Going to California!

Thanks for dropping by my blog! Nice to have you here again.

There's not much happening around here these days. It's all family occasions and football matches, all happy days of course! ..... even if the mosquitoes are annoying the hell out of me!

I'm also happy about a recent art sale I made. This painting here below called 'Two Black Cats' is leaving home! A sale is a sale as they say, money in the pocket, so one must be happy! YaaBaaDabaDoo indeed!!

I was a little sad today however as I had to post this little painting off to an art collector in the U.S.A.

It's a painting that I have liked having in my studio and I have always enjoyed watching and listening to reactions from people who come to see it. The Finnish people seem to appreciate it's simplistic and positive message, and more importantly, it appeals to the young and old. It has also been one of my most popular paintings for prints both here in Finland and abroad. Especially so in the United States with print sales in Manhattan Kansas, Austin Texas, and Maspeth New York amongst others. And now the original painting is finally on it's way to San Diego California. I want to thank all of those who purchased prints and a special thanks to the nice lady in California who will receive 'Two Black Cats' in the post shortly. I hope they serve you well! This song is for you and my black cats....

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- Alan 

                     

Strongbow's Awakening!

When I lived back in Ireland one of my favourite places to visit was the National Art Gallery. I often found myself walking around the streets of Dublin city on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, when suddenly it would start to rain. This was usually the opportunity I took to visit the gallery. It's warm, relaxing and after ten minutes inside I usually forgot about the world outside. It's always been an oasis of calm in the very hectic city that is Dublin. It's a fine complex consisting of four interconnected buildings, the Dargan, Milltown, Beit and Millenium Wings. The oldest of the four, the Dargan Wing was formerly opened in 1864. The newest, the Millenium Wing which was opened in 2002 has a very modern contemporary look to it. You may ask how have they managed to fuse such an old building with such a new one. Well, it's cleverly done and the buildings cannot be truly seen next to each other from outside as both facades face out onto two different streets, Merrion Square and Clare Street.

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I always remember the first time I arrived at the old gallery back in the eighties. As I walked in I was stopped by the vision of the biggest painting I had ever seen. I said to myself “Wow!”. And honestly that's all I could think to say. Since then, everytime I go back to the gallery I always try to see it. The painting is called 'The Marriage of Strongbow and Aoife' by Daniel Maclise.

'The Marriage of Strongbow and Aoife' by Daniel Maclise, 1854

The painting shows the marriage of Norman invader Richard de Clare, also known as Strongbow, to Aoife, daughter of Dermot McMurrough, the King of Leinster. This marriage was considered a major event in Ireland's history as it symbolised the start of 800 years of British rule. Sized at a huge 10ft x 16ft (that's over 3 x 5 meters I think), it was painted in 1854. I wanted to make this blogpost in recognition of this fine painting and it's Cork-born artist, Daniel Maclise. Today January 25th is the artist's birthday, so 'Happy Birthday Mr. Maclise wherever you are!' and thanks for a wonderful painting. I was recently saddened yet delighted after reading a news article about this painting. Firstly, I found out that the painting is being removed soon from the gallery walls for two years. Then I saw that this was due to a planned restoration. So that news cheered me up a bit. Apparently a US bank is sponsoring it's restoration, which can be read about here. That's good news indeed, especially since I can't see much help coming from the Irish banks at the moment!

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Caravaggio - The Taking and Faking of Christ!

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You can receive my blogposts direct to your email or facebook profile by pressing the follow button at NetworkedBlogs  and you are welcome to visit my art page on Facebook by clicking the 'Like' button under my signature below.

- 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!

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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