A reader asked about a painting partially displayed in one of my ODJ pictures, and besides chatting about the latest fashion trends I could gab endlessly about art…but that would bore everyone to tears, so today I thought I’d just post a few photos of the paintings around my house.  I do apologize for the poor quality of these pictures; the photography (or maybe lousy lighting)  makes the paintings look so flat.  In person the colors and texture are spectacular.  Anyway, the painting in question and at the top of this blog was painted for me (oil on canvas) by a young surrealist in Germany.

Some of you were born with artistic talents.  Those of us not so fortunate, namely yours truly, cope by collecting talents. So on my trips around the world, I try to bring home art produced by local artists.  Here are two Japanese silk scrolls, one contrasting a modern look against an ancient technique, depicting the iconic rising sun above Mt. Fuji…

 

and the other an antique scroll exhibiting the traditional kimonos (i get both fashion and art in one–it’s like getting two for the price of one!!)–do you also see the cherry blossoms?

 

These next two are some of the many paintings I brought back from Vietnam. This one is a large (around 5 feet across) oil painting of Ha Long Bay, which I’d blogged about before…

 

and this is a tactile (almost 3-D), huge painting of Buddha; it is taller than I am…

 

When I was in Australia for about 4 weeks, I probably visited every single art gallery in and around Sydney. I was mesmerized by the richness of aboriginal art and its significance in recording their culture and history. Some of the paintings tell stories about the dreamtime, or the aboriginal belief of the creation of the world. One of the paintings I brought back was this (also very tactile) beautiful painting that tells the story of how the planets came to be. If you look at it without knowing its context, it’s just a very cool, almost contemporary abstract. And I love that–culture interpreted through art can be so personal and yet resonate with anyone as long as that person can keep his/her eyes and mind open.

 

I’ll post more photos at some point but for now I’ll close out with paintings of Super-Heroes painted by some super Americans.  I have about ten paintings of various comic book characters, but these below are some of my favorites. The first is an original, oil on canvas, life-size Spiderman caught in his own web by Steve Kaufman:

 

Next is an equally large painting of Iron Man in acrylic and then a smaller oil painting of Superman’s “secret,” both painted by a dear friend of mine. One of these days I hope to blog about him and his work…

 

Have a good weekend everyone, and support your local artists!