arizona artist Jerry Portelli. 

I now have all 14
of the images completed. 

 This work reinterprets the Seven Deadly Sins and the Seven Holy Virtues in a series of 14 diptychs, one from me and one from artist Jerry Portelli.  The aesthetic theme is the sideshow freak from the circus and fairs of yesteryear–nature’s artwork, if you will. 

The crop of my new Greed image doesn’t really show much.  So, I thought I’d offer a glimpse of my inspiration for Greed:  The Hermaphrodite…The Nymph Salmacis and Hermaphroditus by Francois-Joseph Navez. 

Enjoy!

Have you ever had a piece of artwork just beat you down?  I’ve been working on Psychomachia show for 1 1/2 years now, and we have booked the opening at Perihelion Arts on March 31st of 2011.  It is a series of 14 pieces from myself and Arizona artist Jerry Portelli. 

I have 12 of the 14 pieces completed. 

The first piece I attempted and completed for Psychomachia art show was called Gluttony, and I hated it (as I have mentioned before).  I have redone this piece over and over.  And, on the fourth try…I think I’ve got it. 

Thirteen down…Greed to go. 

I can’t reveal the whole piece until the show opens, but here’s just a taste.  Enjoy!

I am finishing up the last few pieces of a show named Psychomachia–a year-long project with Arizona artist Jerry Portelli.  I am sad to see the creation portion of the show coming to an end, but excited about being able to soon reveal the work and see the show get legs.

I have started laying the groundwork for a new show, yet unnamed, with South Carolina-based artist Michaela Pilar Brown, that will revolve around the changing image of mental-illness in our new, digitized, fast-food world.

My husband Jon Ives has finally found his mojo again as a photographer, and we have secured spots in a group show during Spoleto.  In addition, he installs work at The Shops at Carousel Gardens on Monday, March 22nd, and we have both applied for the Knoxville Art & Culture Alliance‘s 2010 Arts in the Airport Exhibit.

Changes are afoot, folks, changes are afoot.

I find myself working on Gluttony for the Psychomachia series today. Gluttony is represented in a Biblical sense by the bite of the apple.  Thematically, gluttony is being represented by the sideshow freak “World’s Fattest Woman.”

My subject is the world’s fattest woman only metaphorically, of course.  And then I began to wonder how many women live as the world’s fattest woman everyday–wallowing in guilt over their own perceived Gluttony, often false or imagined.  I wonder.

PSYCHOMACHIA (meaning Battle of Souls) is the newest series done in collaboration with Arizona-based artist Jerry Portelli. This work reinterprets the Seven Deadly Sins and the Seven Holy Virtues in a series of 14 diptychs, one from each artist. The aesthetic theme is the sideshow freak from the circus and fairs of yesteryear–nature’s artwork, if you will.

We seek to honor the sideshow freak as the masque form of the very best and very worst of humanity, regardless of individual morality. This work is wrapped in a celebration of the possibilities of digital media and rejects the pervasive sort of embarassment of digital alteration in photography. The use of square canvases in Psychomachia is meant to echo the pixel of which all digital images is comprised.

The work is ongoing as of October, 2009. I have been sworn to keep the images under wraps until the show opens; however, I think the Clown God will let just a puzzle-piece of two works (see below) out of the bag just for you.

“For years I have used the clown mask as a means by which the ordinary becomes the extraordarinary. However, in the Psychomachia series, I
was able to use the clown mask as masque of the common in favor of the extraordinary spirit of the human condition via the sideshow freak of yesteryear — both real and imagined. The Seven Deadly Sins & Seven Holy Virtues simply add a layer of unexpected judgement of intent to the physical reality.”

–Jerry Portelli, the Clown God

“My work habit is to explore the physical reality of my reverence for human potential with ‘self as other’ as reoccurring content. The Psychomachia series, challenged me to not rely on facial expression. While every face is unique, humanity regardless of culture or language recognizes facial expression as the key to discovering the true soul. Limiting use of the face allowed me to further explore the physcial uniqueness upon which the Seven Deadly Sins & Seven Holy Virtues provide the crux of judgement allowing acceptance of the physical.”

–R.L. Gibson, the Xerographist

Thank you for your patience while RLGibson.com was under construction!

In 2008, I was privileged to have PR Maven Toni Turbeville design and launch a beautiful website in promotion of my work as R.L. Gibson.  As always, Turbeville listened and responded to my desire for a simple, mono-chromatic site that gave the bare basics of my work and my statement in this world as an artist.

Here’s what the site used to look like:

Developments over the past year, including the launch of a new series Psychomachia with Arizona-based artist Jerry Portelli, the launch of a new art blog ArtAndArtDeadlines.com, and the requests from my peers and fans to offer current updates on the work coming out of my 42 square-foot studio–Well, they all resulted in this relaunch of my site in a format that allows you to leave comments, receive automated updates by email, and get a closer look at the work behind the work.

Welcome, I’m glad you’re here.  Take a minute and subscribe by email.

–R.L. Gibson