The Fine Art and Design Blog of Darren Daz Cox

This started as an abstract oil painting of a forest, I photographed the canvas and then mirrored the image in Photoshop until it became fractilized.

Suddenly I started seeing animals, woodland animals and swamp animals which lead to me realize that my subconscious did exactly what I asked it to do the other day when i was walking on the street looking at the reflections in the puddles.

I asked my mind to find a way to capture that magic of seeing the world reflected in the puddle, and these colors are exactly what i saw in that puddle, the trees the sky the shadows, wow! Tripping myself out is part of the magic of fine art.

A few hours ago this canvas was just another canvas i wasn’t sure what to do with, it felt that a good start of something but not done, now, after taking the chance to photograph it and bring it into Photoshop it manifested into a completed thought.

"Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things." Edgar Degas

I can see a bear, a deer, an alligator, a spider, plants etc and to me, this is proof that you should trust your subconscious to work for you, consider it a computer where you have to program it. I’m sure that this idea of asking your subconscious to do something is easier to see with somethings than with others but i swear this is a real phenomenon.

We are far greater, far more brilliant than we allow ourselves to believe, and we can tap into that brilliance if we can find techniques to bypass our inhibiting factors.  Meditation helps us tap into the spiritual side of things and it seems that if you trust your mind to create art and ask it to guide your hand then the art you asked for appears!

Below, the current stage in the Green Egg painting!

TDB is a social networking site for people over 40 and so I joined and joined in on the art conversation, the forums are broken so I’ll continue the topic of social responsibilty in the arts here. One person suggested that creativity was personal yet art should consider the needs of others. I say No.

I have to say that art has no responsibility to anyone except it’s maker. Jackson Pollock didn’t heed the responsibility to make art that was ‘understandable’ or helpful or informative or  even ascetically "good" (to the majority of people at the time) yet he became one of the most famous artists ever.

Social responsibility changes over time and what one generation takes for granted another frowns upon or makes illegal. Girls used to get married at 13 and so if you painted a child bride back then it was a normal genre scene, now it is either a fairy tale painting or some psychological split with reality, perhaps in a criminal way. Balthus would never make it into a gallery these days because of current versions of social responsibility, yet his work is in the Met right across from a Gauguin painting.

A hundred years ago if you painted a certain leaf of the cannibus plant you were probably a botanist or illustrating a historical thesis, perhaps on the founding of America, a proud patriot and could hold your head high *ahem* in society, but now if you painted the very same leaf  society says that you are probably a druggie and will be automatically labeled and catagorized, guilty by association at the very least.   That same leaf art is now  "harmful to society" see what I’m saying here? The art is still the same exact art but society decides who YOU are for making it.

I don’t think that society should have any influence on art, art is art and if others like it that’s great, if not then it is still art and just as valid a persuit as any other thing, perhaps one day others will appreciate that art but there’s hardly a prerequisite for art to be considered "good" or "acceptable".

Did Vincent Van Gogh have a responsibility to give up his ‘crazy dream of being a painter’ and become a productive member of society instead of a "leech" when it was obvious that no one outside his friends appreciated his art?

Society is like your mother, or a friendly guidance counselor, it wants you to do "well" for your own good, for the good of society but unfortunately it only considers the short term. I think Van Gogh would have killed himself sooner if he had given up painting and became a church janitor, which would probably be the only job he’d feel comfortable doing!

Society is healthy when people are allowed to "fail" in the short term because in the long term those failures might just be our proudest accomplisments, heck the US government itself used Jackson Pollock’s ‘action paintings’ as a ‘weapon’ in the cold war (because the Soviets were so proud of their ‘realism’ and therefore ‘behind the times’ etc).

~* The cat in the Tree - illustration by Darren Daz Cox*~

If someone trys to tell you that your art isn’t showing ’social responsibilty’ you know what you can tell them to kiss!

Mirroring and framing are easy ways to add interest to your artwork.

You have different sight factors in each eye but your brain combines all the data it receives into a whole picture. One way to un-translate this for an interesting effect is to flip, merge and frame an image like I did with this oil painting I am working on.

~*The Girls Day Dream oil on canvas by Darren Daz Cox*~

Sometimes framing isn’t necessary like this pencil sketch I added digital paint to below.

~all art and graphic design by Darren Daz Cox~

excellent groovy trippy amazing cool killer great wonderful and brilliant fine art illustration by Darren Daz Cox!

I don’t feel like an artist should be pigeon-holed into a style so that they can be packaged and sold as a brand. An Artist must retain the option to be good at many things! Be a Renaissance Man not a one trick pony!

Art is more than just a product, it helps find the answers! But fine art can provide a living so be professional!

I go by dazcox, darren cox, darren daz cox, 99daz, daz honey and gobzine at various places, see if you can find me around the web!

My Flickr account has a whole lot more of my art if you’d like to visit there!

One of my recent projects is called Faeries Vs. Angels, which is a quantum-art project that might manifest as a ‘zine then a book then a gallery show then actually become a grand Tiepolo-esque room!

Go B Zine - best zine in the world!