Help us, Obi-Ron Kenobi. You're our only hope!

Ron Paul

They tried to ignore him, they tried to dismiss him, they tried to smear his character.  But like Obi-Wan, if you strike him down he shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.

EDIT:  This design is now available on T-Shirts and Buttons at CafePress: No World Order

In other news,  I am now on Twitter (finally…).  Follow me, I’m @iamcreach.

Oh, and Happy New Year!

Brave New World: Dystopian Art

Brave New World: Dystopian Art is an art event featuring works by local artists Christopher Reach and Charlie Garlette. It will take place on Saturday December 10th beginning at 12 PM upstairs in Studio 12 above Tapastry Restaurant in Montclair, NJ. The restaurant and adjoining gallery are located at 12 Church Street.

The exhibition will showcase works executed in a variety of techniques including life sized fabricated sculptures, large scale oil paintings, metalwork, digital media, and ceramic sculpture. Themes, rendered through each artists’ unique world view, range from trans-humanism to spiritualism, science fact to science fiction.

With social disarray, economic turmoil, and endless war enveloping our present and threatening our future, what will be left for the masses when the long night ends and dawn breaks on a Brave New World?

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Christopher Reach is a commercial artist who works internationally in the games and advertising industries. While his professional work is created digitally, Christopher’s training and regular adventures with acrylic and oil paint inform his style and allow the work to retain the feel of more traditional media.

His personal work focuses on many themes including anti-nuclear, anti-state, pro-peace, and pro-justice. Stylistically he draws inspiration from the great Dutch and Spanish painters of the 17th and 18th centuries, Constructivist Design principles, and Golden Age American illustrators like NC Wyeth and Howard Pyle. Christopher holds a BFA in Illustration and Animation from Montclair State University.

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Charlie Garlette has been interested in sculpture and the arts since his adolescence. His work has been described as Neo-Dadaist, DieselPunk and Sci-Fi Horrart. Having experimented in clay sculpture and wood fabrication through high school he continued his 3D curiosity post graduation during his years as an Assistant Pressman in a 60′s modern printshop in downtown Newark NJ. Having been surrounded by old strewn bits of machines long since out of commission, Charlie spawned primative forms from the gears, suction cups, and rags of the printshop.

His art has since taken many forms, from mixed media sculptures of varying size and degree to collage, ceramic, and metalwork forms. “To use any and all materials. To rebirth recycled, abandoned technology, and wasted resources of our world to create something that speaks back to its owners”. He doesn’t care how you reuse it, just do.

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So there you have it.  Please come out and support the arts.  We’ll have prints, actual paintings, sculptures, and cards for sale.  If you’d just like to come and look around and talk shop, that would be most appreciated as well.  It should be a really fun time and I look forward to seeing some of you there!

Infernal Contraption

This Infernal Contraption killed between 150,000 and 250,000 human beings.

Contraptions like it will be used to murder once again.  It is not a matter of if, but when.

J. Robert Oppenheimer, known best as the Father of the Atomic Bomb, famously quoted from the Bhagavad Gita after the Trinity Test, lamenting “Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”  He spent the rest of his life campaigning against the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Even when we split atoms in the name of peace, it leads to suffering.  But what can be done about it?  Are we now forced to live with this man made monster?

Atomkraft, Nej Tak!

On a recent trip to Århus, Denmark I took this picture of a mural painted on the side of a building.  It reads “Atomic Power? No Thanks!”

I’ll let it end with that more positive note, for the sake of Illustration Friday (this week the theme was Contraption).

When presented with boundaries like, say, the cosmic void between Midgard and Asgard, it is often useful to have some form of communication in order to stay connected and keep up to date.

Enter Huginn and Muninn, Odin’s two ravens that brought him news from the far reaches of the world like some swift, black RSS feed.

Huginn And Muninn

This week’s Illustration Friday theme was “Boundaries” and since I generally do not care for such things (and just returned from a fantastic trip to Scandinavia) I decided to paint a subject that eliminated boundaries.

I suppose I could have painted a telephone, a computer, or one of those newfangled facebooks the kids are talking about these days, but if you can’t tell from my previous paintings… I like to work with nerdlier subject matter.

Masks Cover

And here is the image with type by designer Darren Hardy.  I’m a huge fan of Deco style typefaces and architecture, so I was pretty happy to see that pop up on the cover.  He did a great job on the interior borders as well.

Besides the cover, I created around 20 interior pieces for Masks.  Here are a few of my favorite character illustrations from the book.

Hope you enjoyed this sample of my work from Masks.  Now its off to work on another private commission (I am accepting commissions, please contact chrisreach@ymail.com for details) and watch some Ancient Aliens.  Laugh all you want.  I find that show to be highly enjoyable.

This week the word was “swell”.  Having been in generally good spirits, i passed on the more obvious and violent interpretations of the word and opted for the nostalgic route.

Gee, That's Swell!

So here we have it.  A goofy, old-timey, mid 20th century pilot type with a big dumb grin. Ready to sell you a coca-cola or some such… wait. What’s that?  Could it be… he’s a COMMUNIST?! Oh yeah… he’s a Communist.

I’ve also taken on a couple of private commissions which have been a lot of fun.  Below is a drawing of a throne room I created for a fellow DeviantArtist.  If you would like me to paint something for you, please drop me a line (chrisreach@ymail.com) and I’d be happy to discuss subject and pricing with you.

Throne Room Commission

More to come in the next week, along with some personal pieces I’ve been working on.

Compact Heroes Art

Actually, I’ve just been pretty busy (that’s a good thing) and of course, the blog is the first thing to go by the wayside.  I did find the time to paint this critter on an airplane (he is under water, I was on the airplane) and submit it to one the weekly ImagineFX challenges that are held, well… every week.

Hawkins Cutlass

Aside from that, I am really excited about some of the projects I have going right now, and should be able to share some work soon.  One project in particular, a Facebook game, has been a blast as the subject matter is a bit out of the norm for me.