Exotic Art of Vito > Crystal Island > Crystal Cleopatra
Art Deco Crystal
A glitzy illustration of the empire style.
The look I was looking for is something really exotic and contemporary---so that it would fit in a modern resort, or one that suits the art deco style.
The contemporary aspects are most evident in the reflective glass art effect. The rest is a stylization of everything Egyptian like Egyptian coins and exotic jewelry, a diamond necklace combined with art deco fashion, colorful mosaic and dazzling art glass.
So I was thinking about The King Tut gold mask as I painted. I translated the shiny metal into glass and crystal---something similar to acrylic sculpture. I also gave it a mosaic finish with an art deco twist.
I spent hours in front of the Florentine mosaic masterpieces by Mario Montelatici, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Gilbert Collection---before it was moved to England).
These exotic mosaics look like paintings and they are made of inlaid marble (now a lost art). Their titles: A Classical Scene and The Hard Work. They were created around early 1900s and are quite amazing. (I just found "Return from the Market").
I sometimes think of inlaid marble and crystal as I paint. This goes back to the mosaic idea...then I continue with the jewelry aspect and jeweltone coloring that I create with contrasting texture and shade. This is difficult to explain but the subtlety of the effect is a blend of stylized cubism, abstract expressionism and graphics. Art Deco is modern in many ways (think of Braque, Picasso, Modigliani and Tamara de Lempicka). I also think of "stylization" in terms of both modern expressionist brushstrokes as well as primitive and naive art like those in Aboriginal rock paintings and African Art and Pre-Columbian Art (Rufino Tamayo comes to mind). You may already be aware of the way African masks and Japanese ukiyoe woodblock prints influenced the avant garde.
My subject matter is sometimes glitzy and decorative like jewelry or fashion if you like, and glamour art plays its part in Cleopatra and Salome paintings. (blame it on Hollywood and Vegas). Toss in a dash of Tropicana, South Seas exotica spice and you're close to what I'm talking about :-)
The tricky part is to create something that is not borderline decorative---or kitsch (such a thing happens a lot in jewelry and fashion design!)---but it's really all subjective of course.
My late art mentor Theodore Lukits used to moonlight (in his earlier years) as a jewelry designer and I was keen to observe the Art Deco motifs in his incredibly beautiful figurative oil paintings. I later found out about Mario Montelatici's mosaic masterpieces and studied a ton of Art Deco. This alchemy led to much search and experimentation that culminated in my deep interest in the exotic.
Now, if I could only get myself to explain what is "alchemy"...stay tuned
