El Mac, Master Graffti Artist

El Mac

You know as much as one generation may criticize another, I think I am falling in love with this new generation. Their ideas are fresh and edgy. They are not afraid to leave behind old mores.  They are seeing the world in new and different ways, they are interacting socially in a world environment completely out of the box.  I am thinking what would Diego Rivera or Leonardo done with technology and thinking differently about the world.  El Mac's world tour taking graffiti to new heights, putting art where everyone can enjoy it, not in some cooperate board room...bringing the average person to art and seeing the world in a different way.  El Mac(click for link) takes ordinary people and paints them large in a space that people see on their way to work or to the store and bam!, there is art.  He takes pictures of people in one country and paints them in another...a sort of a giant world howdy!!!!

A better explanation of his history and work is from his own bio...here is an excerpt from his site.

"Born in Los Angeles in 1980 to an engineer and an artist, Mac has been creating and studying art independently since childhood. His primary focus has been the lifelike rendering of human faces and figures. He has drawn inspiration from the surrounding Mexican & Chicano culture of Phoenix and the American Southwest, religious art, pin-up art, graffiti, and a wide range of classic artists such as Caravaggio, Mucha, and Vermeer. He began painting with acrylics and painting graffiti in the mid ’90s, and has since worked consistently towards mastering his signature portrait style. Around 1998 he began to paint technicolor aerosol versions of classic paintings by old European masters. This led to being commissioned in 2003 by the Groeninge Museum in Brugge, Belgium to paint his interpretations of classic Flemish Primitive paintings in the museum’s collection. He has since been commissioned to paint murals across the US, as well as in Mexico, Denmark, Sweden, Canada, South Korea, Belgium, Italy, The Netherlands, Puerto Rico, Spain, France, Singapore, Germany, Ireland, and Vietnam."

source El Mac website

google image photo

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 A NEW GENERATION TO ADMIRE! ART CAN BRING PEOPLE TOGETHER AND DO GOOD

An Artist of Prickly Pears!!! Real Cati Sculpture...Ouch! A Artist of New Thought

RABBIT'S MOON STUDIO NEW ARTIST SERIES INTRODUCES JONATHAN TAUBE

During our on site visit to New Orleans we were not only introduced to wonderful foods, cultural events, and galleries, but new artist as well.  Our last two post on artist in New Orleans, we talked of George Rodrigue and the Blue Dog and introduced Frank Relle photographer extradonaire.  

But as in all travel wonderful things happen that are just happenstance.  When touring the New Orleans Glass and Print Studio I met a charming energetic young artist by the name of Jonathan Taube.   He is primarily a sculpture.  He talked in a way that I have begun to understand, among the new generations, who are born out of technology and a different social vision for our world, that is just mind blowing creative!  He, and many others of his generation, sees the world and our structures differently and is out to change the world.  I almost heard an audible click as if someone opened up a door to a new world I had not conceived.  He talked about art studio's being virtual, not set in one country or place, he talked of pop up art shows, he talked of collaboration with artists in other countries and areas in new ways, that is did not have to be permanent, and he talked of art as not having ownership not needing to claim it as one person and individualize it.  We stood and talked while the glass blowers tuned molten glass, and the print makers walked around us trying to roll their presses...we talked while my partner patiently waited, then left after it was too long....it was exciting and enlightening!  I know you have had conversations like these at times....when they happen it is like a huge gift the universe has given you...Christmas presents under the tree, fireworks bursting in the air....so now lets talk about Prickly Pear Cacti Sculptures!!

Why Cactus you say....why sharp needles, live, and temporary sculptures? Jonathan has a great passion for prickly pear cactus, just ask him.  He knows everything about prickly pears, their origin, how they grow, where they grow, and everything else prickly pear.  He has studied them up front and close.  I am not sure how he would term himself as an artists, I might call him a conceptual artist, but he may have a different take.  In the photo below you can tell he its not only interested in presenting it as a live sculpture, but as something live that is deconstructing as well.  It opens up to other thought....living and dying, how and what happens when something dies, how the sculpture changes in color and shape, and that it is temporary......Art can be so many things, we can express so much that we feel and think, if we allow our minds to be open and not close them to the concept that art can only be one thing...a realistic painting, something beautiful that matches our sofa, or an expression that fits the rules of the art schools and critics of the day.  Most all of the artists we consider accepted and that hang in our museums, were at one time not. Every movement pushes the limited of its time and moves our thinking and challenges our perceptions.  I think Jonathan is in that fine tradition of pushing our thinking and pulling us out of staid rules of art and image.  Go Jonathan, Go!!!!

Jonathan Taub, Prickly Pear Sculpture/google image