These are paintings from my portrait series completed last fall, and included in The Incognito Project book. The book is available on Amazon, on my website, or in the side bar of this blog.
For all the veracity implied by her meticulous and unflinching style, the works maintain a seductive fantasticalness and seem to dance a jig on the line between the real and the imaginary. ~ Graham C. Boettcher, Curator of American Art, Birmingham Museum of Art
Click Read More below for more about the project and a video.
Tomorrow may be my birthday but today held a big, happy surprise.
My painting Professor Rattus and Her Royal Court, The Incognito Project, is featured in an ad for Principle Gallery in the American Art Collector's March 2013 issue.
And in the same issue, my painting, Fast Lane, is in the article about collecting art in the Washington, DC & Mid-Atlantic States area. Thank you Principle Gallery and American Art Collector!
Just for fun here's a video of the rat wrangling it took to get photo reference for Professor Rattus.
And here is a video of in progress shots and details of Fast Lane.
You may find a blog post with Professor Rattus and details here, and details of Lois Lane in Fast Lane and the companion piece Call of Duty, here.
All three of these paintings are featured in The Incognito Project book, which is available at Principle Gallery, through Matter Deep Publishing or from my website.
I made a video of the pet rat wrangling that went on behind the scenes at the photo shoot for this painting.
Enjoy!
Here's Carly's statement from the book about Professor Rattus.
Witness Statement:
I find that my ability to converse intelligently is inversely proportional to my proximity to a furry mammal. If it’s furry and friendly, I want to hold it and talk to it to the exclusion of the humans around me. My conversation, that may have started as, “Why, yes, I did hear that the Large Hadron Collider created an event that was a hundred thousand times hotter than the sun,” devolves into, “My goodness! Who’s a furry critter? You’re a furry thing. Yes, you are.” Take equal parts Asimov and Conan Doyle, two writers I’m passionate about, and add a dash of furry minions, and I can wallow in a mystical land tailored just for me.~Carly
This painting is one of The Incognito Project pieces:
~You may see the painting in Birmingham, AL on Nov.3 2012, at Art Folk Gallery, 5-9 pm, Young and Vann Building, 1731 First Avenue North.
~You may pre-order the book about the project by emailing me at terry@terrrystricklandart.com ($60, includes domestic shipping)
Sitting all alone in my studio, smiling like crazy, that's what I've been up to as I worked on this painting. It's my daughter's alter-ego personality created for The Incognito Project portrait series. Meet Carly's pet fancy rats, Queenie on the left and Duchess on the right. The costume and personae are her own devices.
Professor Rattus and Her Royal Court, 24x18, oil on panel
This painting reminds me of what I love about this project. All things are possible when we put on different hats, as if we are still trying to decide what we want to be when we grow up. All things are possible in a world of imagination, even one where you have magical devices and adorable furry minions to do your bidding.
Carly is an illustrator, loves furry critters, owning them and drawing them. In fact Queenie and Duchess came to live with Carly when her previous small, furry critter, a chinese hamster, Sunshine died. Sunshine is the star of Carly's children's book,Sunshine's Night Out.
Sunshine's Night Outis available for purchase on Amazon. I think it's only a matter of time till Queenie and Duchess are too immortalized in a children's book.
This painting has a Steampunk attitude about it. Steampunk as an aesthetic movement refers to art, speculative fiction or a certain science fiction, music, or fashion that emphasizes technology from the Victorian era. For it's history think HG Wells, Mark Twain, Mary Shelley and Jules Verne. One of the earliest manifestations was the TV show from the 60's The Wild Wild West.
It's a fantastical view of the world as if the past were imagining a future using technology from the Victorian era. Examples of movies that have a Steampunk attitude are Steamboy, Wild Wild West, City of Lost Children, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
