2D or not 2D? that is the question!

Last summer I had a quick look at the work of Finnish artist Pauno Pohjolainen in the Turku Art Museum. The painter transformed from being a traditional artist at an early stage of his career to making more 3-dimensional work in the way of painted sculptures and textured forms such as chipped wooden surfaces. The artist still prefers to be called a painter though. 

Pauno Pohjolainen: 

Pyhä Yrjö surmaa lohikäärmeen, yksityiskohta, 

2008

Born in Kuopio, Finland in 1949 Pauno Pohjolainen held his first solo exhibition in Kuopio Art Museum in 1981. His art is visually pleasing and consists of many natural textures and colours. Some of his work extends to interior and exterior building facades.

Pauno Pohjolainen, the Virgin Mary, 1996, Kuopio Art Museum Collection

Thanks for reading my blog and feel free to share it with your friends.

-Alan

Double Agents!

Here are two recent paintings I just completed.

Called 'I Spy Red' and 'I Spy Orange', these paintings were more an exploration of colour rather than anything deep and meaningful.

Like secret agents my cool-coloured spy-glass shapes investigate their underlying warm landscapes of red and orange.

'I Spy Red'

2010, acrylic on stretched canvas

Original size 55cm x 46cm

'I Spy Orange'

2010, acrylic on stretched canvas

Original size 55cm x 46cm

And as we know, any decent spy must break borders and investigate all areas.

Perhaps a little view into the way society has become with the increasingly intrusive world wide web. The interpretive borders are open on these two!

Thanks for reading my blog.

Please share and do come again!

- Alan

First sale on Softpixels! Woo-hoo!!

I recently joined a new Helsinki-based company called Softpixels who sell canvas prints. They have a small selection of my artwork for sale in canvas print. These paintings are exclusively available from Softpixels.
It's always good news for any artist when they make there first sale with an associate. And I'm no exception.
So I was very happy when I told that a customer bought a print of my painting 'Consume, Consume, Consume'.
It's one of my personal favourites, inspired by the world we live in today and painted from my own imagination.
I was especially happy that the customer ordered the largest print size available as it is best viewed on a large scale. I still have the original rolled up in a tube at my studio. It was painted with a mix of acrylic paints, wax crayons and chalk pastels and is too large for me to fit into a frame at this present moment. I would really like to frame it some day.

'Consume! Consume! Consume!'

A large hand-painted acrylic on paper artwork. This symbolic painting features the strong image of a human biting into the sun, the source of all life on earth. Using purple, the colour of power and rugged, man-made shapes to symbolise mankind, against the colours or red and green representing the earth, life and all the things we need to survive.


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Alan.

Oldies but goldies!

I just agreed to allow a new Finnish company sell some of my artwork. Based in Espoo, the company is called Softpixels, a brand new company selling canvas art prints online.

For this project the people at Softpixels chose a selection of my work that appealed to them. Surprisingly to me, they picked out some of my older pieces, and now they have set up a cool new page for me on their website. I'm very happy that they chose some of my old work as it represents an important time for me when I was only developing an art portfolio, and it's really nice to receive some acknowledgement for this work. Yes, oldies but goldies!

Here's some of my paintings from Softpixels in this video clip here.

While the internet becomes saturated with paintings and all sorts of other artistic mediums, it is important for me to spread my work through as many channels as possible. This is the only way of been noticed on the world wide web these days. And such companies like Softpixels deserve full credit for promoting artists like myself. It is also good for my work to be seen through a Finnish site as it can be difficult for me to be found by Finnish internet users, due to the lack of the Finnish language on my own website.

Thanks for reading my blog and you are welcome to look at my art at The Art Garage and at Softpixels

Alan Hogan

Irish Rockin' in Russia!

I'll be 'drowning the shamrock' quietly here in Finland tomorrow. But if there's anybody from a certain part of Russia reading this blog, I can recommend a good night out for you. I have a cousin from Dublin who's heading over to Belgorod to play two concerts with his band The Spikes soon. He only joined this band quite recently but I hear he's fitting into their sound very well and it looks like they're heading for better things pretty soon. 

The band will be releasing a new album shortly, which can only fuel the fire of their much appraised live shows. I believe 'live' music is the way to go for new bands today, and I reckon The Spikes have enough enthusiasm and charisma to do the job properly.

The Spikes will playing at Hamilton's Pub in Belgorod, Russia on St.Patrick's Night March 17th and also on Friday March 19th, 2010.

Here's a video from The Spikes. The song is called Monster.

If you're lucky enough to be at their gig in Russia, have a great night!

Thanks for reading my blog and please share it with all your friends.

-Alan

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