Saturday, January 29, 2011

Ashley Wood



I first came across Ashley Wood's artwork in volume one, number four issue of Swallow, an illustration catalogue. I'm really inspired by his work; from what I've seen he mostly deals with oil paints. Some say his style is like that of an expressionist's, for most of his paintings include distorted/blurry images, sometimes the subject matter gets lost in his layering, and brush strokes. The image I chose to present doesn't really communicate that exactly. This is one of his cleaner works in my opinion. What I enjoy most from this piece and most of his other pieces is his color-palette, and the shapes and forms he creates. I especially enjoy the cylinder-like robot to the right of the image; it looks like a wine cork or something.

The monochromatic, sepia-like palette gives off an antique photo effect that makes the image sort of look like an old war photo, except with robots. While I admire his technique and style, I'm not particularly a fan of his subject matter. He chooses to paint mostly robots, and nude women. Now, while I'm not saying that I don't like nude women in art, I do get a little tired of robots. But I think pretty much all of his designs are unique and well crafted.

Here's a link to his website, definitely check out his work, http://www.ashleywoodartist.com/

5 comments:

  1. I barely noticed the robots in this picture until it was mentioned in the post! It was a bit of a surprise because, as you mentioned, it looks a bit like an historic photo from the WWII era.

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  2. I love this Illustration! One of the first things my eyes were fixed on was the machines (walking robots). They just give me an erie feeling, plus the way the image was painted it just bleeds eeriness. It also feels like a future war scene. Its just something about this illustration, really makes me want to continue the story in my head.

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  3. if district 9 had a baby with the Iron Giant and the expressionist painters, they would form the style of Ashley Wood's illustrations...

    thats the first thing i thought of hahaha


    awesome.

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  4. I have never seen Ashley's work before but it is beautiful. The soft lines and the sepia tones make a nice piece.

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  5. I have not seen any of this artist work before but I like what she's putting out. This peace is very interesting because it has a very somber feeling of war, death and emptiness. Also the machine soldiers are really animated but because they are machines it kinda speaks to the notion of removed empathy and emerging structure of drone warfare. It also has a old western feel.

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