Page 17 - the Noise October 2016

THIS MONTH’S COVER ARTIST
SKY BLACK: OUR OTHER SELVES
BY PATRICK YOWELL
Sky Black is a young, ambitious artist whose work is provocative, engaging and a delight to all who enjoy the surreal. His paintings are a must-see for contemporary art lovers. This past September he had a new body of work on display in Phoenix at {9} the Gallery. He will be showing some giclée prints with photographer David Edwards at Brandy’s Restaurant & Bakery in
Flagstaff though November 1.
Mr. Black’s work is a phantasmagorical depiction of human bodies coupled with weird and wonderful animal heads. In his wild
imagination, flying birds, insects and floating fish surround realistic humans. His latest work of 12 new paintings, along with a few older paintings, are also on display at his website SkyBlackArt.com.
Mr. Black talked about his recent trip to Europe where he visited eight countries. “Traveling solo through Europe was something to leave a lasting impression on me,” he recalls. “I left the US as dry as a sponge ready to soak in as much as I could see and returned home overflowing with information and inspiration. I got to a point on some days where if I went into another cathedral or mu- seum, I thought my head would explode. These were the days when I could really delve into the sketchbook! ... There’s so many stories from my 11 weeks of traveling that led up to the climax of painting the mural in Berlin.”
In the mural, a rendition of Mine! (which appeared on the May 2015 cover of this magazine) we see a child and an adult, both wearing animal masks, in a conflict over a giant candy cane. In the hilly background, storm clouds form.
“Berlin’s thriving street art scene has had me interested for years now and it was always a dream to actually paint there and add a little of myself to an already busy and attractive collection,” he says. “The bottom 15 feet of almost every building is packed with pieces from local spray artists, famous international artists, and everyday people, where in many places around the city, one can legally create art on the buildings. An organization called Street Art Berlin was my facilitator and did an awesome job to find me one of the busiest public art alleys in the entire city. Hundreds of people per day visit this area to view what I can only estimate as tens of thousands of pieces of art. My excitement was compounded when they pointed out the healthy section of wall I was to paint. I started the mural and gave myself 3 weeks to complete it although it only took 6 active days.”
Less than a week on a mural was record time for the artist, but not compared to the speedy style spray artists employ to paint murals in only a few hours there, he says. “Armed with an actual paintbrush and palette, I stuck out in a way that Berliners were not used to. In a place of mostly anonymous artists, I was completely transparent and friendly to the many people passing and watching me everyday. The feedback and response I received was more precise and gracious than I could have imagined and it didn’t take me long to build a strong connection with the people and city itself. I’m currently designing a piece for another, much bigger project in Berlin for next year sometime.”
His landscapes or seascapes have a real photographic quality to them. He spends a lot of time sketching out his ideas, placing grids in the under painting as reference so proportions are correct. He believes oils are a superior medium than acrylics.
Looking at Sky Black’s new body of work, “Our Other Selves,” on a computer monitor is not the same as looking at his actual paintings in the gallery space. It was his painting Frontier that made me go to Phoenix to look at this surreal image of a man wear- ing a vintage suit, his head a mask of an Asian elephant. To keep the audience enticed, in the past he may have relied on his con- ceptual ideas. He now is much stronger technically, by using refinement of color and proportion to achieve exceptional paintings.
“It’s something like a family of paintings that have grown up together, witnessing their own adolescence, puberty, and maturity into their own selves. More than nine months of incubation had me at their mercy; thinking, prepping, drawing, writing, yelling, crying, sweating, experimenting, conceptualizing, verbalizing and finally, the patient process of extracting these images from my mind ... via paintbrush! ... There is always a healthy well of inspiration in the stories you hear and make with friends, the roots and branches you grow with family, and the undeniable inner play of your own thoughts, stories and ideas that at times bounce around like shoes in a dryer, and at others, suddenly gather like a supercell storm cloud somewhere in the Mojave.”
When driving to {9} the Gallery, I witnessed the Phoenix cityscape that looks very similar to his painting Sanctuary, appearing on this month’s cover. In this painting, we see a beautiful young woman lying on a satin sheet with a butterfly dancing magically at her fingertips.
“A major theme of Sanctuary is peace amidst the chaos. The portrait of LA behind her is in a state of destruction that shows buildings enflamed, fighter jets sweeping, helicopters thrashing, King Kong smashing, and the Good Year blimp crashing, yet she remains tran- quil and oblivious to the pandemonium spreading into the surrounding neighborhoods of the iconic city. Another theme I wanted to portray is the ability to focus your energy on one thing although there is an entire world full of distractions and disruptors. As a painter, it is important for me to create a space mentally and physically where I can focus the whole of my energy on the painting. This becomes more difficult as the surplus of distractions grows.”
This gives insight to Mr. Black’s new body of work, for which most of the figures in the paintings are wearing masks or have their faces partially covered. Another delightful piece is entitled, Together With Himself In this work, we see a man sitting with a plate in hand and wearing a panda mask. The figure’s hands appeared to emit light beautifully, showing a true mastery of light and color. Next to him, a birthday cake with candles burns brightly as moths flitter in the fiery glow.
Mr. Black talked of his five-year goals that include a showing at Art Basel Miami Beach in December of this year, and getting his work in the national art magazines, Hi Fructose and Juxtapose. These goals are not out of reach for such a talented artist.
at left: Men Who Sell the World, one of Sky Black’s newest in the series “Our Other Selves.”