New Photos: Homegrown Show @ Windup Gallery

Homegrown Show @ Windup Gallery


Homegrown Show @ Windup Gallery


Windup Gallery Owner Anthony Cresta and Clay Elliott

Interview: Spraygraphic

SG: Tell us a little about yourself.

CE: I was born and raised in Canton, Ohio. In 2000, I moved to the Phoenix area and started painting professionally shortly thereafter. In my free time I work at Wet Paint Artist Supply, and play music with the band Slapdash.

SG: Where do you currently live and work?

CE: I live in Tempe with my wife Amanda. My studio is located in our spare bedroom.

SG: Describe your working process when creating a new work.

CE: These days I almost always work from photographs that I manipulate in Photoshop. I transfer the images to canvas and layer several coats of thinned-out acrylic. This process can take anywhere from 40 to 100 hours.

SG: What mediums do you work with?

CE: I work primarily with acrylic, or acrylic and ink on canvas, since these mediums dry very quickly . I like to work with oils when I‘m not on a deadline, or if I have a buyer which prefers oil paint.

SG: What’s your Studio like?

CE: Usually a disaster. I hand mix all of my colors, so there are all of these red plastic cups full of paint everywhere. The walls are covered with paint splattered cardboard, since I paint on the wall instead of on an easel.

SG: What are some of your inspirations influencing your work?

CE: I guess some of my main influences would have to be Peter Max, Andy Warhol, Shepard Fairey, Pablo Picasso, and Salvador Dali.

SG: Where has your work been seen?

CE: In the last few years I’ve shown work at Fate, Monorchid, The Orange Table, Wet Paint, Mood Swings and Pita Jungle.

SG: Where will it be seen next?

CE: I’ll be showing at Windup Gallery in Mesa through the end of July, and B-Side Gallery in downtown Phoenix for the First Friday in July.

SG: What is your dream art assignment?

CE: My dream art assignment would probably be to travel to other countries and create paintings based on what I’ve seen and experienced. This idea really set in for me when I was traveling through Spain and taking pictures of all of the statues and sculptures I wanted to paint portraits of.

SG: You use some interesting colors and combinations. What moved you to work in those color schemes?

CE: I’ve always been drawn to bright, vibrant colors. I started noticing though that every color I was using was bright and that my paintings had very little contrast. So that’s what kind of brought me to where I am now, still using the bright colors, but offsetting them with deeper, richer colors.

SG: What’s your favorite color?

CE: Gray actually, especially in relation to other colors.

SG: What book/magazines are you reading this week?

CE: Rolling Stone and Juxtapoz Magazine.

SG: Ever do a self portrait? Where is it now?

CE: I’ve done three self portraits, one in 2001 that was completely abstract, one in 2003 that was more realistic, and another realistic one last January. I sold the first two a few years ago, and the new one is in my studio right now. I’ve actually been using my self portrait as my logo for the last few years.

SG: So let’s end with your favorite place to hang.

CE: My favorite place to show art was Wet Paint Art Supply’s gallery, which I helped curate until our building was sold to be torn down, in order to make room for more condos. Now, I’m not really sure.

spraygraphic.com

Painting Journal: La Sonrisa

In March of 2006, I proposed to my fiancee, Amanda, while we were visiting Granada, Spain for a week with our friends Rick and Sena. Amanda had lived in Granada for three months the year before, so it seemed like the perfect place to ask her to marry me. On the 5th day we took a bus to a small coastal town called Nerja. After climbing down to the beach we enjoyed a lunch of cheese and bread and honey rum, and spent the rest of the day swimming through caves.

During one of our swimming breaks, I took a photo of Amanda as she gave me the biggest grin I think I have ever seen. Her smile just radiated pure bliss.

In December, I decided that it was time to transfer that "pure bliss" to canvas, and started working on her portrait. I painted her in the sunniest colors I could make, and put the waves of the water where the sky should be. I titled it "La Sonrisa", which means "the smile" in Spanish.

New Photos: Pita Jungle (Chandler)

Pita Jungle (Chandler)


Pita Jungle (Chandler)


Pita Jungle (Chandler)

Press Release: Pita Jungle (Chandler)

Chandler, AZ -Clay Elliott will be displaying 21 paintings from his "Icon" series, as well as a few new pieces from his "Friends and Family" series, at Pita Jungle in Chandler. Most of Clay's work over the past year has featured different iconic personalities from popular culture, mostly artists (actors, musicians, writers) that have influenced him in one way or another. Clay's newest paintings explore his more immediate influences, his friends and family, as he transforms his personal heroes into icons themselves. The show at Pita Jungle opens on February 1st and runs through March 31st. More of Clay Elliott's work can be seen at paintingsbyclay.com.



Pita Jungle
1949 W. Ray Rd
Chandler, AZ
480-855-3232
pitajungle.com

Hours:
Sun-Wed 11am-9pm
Thurs-Sat 11am-10pm

Painting Journal: Let There Be More Light

In February of 2006, I officially began my "Icon" series. Syd Barrett, the original singer and songwriter for Pink Floyd, was one of my fist choices when I started decided on icons to paint. Syd Barrett had helped form Pink Floyd in 1965, but left the band after just three years, mainly due to his mental deterioration, blamed on LSD. He went on to live as a recluse, painting, and shying away from the media.

As a musician as well as a painter, I felt I was in a good place to pay an homage to Syd Barrett. I painted "Interstellar Overdrive", a smaller ink and acrylic piece, and it sold immediately. I painted Syd with a deep yellow/orange skin tone and placed him in a world full of floating orbs. It seemed fitting.

But I felt like I could do more. So in March I bought a five foot by four foot canvas and started another Syd Barrett painting in oil. Rather than using the same yellow/orange skin tone I switched to blue, and abandoned the floating orbs for a swirling sky over a desert. This time I wanted to really try to channel Syd's energy as much as I could. I listened to as much of his music as possible during the first few week of conception, always singing along and thinking "would Syd like this?"

Well, it starting becoming more and more apparent that with some of my painting choices, Syd didn't agree. I wanted to use a very deep cobalt blue for the shadows, rather than the jet black I had used on "Interstellar Overdrive". The first coat of cobalt blue, which was over a white/silver primer, turned out spotty, was way too light, and almost made him look sick with his bright blue face. The second coat looked a little better, but not much. Same with the third coat. The fourth coat looked gorgeous as I put it on, but as the cobalt blue paint dried, bizarre patches of this weird reddish/purplish color started appearing.

At this point I gave up on the idea of deep cobalt blue shadows. After three more coats of black, the painting was looking better, but still not quite right. As a result of plastering on seven layers of paint, strange texture had begun to form. So with a fine grit sandpaper I smoothed the shadow areas out, carefully rubbing the black and blue "paint-dust" back into the painting. I was able to even the texture out, but now the shadow areas were covered with these weird gray streaks. So I planned on painting another coat of black the following week.

The week passed. Then another. And then a few more. On July 8Th, I walked into my studio and told myself that I was done. I was releasing the painting.

I moved the canvas to the living room and hung it on the wall. Then later that afternoon, during a conversation with my mom, I mentioned to her that I had released the Syd Barrett painting, that I wasn't going to work on it any more. She asked me if I had heard that Syd Barrett had died the day before. I told her that I hadn't, and just stared at the painting.