I kept hearing these two words as people would whisper under their voice when they walked away. It is usually not a good sign but in this repeating incident, it was. It happened so frequently that I had to look it up and see what it meant. “Renaissance Man”. Renaissance Man is a person who has wide interests and is expert in several areas. My one friend told me years ago that I had the largest toolbox of anyone he had ever met. One of my past employers told me my sign should say I can do it all. I only wish I could, but I do not like to limit my expertise in any one area for too long a time. In my painting, I like to explore as many facets as I can. Not limiting myself to one look or design. In my Gallery Opening Exhibition and 9-minute video on my YouTube Channel, I provided a good cross section of 15 facets I explored in over a decade of painting.
Renaissance Man
Opening Exhibition is Saturday, October 27th at my Gallery in Springdale Ohio from 4 to 7 pm. At Daryl Urig’s Creative Underground, Yorkhaven Professional Plaza, 430 Ray Norrish Drive, Springdale Ohio. By appointment through 2018.
“Renaissance Man”. See how the story unfolds. My first rebirth, with many to come…
On the Road
Change and fears are probably the best two words to describe this painting series. What would my new life look like, recently divorced? “On the Road”, series of paintings in hindsight had many insights into past and future events in my evolving life. Beyond that, it seemed to represent my fears of driving on the road and unsettled life of leaving my first wife and finding my new life. In grays and limited color, a rebirth from the first painting to the last visually documents my physical and mental transition.
Gods’ Voice
Color full in contrast to On the Road, simply stylized depictions of Gods footprint in my life representing He is walking with me. His omnipotent power is ever present even when things are completely unclear.
Keepsake Portraits
A portrait is supposed to tell us something about the person. My idea was that the things we keep in our junk drawer in the haste of life tell us something more. What things will we keep verses throw away, tells us something much deeper about our psyche. Three images, painted from my junk drawer collection, if you want to call it that. What does your drawer tell about you?
Woman in the Garden
A series of fine art oil paintings about my new wife Robyn. Colorful, beautiful, elegant in many different situations she projects the essence of Woman in its most beautiful form. Maybe howl Adam first saw Eve.
Moments Before the Return
Three small paintings illustrating the still quiet moment just before the return of Christ. (Wouldn’t that solve a lot of people’s problems quickly?) Looking forward to that moment when everything makes sense with us and the universe. The moment the air stops, the color of the atmosphere and light, one more moment and He is here. Game over.
Americana
Guess I will be here for a while
There are certain road scenes that depict the heart and development of our country. Those quite souls that are the backbone of our great country. This is a scene I saw driving home from college many times.
Historic Sites
I have been drawn to old historic locations for many years. It may be more about the thoughts I create for the architecture on location and what I thought took place at its’ peak in life that most drew me in.
Miniatures, A Painting a Day for 31 days in the Month of May
Miniature 5 x 7-inch quick sketch oil paintings. Thirty-one different paintings from photographs I had taken with a goal to build skill and sales.
Landscape Painting
Further development of the paintings painted with a knife brings me on location, outside landscape painting, called Plein Air by the French. Smaller 9 x 12 or 12 x 16 paintings using a very large painting knife forces texture and simplification of form onto my painting panels. Developing my eye for natural color that can only be developed outside. Painting quickly to capture the light before it moves and changes shadows, color and form. A whole new artist easel set up with supplies made for carrying and painting. The Knife make painting much easier with swifter clean up than that of a brush, better suited or outside painting.
Three books from my learning
Plein Air Painting for Everyone
Painting Knife Explained
Tips for the Contemporary Painter
I wanted better books to help growing artist than what I had grown up with. My goal was to make them simple to understand with a powerful inspiring direction. Available on Amazon.
Daryl Urig’s National Workshop Tour
Self-marketing, developing curriculum and teaching on the road for two years. How to paint workshops spanning from East to West Coast. I enjoyed the travel, the new sights and meeting very nice people. Focusing on just art made me very welcoming to most art appreciators. In the back of my mind, I thought that new locations may inspire greater learning. I found instead that painting is very personal. It is more about our experience, not the location. So, wherever you are you can make art. Our thoughts can be, how does this affect us? What is going on in our head now? Our experience and past experiences all wrapped in one painting just where we are.
Finding Forrest Gump
It was a fun search for the location of the movie shootings in South Carolina of Forrest Gump. I visited my mother and helped her with her ever-growing garden and painted. Most of these paintings involved boats, seamen and low country marsh areas of Bluffton and surrounding areas plus Charleston South Carolina.
Going Big
Back in my studio in Cincinnati or in South Carolina I began painting larger scale painting with my painting knife, now a 6 inches long blade nearly double its previous size. No real definite theme just interested in magnifying a little painting into an enormous texture of moving and swirling paint on a larger scale. To accomplish this, I began with very small studies. The studies served as reference and direction for larger paintings.
Daryl Urig’s Creative Underground
Artist Interviews. Interested in hearing about other fine art painters’ ideas I began Interviewing prominent painters in person and over the Internet, publishing videos to my YouTube channel. My hopes were to gain greater clarity than was previously described by previous writers and interviewers. As an artist interviewed by another artist may help find and explain the real inspiration of what goes on in a painter’s mind when they paint. https://www.youtube.com/DarylUrig
Individual Perceptions
I had always thought about the difference between artwork and our perceived reality. You know the one we think we are all living in. But are we? The more I thought I realized it is all about individual perception. We do not all see or think the same. What was mine? This crossover between real and unreal painting seemed right to me.
Digging deeper, Pareidolia
This started numerous explorations on “stream of consciousness” painting. Painting with a large soft brush monochromatically. Painting, turning the canvas, making associations while adding more soft brush strokes, turning the canvas, painting what image may begin to appear, then see what another direction may bring. This continued as a random painting, images would begin to emerge from the canvas. The term is Pareidolia. A jacket on a chair could be interpreted as an animal. Or when driving my car, as I turn my head to see my blind spot before changing lanes, made the seat headrest appear as a person. At an early age, I would be told to take a nap on the couch in our living room. The coach had a flower painting above it. As I got groggy a man would begin to appear in the flowers. Recently I researched this, and it is called Pareidolia. It is when our mind assembles an image and relates it to something we already recognize. Funny, for the most part now I do not see these images appearing as much as they used to. It is like painting got rid of the fear of the unknown.
My Doodles? Cubism?
We cannot escape other painters influences that we greatly admire. There must be some reason why their artwork resonates with our spirit. Somehow their “breath of life” must have connected with ours through their painting. I have a few of these artists that I admire. As a child I first admired his work, it is Pablo Picasso. Some may try to spoil my fun with their knowledge of his not so perfect life. Who is perfect? I do the same for music. I like or do not like music. It is not about the person. I love the art form. Pablo for some reason inspires me. Occasionally I see the part of him that resonates with me show up in my painting. Hi Pablo.
More dormant thoughts
Yoga and Meditation, always with prayer opened my mind up for some other dormant thinking and images. Throughout my life, I would have this dream of flying over my neighborhood where I delivered papers. The meditation helped me to catch the ideas I usually would just naturally overlook and dismiss. The painting ended up in a six-page article with several other paintings of mine in the April/May 2018 International Artist Magazine. That was a nice honor and recognition that I appreciated very much.
Being in the Present
A yoga thought keeps my paintings developing in many new directions. I do not limit them to how they should look or dictate what they must become. Currently, I have explored a few images that came out of meditation. From the initial conception, I have a solid direction. This has helped me liberated my art even further. I have broken down the barriers of have-to’s and can let it flow.
Healing Power, 18 x 24 in.
Final note
Each of us can choose to add fresh ideas to the great legacy of Art that has been developed and handed down to us, with no strings attached. Painting may be the greatest documentary of the human soul known to man.
