Fauning (Brand Stand)
- oil on linen
- 60 x 44 in
- $12,925
- Michael Abraham
-
Available
A colourful assessment of style and the branding of....
The Mythological Beast – the Artist
Artists are inundated with the idea of marketing and branding. The artist is imagined as a brand, with fame based on good ideas, a definable style, and a notorious statement. I’ve had a few business-minded people tell me that I’d be really famous if I could just figure out how to brand myself. I think I’m doing fine. Being a successful artist shouldn’t be all about branding – a successful artist explores life. If pressed to define my ‘brand,’ I’d say it’s that of an awkward adult: youngish but old, strong but gawky, confident but insecure, artsy but businesslike, surrounded by images of other artists’ as brands, and wanting to fit in. In this image, I’ve included “Andy” (as in Warhol), a Henri Rousseau lion head, a worn-out Playboy Bunny, the jug I have in my studio that reminds me of one the brand-master Picasso painted, and a Matisse-like figure in sienna and umber. Van Gogh owns the sunflower...
In a mix of tight and loose style, I have also included a portrait of a friend who ‘helps artists navigate the art world’. The less defined characters to the left are more like quiet voices. the rainbow haired character is based on a older woman who worked at the Vancouver museum, with whom I discussed art and business essentials and has since passed away. She had a large copy of an Ingres portrait in her home the first time I had met her, and I knew she would be a friend from the first time I met her! We discussed how Ingres painted so smoothly. Hence the enlarged eyed teal head band-wearing head above the ‘Faun’. The ghostly blue haired figure is a tribute of sorts to a favourite singer who toured one year with white makeup and blue hair, and after singing a few songs the white would be all sweaty. It was cool at first but didn’t hold up after a few songs. Making me think illusions are a façade, as the cracks always show through. The painting has painting within a painting, and style goes from flat to geometric and more dimensional. The carrot is a reward, or the carrots on a stick represent the promise of reward that is always dangling in front people to compel them to keep going. Maybe I own the carrot!
In locking into stylist limitations, and content Art can become ‘cookie-cutter’. It is important to me paint without limitations, allowing me to go in any direction in both content and stylistically, which allows freedom of choice, and choice with intention.
FAWN - vb (intr; often foll by on or upon)
1. to seek attention and admiration (from) by cringing and flattering
2. (of animals, esp dogs) to try to please by a show of extreme friendliness and fondness (towards) fawn·ing
adjective
· 1.displaying exaggerated flattery or affection; obsequious: “fawning adoration” FAUN - noun Classical Mythology.
1. one of a class of rural deities represented as men with the ears, horns, tail, and later also the hind legs of a goat.
- Subject Matter: figurative