Related artists
If this were a list of my favorite artists, it would include Pieter Breughel the Elder, John Singer Sargent, Andrew Wyeth, Jan Van Eyck, Odilon Redon, Johannes Vermeer, Gustav Klimt, Winslow Homer, Anders Zorn, Alphonse Mucha, Edgar Degas, Salvador Dali, Henri Matisse, Vincent Van Gogh, Edvard Munch, Albrecht Durer, and…about 40 others.
This is not that list.
What follows is a much shorter roster of artists whose work is either an inspiration to, or on a thematic parallel with, my artwork. In other words, if you like my stuff, you might also like theirs. Two are dead and gone, the others are all very much alive and producing. My only hesitation in featuring these folks on my website is that they will make my own work pale by comparison.
Joseph Cornell (1903 – 1972)
Joseph Cornell is the high priest of assemblage and collage art. Nobody ever did, or has done, it better. Buy the book Shadowplay Eterniday, which comes with a DVD full of high resolution scans of his works. (Apparently a recent reprint of it omits the DVD, so you may want to search out an older used copy.) Here are a few websites that feature a representative sampling of his work:
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/cornell/
http://www.artnet.com/awc/joseph-cornell.html
Fred Otnes (1930 – 2015)
Fred’s art has influenced me more than any other collage artist, but I didn’t know who he was until 2016. Years ago when I did paper collage, I cut up a National Geographic magazine that had the most amazing collage art incorporating old photos, drawings, and found objects. I always wondered who the artist was, and my first forays into digital collage with Photoshop pretty much replicated his approach. It was only when an artist friend said my art reminded her of his art, and sent some images, that I learned who he was. There is an out of print book of his art, Fred Otnes: Collage Painting that is worth seeking out, though it mostly focuses on his more abstract fine art rather than his illustration work, which is what really inspires me.
Nick Bantock
Nick started as a commercial illustrator, and hit fame and fortune in the 1990s with his Griffin & Sabine trilogy. He blends collage, assemblage, painting, illustration and writing into a sometimes dazzling mix of colors, media and textures. There’s an out of print art book with a representative overview of his work, The Artful Dodger, which is worth tracking down.
http://www.nickbantock.com/index.php
https://www.facebook.com/nickbantock
Maggie Taylor
I had never heard of Maggie Taylor until I was doing some online research to find other artists working in a similar theme with what I am doing. Like me, she collects old 19th century photography, then scans them and tinkers with them in Photoshop. She is a master of colorization, and her combinations of images often incorporate sly humor and absurdity. More recently, she has been exploring incorporating AI generated imagery into her artwork. Unlike most artists who do this, it mostly works when she does it. She has published a number of books, including No Ordinary Days, which is a gorgeous coffee table book, and her website is an interactive work of art itself:
http://www.maggietaylor.com
Edward Bateman
When I discovered Ed Bateman’s work in a gallery in Utah, I was struck by the similarities between my work and his. Like me, he is drawn to odd and absurd imagery from the Victorian era, and he also likes to work within the original look and feel of old photography, though he takes it to the extent of creating what look like actual original cabinet cards, until you look more closely and realize how bizarre the images are. In addition to repurposing period imagery, he also is adept at using 3D rendering applications to insert images ranging from steampunk machinery to pterodactyls to robots. I particularly like his Science Rends the Veil series of faux cabinet cards. You can see a range of his work on his website:
http://user.xmission.com/~capteddy/index.html
Peter Milton
Decades ago, when I was in art school, my illustration teacher gave us the assignment to create a “Victorian Dreamscape,” and he showed us a number of slides of Peter Milton’s prints to demonstrate what he meant. I’ve been a fan ever since. He started out in the 1960s as a printmaker, but in recent decades has learned Photoshop and switched to digital art and printing. Milton’s work is best appreciated in person, because his larger pieces are full of intricate little details, but you can zoom using the viewer on his website.
http://www.petermilton.com
Nick Simpson
Fans of my Affictitious Historiaster series will very likely appreciate the photography of Nick Simpson, who has constructed a whole tongue in cheek mythology of an ancestor who was a Victorian photographer, featured on his “Bumforth Manor” website. His art blends humor, Photoshop effects and some real artistry to construct a quintessentially British alternate universe, often with steampunk themes. He’s also quite a skilled portrait and commercial photographer, and it’s worth checking out his Instagram feed for a broader selection of his work.
https://www.bumforthmanor.com
https://www.instagram.com/gascoigne_simpson/
Sandy Young
An illustrator and fine artist, and a local Northern Californian, she incorporates antique photography (sometimes colorized) with collage, calligraphy, and her own very striking technique of printing photographic images onto cast glass that is mounted over the artwork.
http://www.sandyyoung.com
Luis González Palma
A Guatemalan fine art photographer, he incorporates his mestizo cultural background, iconography and politics into his art, which is a dazzling mix of photography and collage. Many of his works are printed on gold leaf, or on a wide array of other materials. I’m in awe of his daring compositions and startling juxtapositions of colors and imagery. I also gratefully acknowledge stealing his technique of lightening the whites of the subject’s eyes for dramatic effect. His website only gives a smattering of his work; his earlier pieces, which especially inspire me, can be found in the out of print book Luis González Palma: Poems of Sorrow.
http://gonzalezpalma.com
Dan Hillier
Nick Simpson turned me on to the art of his fellow Brit Dan Hiller. Though Dan doesn’t repurpose or mimic antique photography, his drawing technique meticulously recreates the look and feel of Victorian woodcut and engraving illustrations, though seen through a very fractured and sometimes psychedelic lens. He incorporates gold leaf in some of his work. His Instagram feed is also well worth following.
https://danhillier.com
https://www.instagram.com/mrdanhillier/
