The Artist
bryan! from Iowa
Current
Cyber Angels
Helen - Russia
Anne - Ontario
Cyndy - Texas
Camilla - Sweden
Chanta - England
Marie - California
Tera - Florida
Rebecca - N. Carolina
Alisa - Russia
Want to be a Cyber Angel?
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The Idea
In the spring of 2001 I was searching my soul for a new inspiration, a new idea to follow with the philosophy of dreamsenses, or at least re-define where the creative process was taking me. In the Fall of 2000 I merged my rekindled love of airbrushing with my artwork. During the winter I airbrushed one canvas, it was titled "flight #3", but wished to take the concept to the next step. I had a vision of combining hand painting with airbrushing on canvas. It is not a unique idea, many artists have mixed the two techniques together, but airbrushing was absent in the body of work called 'dreamsenses.' Thus "Angel Age" was born.
'Angel Age,' depicts an old, decrepid angel...his lifes energy nearly drained. The garments he wears represent his many experiences, his hidden face speaks of his modesty and humbleness. The angels wings, once strong and powerful, are now tattered and broken after many miles of flying. In creating the Cyber Angel series I hope to rekindle something inside...something I possessed 20 years ago. It's going to take a miracle...but what better way than to use angels from all over the world?
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Angel Age
[click to enlarge]
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Cyber Frontiers
I have been on the 'net since 1994, ten years after George Orwell's infamous novel "1984" takes place. The story Orwell tells depicts a time when the world is digitally connected through one network of all-knowing lightbeams. Humans are robotons working as one machine, for one purpose, and as one creative spirit. Control of thought is managed by 'big brother' and those who drift from unity with the 'company' are quickly reprogrammed. Today we see Star Trek's BORG as the ultimate one consciousness...a labrynth of organic and machine working together as one..taking Orwell's imagination one step farther into the realms of science fiction. What if machines and organisms were one?
When I 'connected' seven years ago to the invisible network of global computers, I knew the new phenomena was going to change the way in which humans perceived one another. We conceived and created the tools to conquer language and cultural barriers, we could foresee a one world market, and in the minds of visionists, we could control the direction we as a race would evolve. We were becoming a true global society. Perhaps Orwell's vision of what the world would be in the future was actually coming true...the likelyhood of 'thought police' became a real possibility. If one thought was to control all humans...then the Internet was the likely transporter of this thought. There's only one little problem preventing this future, humans are hopelessly creative, and this simple fact will not allow us to be robots, or one consciousness, or controlled by one thought...we are a free thinking species. It is ironic the simple process in which Orwell was able to pen his words, make his words impossible to realize.
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Art, The First Language
As the Internet matured it became clear global individual communication would play an important role in the evolution of human interaction. Humans from all walks of life, religious beliefs, and ethnic backgrounds became webmasters, game gurus, and multi-tasking chatters. We, as the pioneers of global access, wandered aimlessly through the myriad of personal 'homepages' and became addicted to random thoughts spewed across our electronic picture frames. Communicating with other humans through type written words at the speed of light gave a new sense of creative freedom...a new sense of identity. We were discovering we had many things in common...many more than those things that divided us. The one element of our human condition recognized by all was our ability to create...to make something unique, and to express our soul with inspired thought. The Internet allowed us to do all of this in a personal, yet open forum. Words, pictures, sound, animated pictures, and even real-time web cameras captured the lives of ordinary people. No longer did the powerful mass media congromulates control the content of what humans were experiencing. The Internet was truly an uncontrolled free society.
In the beginning of human evolution we began the communicative process with pictures. Paintings on a rock represented thoughts, in some cases highly abstract thoughts.. A hand print in clay transformed energy from the soul of the imprinter to the earth in which he manipulated...and vise versa. We learned we had a gift...a gift that would hurl us through evolution faster than any other being to ever exist on this planet. The gift was the synthesis of our mind, body, and spirit. The marriage of our total being produced our ability to critically think about a problem, or allowed our inquisitiveness to take us places never dreamed by the animal kingdom. Today we are still communicating in the same manner, but with greater force, and our evolution has just taken a giant leap forward.
As an artist, and a teacher of creativity, I strive to find the most unique solution to expressing my spirit and mind. How one communicates perception of the cosmos in totality is difficult...it is not something done by simply recreating nature and calling it art. Art is creating, creating a language of spirit.
I understand the universe is big...er...HUGE, but I also believe we are all connected to one source, one thought, one purpose. It is not something that controls us, or wishes for automation...just the opposite. This thought celebrates our diversity, and our ability to think differently. The source of this thought is love...without it we wouldn't be here at all. The thought itself is peace...without peace we will not find the source, and the purpose is to create...creating with love is the highest form of art any being can rise to. It is bigger than 'big brother,' it is more connected than any LAN, WAN, or GAN, and it will move the human spirit into the next level of our potential...or we will eventually blow ourselves up.
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The Angels
So what does all of this have to do with angels? Good question.
Throughout our creative evolution, humans have manifested etheral beings into beliefs of how and why things are as they are. We have historically called these spiritual creatures Angels. Beings who are not God, but representations of God. They dwell in a place we can not see, only imagine, and we imagine wonderous places. The body of work called dreamsenses revolves around an imagined world where peace and love prosper...void of hate and anger, my dream world is a place of angels.
To synthesize my vision with the contemporary direction of the world at large, the idea of creating a series of paintings depicting women from around the world as angels sounded like a good challenge, and a healthy way to jump start my own understanding of who I am in the big scheme of things.
To make the experience more real, and more challenging, it is essential to have personal contact with each angel. It would be a simple task to cruise the Internet, find pictures of beautiful women, apply the images to canvas, and call it art. But this will not do. It is crucial to know something about the person being painting, to see into their soul and understand how they feel about being human. The only way to achieve this is with one-on-one contact.
Each woman who fulfills the requirements for becoming a 'cyber-angel' has at least two paintings done with their image(s). Each angel receives a small painting, it is a sketch, or an idea for what the final painting will be. The painting sketch is given freely to each participant...it is presented in the name of unconditional love. The angels and I have never met physically, but through the power of the Internet, and the cosmic source that makes us all one, we are connected by lightbeams...and we become artist and model.
The first painting sketch, 'Helen Angel,' has been completed and is now the property of Helen from Novorossiisk, Russia.
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Helen Angel
[click to enlarge]
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