ATom1746 Blog

Oh man I actually have loads of interesting things to blog about but never seem to have the time! Anyways, after the recent quite large earthquake, many damaged buildings around the city had to be demolished as the damage was pretty heaps. It’s sad, seeing many old and interesting things being pulled down, one amazing thing though – the removal of these damaged buildings is exposing lots of new ‘old and interesting things’! Like this old sign writing for example, we used to have a local wigmaker! Handy…

So one of the many many many wicked awesome aspects of owning an iPhone is that you always have a decent camera on you. I was wondering around Christchurch Town today and came across this new piece of street art, something I always stop to appreciate! Then I thought to myself ‘I should share this with the internet!’ so here you go the-internet… I’m sharing

Something I whipped up recently while playing around with spray paint.

Art shouldn’t just be this thing that rich people use to decorate their walls, it needs to be available to everyone.

For those who would like to own an original signed work from the artist, prints are a fantastic place to start a collection. Fine art prints are produced with high quality materials, are often hand signed by the artist and in a limited edition, which keeps them more affordable compared to ‘one off’ pieces while still being very unique.

I personally feel that limited edition, signed fine art prints have a big future here in New Zealand! I love prints and have a list of artists I hope to one day have in my collection, including local artists Paul Hartigan, Dick Frizzell and Ralph Hotere as well as international artists like Faile, Banksy and perhaps Damien Hirst. Thanks to the concept of fine art prints, I am potentially able to one day afford to own their art!

Spearheading the promotion of prints in New Zealand is www.prints.co.nz who have an extensive collection of both international and national prints, some of my work was recently added to this site, you can check it out here http://www.prints.co.nz/page/fine-art/CTGY/Artists_Tomlinson_Aaron

So once again I have been super slack updating this blog. Anyways, I have completed a number of cork-tile pieces, 21 so far and have a select few of these on display at Alexis Fine Art, 359 Colombo St, Sydenham Christchurch. I am calling it the ‘Quercus Suber Collection’. Below is a blurb about these things along with a few examples. 

A full catalogue of these pieces is available, just flick me an email if you would like a copy. admin@atom1746.com 

A series of acrylic paintings on antique cork tiles, inspired by the concept that just by ‘living life’ we can often miss the amazing things which may be right in front of us. These images include juxtapositions, combining seemingly unrelated things which encourage the viewers to form a variety of meanings, as opposed to one literal message. They also include icons which symbolise specific things to the artist, for example.

 

Japanese Kanji Symbol ‘King’: This character is made up of three strokes representing mankind, spirituality and earth. In these images the symbol is used to portray the importance of not letting modern distractions separate you from your inbuilt spiritual needs and appreciation of nature.

Bull’s-eye: The archer trains in order to increase the chances of hitting his target. In life, we not only need to work for the things we want, we also need to be able to recognise opportunities, or targets, that can sometimes be standing right in front of us, perhaps obscured by living a life which conforms to general beliefs and common opinions. .

These images are all individually unique and will not be reproduced, the entire range of these cork-tile paintings are limited to only 80 pieces

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a really interesting story involved in this piece of Andy Warhol’s that Dennis Hopper owned, and upon Hopper’s death last year, was just recently put to auction. You see the bullet hole here, well there is bit of a tale here . . .
Hopper, who bought the 1972 screenprint from Warhol, but in a wild moment of being “spooked” and we have to assume “in a different state of mind” when he assumed that the Mao portrait was actually Mao himself, shot at the Warhol piece. 

Hopper showed Warhol the bullet holes, and agreed to authenticate the bullet holes by agreeing to work as a collaborative on the piece. Warhol drew circles around the holes,”labelling the one over Mao’s right shoulder ‘warning shot’ and the one at his upper left eyelid ‘bullet hole’.” That is a real collab, 1970′s style.

Yesterday, January 11, the screenprint sold at auction fro $302,500, 10 times higher than the estimate.

Article from Juxtapoz blog

Second tile, entitled ‘Indo’s Lock’

Ya know it’s probably about time I stopped posting songs and started posting about art or something. So anyways, the other day we were walking around town, whenever we do this we always find some interesting new shop or cafe or something we have never noticed before, thanks Christchurch City for being so interesting! Of course after the earthquake it is extra-interesting due to the carnage and rubble lying around, the central city has become one giant obstacle course on account of the fences and road cones and closed roads etc! Where was I? Oh yes, so we found this antique store, so went in for a look. I was most pleased to find a pile of these old cork tiles, oh man, these things were cool! So I got 40 of them to paint onto. Over the next few weeks/months I’ll be making a few pieces based on these cork tiles, I think they look pretty good Below is the first entitled ‘she’s a lot like you’. 

Another song to share, ‘We are the people’ by Empire Of The Sun…. awesomeness.

Oh man new print! This is a piece based on the painting made during the Nelson Arts Festival – ‘Hayley’s Title’. In a limited edition of only 100 and selling for only $115. Not on the website yet so send me an email if interested!

 So there is this awesome website www.streetart.co.nz and you should totally check it out sometime, anyways, they recently ran street art event during the Nelson Arts Fectival named ‘Oi You’ which included works by a number of local artists. Thankfully I was involved in this event and oh man I had a good time, lots of interesting people and interesting times! Below are a couple of photos for you to check out. The piece is named “Hayleys’ Title’ and is acrylic on MDF. 

OHHHH MAAANNN! It has been so long since my last blogging, probably too long – I have been busy with like, working and earthquakes and new iPhones and etc… Anyways, I’ll tell you about things later. But firstly have a look at this, it’s a recent commission of a roller derby girl, big canvas like, 150cm by 150cm or something – Acrylic on collage.

Another awesome poster I’ve stumbled across recently!

Beards are awesome – Batman understands that.

So Portishead is my all time favorite band, I love their songs. Here is one of their more recent numbers of their album ‘third. So good…

P.S – Saw Ron Muecks exhibition at the Christchurch Art Gallery this weekend – very interesting, hyper realism sculptures that blew my mind.

EDIT! Ok, here is more for you – the coolest.

Music is a wonderful thing, and every so often you find a song that requires every ounce of your undivided attention due to it’s awesomeness and it’s power to move your mind and emotions. I recently found a song that had that kind of impact on me. There is this french band called ‘Air’, I have had their most well known album ‘Moon Safari’ for sometime now and absolutely love it – the other day I acquired one of their lesser-known albums named ‘Love 2′, a very good album but one particular song is amazing – a song named ‘Missing The Light Of Day’. Very inspirational and sounds great cranked up loud! Here it is for you – enjoy.

So ages ago my wife got this white jacket for me to put some kind of pattern/picture thing on – for a long time I was stumped as the jacket was so formal looking. T-Shirts I have done, but jackets.. hmmm, seemed very different. Anyways, after pondering for some months I eventually did this thing (below). Acrylic paint works well on fabric, expecially cotton with a tight weave. Compared to fabric paint it can be a bit stiff – but seems to be just as durable. I’ve had this image hidden away for some time now, waiting for a rainy day – this image and jacket combo turned out to be perfect for each other.

On the ironing board - Just painted with standard acrylic and a brush

Final result on the back of my wife

Here is a few more bits for you to look at, including a very interesting pink graph!

So during my daily blog-trawl I found this interesting comic cover from way back in the days of old. It seems that back then Superman had a son and was most displeased with him this one time, so wiped out his powers with gold-Kryptonite while he was locked inside a lead-glass booth! Harsh bro! Lead-glass… is that anything like transparent aluminium from Star Trek? Anyways, I’m not so keen on Superman to be honest, but my eyes and brain found this image to be most pleasing and interesting.