Thomas Woodruff is a self-proclaimed “neo-fabulist” artist who always works in series on large, complex imagistic projects. Hatched from personal experiences, the projects are often apotropaic and elegiac in nature, dealing with issues raised by the AIDS epidemic, aspects of maintaining wellness, and celebrating the outsider in all of us. The imagery is a cross-culturally hybridized, relentlessly figurative, technically tricky, perversely ornate, and more often than not– dark. Read the rest of the biography at Thomas Woodruff's website.
All Systems Go
From the Four Temperaments series
Freak Parade
Silent-screenSiren/Hag Who-Understands All
Links
15 comments:
Now - this is right up my street.
Love his work and you're quite right on the Artist of the week.
Fascinating. Thanks for the introduction, Gina. 'All Systems Go' I find particularly appealing.
What a creative artist. Thanks for all your research.
The tigers and the tortoise speak to me, but not the others which sort of leave me feeing cold. I admire the detail and the use of the animals in his art and think that it would be interesting to see his work 'live' as it were.
An interesting choice!
I do like these. Thanks for introducing me to another artist
What attracts most is the richness of colour and the way it conveys a highly detailed texture of inner light.
At a wild and half-uninformed guess, I’d say his drug of choice was opium rather than LSD.
a departure for you, non?
Aloha from Waikiki
Comfort Spiral
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Hmmm. I just don't know. My yellow and black bile is acting up today so I fear my opinion is influenced by condition.
Oh Gina. I thank you thank you thank you for challenging my concept of normal and safe. always a pleasure. my fave of the bunch is the first piece. I want that fun hat for my next birthday party. wishing you a year of good cheer, health, and loads of laughter. happy day to you Gina.
Wonderful weird worlds of imagination. Thanks, Gina!
Oh my! These are extremely spectacular. I actually turned the computer upside down to see the siren before noticing you'd posted it both ways. It's hard to pick a favorite (as well as unfair) but if I had to I think I'd choose the sun series mandala.
Thanks for another wonderful find.
Susan! I am having a serrendipitus streak these last couple of days, so I wasn't surprised to see your comment in my email inbox, just as I was about to respond to your email!
And when I chose the sund mandala as a sample of that series, I was thinking of you. :-) Love, love.
Cloudia - hmmm..I wouldn't say it's a departure for me. I love all kinds of surrelistic type works and not just in painting. Do you like Dali?
In general, I like these very much for their technical precision and the combination of elements that are somtimes Victorian juxtaposed against the animilas; the wild and the tame...
While it's hard to feel comfort delving one's eye into these images, I find they have a lot to offer the mind. Surrealism is seldom warm and fuzzy. :-)
Thanks, everyone!
I love Freak Parade
there is so much going on/being said in each piece
I looked up animilas in the OED, in high hopes that it would mean “surrealistic animals” which of course it does - you have just coined it - but the dictionary has not yet caught up with you, of course.
Woodruff instantly reminded me of Dali but his textures are more exciting, and his subject-matter more intelligent and subtle, in my view.
Vincent - :-)
These are amazing in their conception, their detail and their emotional impact. I'd like to have one of each (or two, in the case of the "hag,") for my walls!
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