I can’t quite remember how I stumbled upon the art of Hussar… perhaps on that dinosaur known as myspace? At any rate, it was love at first sight. And I am talking about both his art and his physical presence.

But mostly his art.

Michael himself reminds me quite a bit of Anton LaVey. I’m not sure if it’s the striking gaze or the facial hair. Nonethless, the similarity is uncanny. But enough of what the dude looks like. On to his art.

I love art that tweaks me. If it makes my brain want to squirm or challenges my sense of the normal and the safe, sign me up. And Hussar has yet to fail to deliver.

Hussar’s art is the perfect symbiotic relationship between classical skill and mind-bending imagery, with a hefty does of twisted humor.

Perfection indeed.

Without any hesitation, I will tell you that "Pandora" is by far my favorite piece by Hussar. Such a serene image of a mother nursing her baby, yet why is mom’s face shrouded? and what is UP with that fabulous striped hat on the tot’s head? Love it.

Why? Because it’s disturbing, yet profoundly beautiful at the same time.

Such Hussar images as Pandora and Morphine evoke a certain amount of serenity and beauty, while paintings like Gummer, Birdbath, and Widow remind me of the imagery of Silence of the Lambs, and many other Hussar pieces are evocative of carney life.

What I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall in Hussar’s studios and just watch him do what he does.

Michael Hussar lives and paints in Los Angeles CA, and has been involved in the west coast “lowbrow” scene all his life. He’s currently represented in LA by La Luz de Jesus gallery. He recently abandoned a short lived career as a painting teacher to devote more time to his work. His hobbies include, but are not limited to, long stretches of Isolation, followed by bursts of consumption.

Enjoy the video below – it offers many of Hussar’s less disturbing portrait paintings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwrkyaiq6T8

"William Russell Walker is what I would consider to be a student of the old masters. His work is classical but yet has a sense of contemporary melancholy. It is extremely rare to find an artist who seeks such noble path. With full confidence, I know he can become a great artist of the modern romanticism."
~ Gordon S. K. Lee (MFA, Cranbrook)

Walker is contemporary artist, currently living and painting in Georgia. Born in Biloxi, Mississippi, Walker received a BFA in Columbus, Ohio in 1994. Walker’s works has been shown in several Florida galleries and you can view permanent collections in both Savannah, Georgia and Orlando, Florida.

Walker’s representational figurative work harkens back to classic romantic oil paintings. Although his technique is classic, his content is decidedly melancholy and modern. I adore the old look of his imagery and the warm, muted colors he uses in each of his pieces. A few of his works have a decidedly religious flavor, with images of bishops, Christ and forgiveness. Others depict gorgeous portraits and fascinating images of horses.

"Those who look for the laws of Nature as a support for their new works collaborate with the Creator."
~ Antoni Gaudi, on why he was inspired by nature

How many times have you used the word ‘gaudy’ to describe something tacky, over-the-top, or reminiscent of Tammy Fay Baker and Liberace? Did you know that word originated from the name of Antoni Gaudi, an incredibly unique Spanish architect during the Art Nouveau movement? I’ll wager most of you didn’t…

Working with such diverse mediums as cabinetry, stained glass, ceramics, mosaics, wrought iron and other materials, Gaudi left no detail of his projects untouched. If allowed two phrases to describe Gaudi’s work, I would choose ‘art nouveau’ and ‘organic’.

Due to multiple bouts of rheumatic fever during his youth, Gaudi spent a significant amount of his childhood in isolation, with only nature to keep him company. Gaudi love of nature spanned his entire life, and water, specifically, was an integral source of inspiration in his work. Starting with gothic and traditional spanish architecture, he eventually found his own sculptural style.

Widely considered Gaudi’s pièce de résistance, Sagrada Familia is an impressive yet incomplete Roman Catholic church located in Barcelona, Spain. Many say that Sagrada Familia perfectly combines Gaudi’s penchant for Gothic & Catalan architecture, and curvilinear Art Nouveau shapes. Unfortunately, Gaudi passed away in 1926, leaving less than a quarter of the building completed. Others have picked up where Gaudi left off, and today, the estimated completion date for Sagrada Familia is 2026.

His originality has been ridiculed and loathed. Whatever your flavor, you cannot deny it’s absolute uniqueness.

Art Nouveau Doorway

Sagrada Familia

The PreRaphaelite Brotherhood’s early doctrines were expressed in four declarations:

To have genuine ideas to express;

To study Nature attentively, so as to know how to express them;

To sympathise with what is direct and serious and heartfelt in previous art, to the exclusion of what is conventional and self-parading and learned by rote;

And, most indispensable of all, to produce thoroughly good pictures and statues.

Perhaps one of the most prolific and influential cofounders of the Pre Raphaelite movement, Dante Rossetti not only painted, but designed, wrote poetry and translated as well. Multiple sources cite him as being the “most important and original artistic force in the second half of the nineteenth century in Great Britain”. Heavily influenced by Medieval Italian art, Rossetti preferred symbolic and mythological images to realistic ones.

Events in Rossetti’s private life overshadowed his work, particularly the loss of his wife. She died as a result of overdosing on laudanum, which she drank after giving birth to a still-born child. Dante became increasingly depressed after this event. Towards the end of his life, Rossetti sank into heavy drug addiction and mental instability, becoming reclusive until his death in 1882.

“Find yourself another profession where you’ll be more useful” – The recommendation given to Mucha by the Prague Academy of Fine Arts, when his application was turned down.

Perhaps best known for his Art Nouveau posters and illustrations, Alphonse Mucha was actually quite dismayed at the fame his commercial art produced. His true passion was in representing the history and spirituality of the Slavic people. He considered Slovanská epopej (The Slav Epic) to be his finest work and had dreamed of creating it from a very young age.

Unfortunately, it was this body of work, in combination with his Slavic nationalism, which eventually led to his demise. The rising fascist force in the mid to late 1930′s denounced his work as ‘reactionary’ and when German troops invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939, Mucha was one of the first to be arrested by the Gestapo. Although he was eventually released, the events of his interrment resulted in his death in 1939.

In addition to a prolific number of illustrations and posters, Mucha also designed wallpaper, carpets, theater sets and jewelry. His distinctive style was at first called the Mucha Style before being called Art Nouveau. At the time of his death, his style was considered out of fashion, but Art Nouveau has made many reappearances in popular culture since the 1930′s, most noteably in the 1960′s psychadelic poster art.

“If the origin of my work is a scandal, it is because, for me, the world is a scandal.”

In the art world, Bellmer is most frequently though of as a Surrealist photographer. Although a native of Germany, his work was largely unknown in his own country until he was declared a ‘degenerate’ by the Nazi party and forced to flee. Upon his arrival in France in 1938, Bellmer was instantly embraced by the Surrealist movement

Perhaps most well known for his doll series, Hans Bellmer produced sculptures, photographs, books and etchings in addition to theoretical and poetic writings; and an outpouring of drawings in an obsessive quest for a monstrous dictionary dedicated to the ambivalence of the body.

The doll project was begun in the 1930′s as a political outcry against the uprising of Nazi fascism and the quest for an “ideal “Aryan race. Eventually, his work was branded as degenerate by the Nazis, and he was forced to flee to Paris. Not long after his arrival in he City of Light, he was happily embraced by the founding fathers and mothers of surrealism. Andre Breton took particular interest in Bellmer’s intrepretation of the beauty of the female form and the sexualization of youth.

There is no doubt that Bellmer’s work stirs reaction even yet today. In the fall of 2006, London’s influential Whitechapel Art Gallery withdrew several works from a major 150-work Bellmer retrospective exhibition, due to fears of “offending” London’s radical Islamic groups.

“I live life in the margins of society, and the rules of normal society don’t apply to those who live on the fringe.”

Tamara’s angular, almost cubist depictions of the human form fit quite nicely within the Art Deco movement. Born into a wealthy and prominent Polish family, Tamara very much lived the bohemian life in 1920′s Paris and socialized wiht such notable artists as Pablo Picasso and Jean Cocteau. Known for not only her stunning beauty but for her scandalous affairs with both men and women, Tamara sacrificed her marriage and family life for the social circles she travelled in. After her husband, tired of her lifestyle, abandoned her, Tamara became closely associated with lesbian and bisexual women in literary and artistic circles.

Tamara was a prolific painter and her work took her to high social circles during the pre-war era. She lived long enough to see her work descend from the heights of accolade to a complete disinterest, yet again to pique interest in the 1970′s. During the time of disinterest, Tamara attempted a looser, less controlled style. It was met with a cold shoulder. Today her work sells for incredible sums.

“i’m not a good talker or explainer or story teller. i’m really not. i’m a bit of a social weirdo too, and get really nervous and anxious … If you sat me in front of you and started asking me questions (especially about my work), i’d probably get all fidgety and just say, ‘um … i really don’t know … Can i do this some other time?”

As a painter, I can relate to what Audrey is saying. Very often, when people see my work they want to delve into the why’s and motivations of what I make. I really have no clue how to answer them at most times. What I find most remarkable about Aud’s work, despite her young age, is the way she incorporates the wood grain into her art. It flows and swirls and gives her artwork a certain transluscence. Each piece is reminiscent of Lolita…a powerful fusion of eroticism and art nouveau styling. The subjects look like mere children, yet are often captured in overly provocative poses with come-hither pouts.

I love that whether comfortable or uneasy, I do react to every image I see. I embrace Aud’s work and always look forward to new stuff. She has fused eroticism and innocence in a way not many others have achieved.

Yet another German artist who depicted brutal portrayls of the Weimar society, Otto Dix was one of the most influential artists of the New Objectivity movement. Dix was profoundly affected by the sights of his internship in the First World War, and described a recurring nightmare in which he crawled through destroyed homes.

His work was extremely critical of contemporary German society and often dwelled on the subject of sexual murder. Through the depiction of prostitution, violence, old age and death, he drew attention to the bleaker side of life.

Like many unflinching artists of the time, Dix was an object of Nazi persecution during their rise to power. He was eventually forced to join the Nazi-controlled Imperial Chamber of Fine Art and had to promise to only paint landscapes. This was the only way he could continue working as an artist at all. In 1939, he was arrested on trumped-up charges of plotting against Hitler, but the charges were later dropped.