Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Evil

This work entitled "Evil" by Mati Klarwein (1972), was comissioned to be the cover for a live LP by miles davis, aside from being a great album this is only the artwork on the back side. Mati Klarwein was one of the groundbreaking psychedelic artists if the 60's more contemporary like minded artists such as Alex Grey have claimed to be deeply inspired by his work. When the psychedelic nature art was brought up in interview his response was "I think it's subjective. Anybody can classify me as they wish. In the fifties I was classified as an illustrator, even though my work consisted of paintings. And in the sixties my work was classified as psychedelic. So I took psychedelics to find out what it was all about. I found out I couldn't paint on them. I'll tell you about a funny episode. Jean Houston and Robert Masters put together a book called Psychedelic Art in the sixties, and they came to me. They did an interview with me, like we're doing now, to include me in their book. And they asked me, "What kind of psychedelics do you take when you're painting?" And I said, "I don't take anything when I'm painting. When I take psychedelics I get very horny, and I start going out to nightclubs and cruising."

1 comment:

  1. The attention to detail is great in this picture. I really enjoy the psychedelic look of this piece by using using greens, purples and reds. The detail in the legs and the colors remind me a lot of the painting The Picture of Dorian Gray by Ivan Albright.

    ReplyDelete