The Flyers playoff run of 2010 was two wins short of one of the greatest in all professional hockey. Danny Briere continued to find the net and create incredible chemistry on the ice. This painting is inspired by one of his goal celebrations during a 30-point surge in 23 playoff games.
Process and thoughts…
A quick sketch of his iconic uppercut to gauge the space.
Had the pose, but had no idea how the rest of the canvas would develop. Discovery is a large part of my process.
The only way to find out where you are going is to get there. Reacting to the painting as it develops.
After filling most of the canvas with orange, white, and blue a little black to set the figure.
Some times you have to go backwards to go forwards. Hey Danny, sorry for engulfing your head in fire.
The sound and reaction of something hot hitting water and it instantly turning to steam is similar to that of 20,000 fans on their feet.
A quick rectangle to help me ground the figure in the atomosphere. I was thinking about the reproduced image. We use them to remember things. Collective and individual memory is cultivated from videos and photographs. Rectangular media.
Time to get rid the blue except for the ice and a little bit in the glass.
Get Flyered up! Danny Briere lights the lamp. The red trim and the yellow dasher make an appearance.
Can you see any subliminal messages in the flames? There’s a Flyers symbol, and a “D”…
A Flyers symbol, his initials (D and B), and the number 48. His uppercut fracturing the lens of reality all around him.
Danny I don’t mind if you take it easy during the 2012 season, but unleash the beast come playoffs.
1 of 30 Danny Briere | 18 x 24 inches | graphite, acrylic, and oil on canvas | 2011 | Available
click for larger image
When the game is on the line, especially in the playoffs, Briere is a lethal weapon. He probably has the best tight game in the league, and very sneaky. Boom!
Next up…. Claude Giroux #28.
This painting is available for purchase. I am currently accepting a limited number of new commissions. If you are interested in a sports player/moment commission, or different type of commission contact me directly.
Recent Hockey Paintings
Chris Pronger | oil, acrylic, graphite on canvas | 12 x 12 inches | 2011
Jaromir Jagr | acrylic, oil, pen, collage, and cloth on canvas | 11 x 14 inches | 2011 | Ari Lankin
Immortal Captain | oil on canvas | 30 x 30 inches | 2011 | Ari Lankin
Lord Stanley's Castle | 30 x 30 inches | oil on canvas |2011 | Ari Lankin
Look up at that Bald Eagle. A symbolic bird with a majestic presence.
The client and I agreed that the soaring Bald Eagle is a feast for the eyes. The bird is still, with wings proudly outstretched, gliding through the air at speeds up to 45mph. Power and grace.
It reminded me of the eagles from my youth in Pennsylvania, to the predator birds on my cross-country trip of Argentina, and of course the Bald Eagles of my annual summer trips to Maine.
Let’s take a look at how this commission developed…
A loose graphite sketch exploring scale and placement. Similar to Gaughin’s methods of drawing outlines in blue pencil.
Building from the process in my CMYK paintings I start with magenta. Positive and negative space.
Coming in with Cyan (blue) to divide the space even more, and start to tease out details of the eagle.
CMYK: Y is for yellow.
And K, is for “key“, better known as black.
Filling the foreground to establish a horizon in the background.
A blend of black on the water to accentuate a feeling of flatness relative to the flying eagle.
Now that the coastline is cohesive the space is really starting to be defined. I’m exaggerating the highlights on the eagle to pop it forward.
Using one of my favorite blues to fill in the atmosphere of the sky.
Building the ocean up with more realistic colors, in the final version you can feel the warmth of the red underneath.
Right before its finished the sea darkens with texture, the mountains crystalize out-of-focus in the background, and the final details are added to the Bald Eagle.
Soaring Bald Eagle (for CZ) | oil, acrylic, and graphite on canvas | 14 x 18 inches | 2011
Click image for larger image.
The final painting is a realistic portrayal with a signature painterly handling of the paint.
If you are interested in a commission contact me directly info@arilankin.com
The above piece is part of the WISH NYC benefit taking place tonight at Lavo to support the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
I’m very enthusiastic to be part of this worthy cause.
Join in on the fun, and help make dreams come true.
You can make donations here at any time.
EVENT DETAILS
Location: Lavo, 39 East 58th Street, New York, NY 10022
Date: Thursday, November 17th, 2011
Organization: The Make-A-Wish Foundation
Tickets: $150
Event Site: Toast To Wishes
+ - | ink on paper | 18 x 24 | inches | 2008
Click for larger image.
CMYK NYC is the culmination of an energy that was building inside of me for a few weeks. When I started this painting I was incredibly inspired to paint at this scale and ready to bridge together several ideas i’ve been working on.
CMYK NYC is in my painting exhibition at RL Fine Arts that is open until November 12th, 2011, in New York City.
For the process video I was lucky enough to work with multi-faceted grammy award winning artist Tony Black of Tony Black Productions & Orange Key. He wrote, performed, and produced “if i told you” – (The Ari Mix), while referencing the process video for inspiration. I feel this song intensifies the richness of the viewing experience by literally expressing a musical quality of the abstract painting. Because he did such an amazing job I am going to let the music and the video do most of the talking.
Lets take a look…
It starts with a white acrylic ground on cotton
I was working a lot with pink and black leading up to this painting, so I started with them.
Turning the organic more geometric.
Back to organic, perhaps utilitarian.
The entire space has been commented on and all of the colors are now present, CMYK.
Opening the space on the left, and closing it on the right.
It’s getting lighter in color and atmosphere.
Archetecture changes the way we live by altering our spatial awareness.
I was considering this state the final piece. It has the feeling of NYC, but it was too literal.
By altering landscape references, I change the feeling of gravity. The relationship of one form to another becomes more informative.
CMYK NYC | 48 x 60 inches | acrylic on canvas | 2011.
Click image for larger version.
You can see this painting right now at RL Fine Arts in Chelsea, see below for directions and images of the other works in the show.
Click here to preview the other paintings from my solo exhibition, “Windows of Self,” at RL Fine Arts Gallery until November 12th
Located in the heart of Flatiron/Chelsea:
RL Fine Arts
39 West 19 Street, Suite 612 (between 5 and 6 avenues)
New York NY 10011
tel: 212 645 6401
email:info@rlfinearts.com
gallery hours:
Tuesday to Saturday 11.00 to 6.30pm, Sunday 12.00 to 4.00pm
Exploring the unknown is one of the most exciting things about the creative process. Starting a work of art without a preconceived final image leaves room for discovery in any direction. With a piece like MagiKid it’s hard to tell when the creative process began. Perhaps it was a few years ago when my friend gave me a Scrabble board game that was missing some pieces. I saved it because I knew one day I could use it in a work of art. Or perhaps it was over six years ago when I acquired the Yoda miniature action figure.
The story continues when I was in Las Vegas with artist Borbay doing location and live painting in April. We decided to walk to our meeting at Vegas Seven magazine. The walk was a little further and off the beaten path then we thought. While walking in a half occupied industrial park I came across what looked like a discarded childs drawing in a parched leafless bush. It was a great drawing, so i folded it up and put it in my back pocket. The last ingredient was a magazine tribute to Michael Jackson that I saved since his death.
Las Vegas, April 2011.
Me celebrating the golden discovery. Shirt off because the desert is hot. Unlike a handful of other things, the drawing survived the Vegas trip, and a few months later ended up in this painting. MagiKid is another addition to the assemblage painting series I started in 2004.
MagiKid | assemblage and acrylic on canvas | 8 x 10 inches | 2011
Click image for larger version.
MagiKid has several obvious references which I will touch upon, and other ambiguous layers of interpretation I will leave for your discovery.
Words are spelled out: liv(e), jedi, magi, kid, magik.
The standard seven letters of a Scrabble game on the top row add up to the number 18. A special number in Judaism meaning life. It’s essential to keep a child’s spirit as one grows old.
What’s in a name? My middle name means Life.
What’s in the middle? The great wise man Yoda.
The Yoda toy is a third generation hand me down that i’ve had for at least six years. The rock around his neck is from a necklace that a friend broke in my company.
The childs drawing alludes to Luke Skywalker, and holds a double saber of red and green, or perhaps good and evil.
A young Michael Jackson photo is cropped to look like Darth Vader’s helmet.
Yoda, Luke Skywalker, and Vader, a magi of knowledge, and knowledge is power.
It’s amazing how this piece came together. For now i’ll leave the rest up to you and send it off with a quote by a great painter.
All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. – Pablo Picasso
Remember the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last year? It’s a distant thought, like most news gone by. Yet, it’s something we will never forget. With no decisive image how will we remember it?
First an account of the events according to Wikipedia: At 9:45 P.M. CDT on 20 April 2010, during the final phases of drilling the exploratory well at Macondo, a geyser of seawater erupted from the marine riser onto the rig, shooting 240 ft (73 m) into the air. This was soon followed by the eruption of a slushy combination of mud, methane gas, and water. The gas component of the slushy material quickly transitioned into a fully gaseous state and then ignited into a series of explosions and then a firestorm. An attempt was made to activate the blowout preventer, but it failed. The resultant oil spill continued until July 15 when it was temporarily closed by a cap. Relief wells were used to permanently seal the well, which was declared “effectively dead” on September 19, 2010.
I was watching the live feed of the oil cap while I was listening to music and painting. I became mesmerized how the cap hovered around the screen much like footage of the first moon landing. In the corner of my eye it looked like a combination of a fish tank and a fireplace. Eventually I started a new painting of what I was watching on the screen, the capping of Deepwater Horizon.
This is by far the coolest still life I have ever done. I would compare it to a reverse cubist experience. I studied the subject from thousands of angles created from a hovering point of view on a flat computer screen instead of representing observed reality from multiple points of view while flattening the image on the picture plane. That’s a lot of ideas for one sentence.
I’ll keep it short the rest of the way.
I was watching this live feed off of my computer screen taken by the Skandi Neptune support vessel. If you didn’t know what it was it may be very strange at first glance. After extended viewing it continues to look strange to me… space alien machine cartoon monster.
I was ready to rock right out of the gate because I had been painting all day. I liked how the subject was literally built by joining smaller pieces. I took a similar approach to building the imagery.
Most of the subject was constructed, but I hadn’t decided how to resolve the edges.
At times it felt like I was painting a still life on a table. In a way I was, a computer screen sitting on my desk. I eventuallty painted the edges black like the physical computer screen.
The red in the upper right was sea debris drifting around the frame. In the painter as director position I decided to paint it on the edge of the frame. Since it’s a static image we don’t know if it is entering or exiting the view.
The Capping of Deepwater Horizon | oil on canvas | 22 x 28 inches | 2010
History is a funny thing. Who decides what to remember, and how we remind? How does technology change the way we are delivered information and remember the past?
Click image for a larger photo.
Notice the texture of the paint and how the image was made by laying impasto strokes and scraping down to the gessoed canvas.
I’ve always had a strong interest in mathematics. Early in my career I made paintings that were derived from mathematical equations and were framed within the grid. Most notably Deja Vu I, and Deja Vu II.
When I started this painting I had those paintings in mind, but there was no mathematical theory behind the layout. This time I decided to go on gut intuition. I had no idea where this would lead me.
This is how it went….
I laid down a grid of five inch squares. I added the colors one at a time at first.
As the painting progressed I added more than one color at a time. This is how the painting looked after finishing filling the squares with color. Keeping it loose, it’s ok to paint outside the lines.
I wasn’t feeling how the colors were interacting so I decided to cover some of the squares with white. The layers of white are intentionally translucent so the color shows through.
Something was missing… black.
Back to my roots of black and white. At the same time notice how the colors radiate under the white squares. Look again, the pattern is not symmetrical.
Now that the color is muted, nine circles activate the linear grid.
Exploring the new spaces created by the circle outlines.
Now the circles are completely integrated with the grid. At this point I’m starting to read the painting as a meditative symbol.
Time to add color, it stirs the soul in ways black and white can not.
The importance of the integrity of the grid fades as I explore the meditative feeling.
At this point I’m literally painting myself into a state of unconsciousness.
Almost all recognition of the outer circles are gone.
The image felt like it was missing something. I started to get stuck in parts, so I brought back the circles.
The structure was complete. I felt there was a deep unity and at the same time paths of expansion. To finish the painting I refined the circles, clarified the points that kiss the edges, and further developed the lines.
Mandala | acrylic and oil on canvas | 30 x 30 inches | 2011
Click image for larger size.
The final image will hopefully enable the viewer a visual path to a meditative experience.
This is the second painting I did after the biblical flu that had me sidelined with a fever for 9 days. Between tripping out on a fever, lucid fever induced dreams, over twenty movies including the whole Twin Peaks series, and not being able to paint I was so ready for this painting to pour out of me.
As usual with my abstract work, I dive in without any preconceived image…
A big yellow amorphous shape, why not?
I kept it very loose and tried to surprise myself. Some strong lines to counteract the organic yellow shape.
New colors and shapes seem to have individualized spirits.
Two strips along the top and the bottom, allude to analog film. This was influenced by watching so many movies and my experience with photography/film. Aesthetically it holds the diverse forms from spilling out of the top and bottom of the canvas.
A canvas is a window to another world. Add light and the image dances. The individual forms start to gather together and a large central form develops.
At this point I’m exploring the organic forms and fleshy feeling. This is balanced by the architectural feeling of the crisp horizontal strips on the top and bottom of the canvas. The self, the brain, and our instantaneous digital connection to the rest of the world….oops, I was just thinking out loud.
There was a lot of destroying and rebuilding while making this painting. I had to take things away to see if they were needed. When I rebuilt them I already had a knowledge of the purpose they served. Also what was was missing in their absence. 
The lower forms are now shining through the strip on the bottom of the canvas. Some people wish their life is a movie. If you ask me, everyone’s life is a movie. Some people turn their projector light up brighter than others.
View With A Room | oil on canvas | 30 x 40 inches | 2011
This is the first painting I made after taking a few consecutive days off from painting. I decided to put hardcore painting on ice for a few days while I was busy working on some other projects.
Immediately after getting home from the Clipped reception after party I started painting. It felt so good to be back at it.
This painting is full of raw energy and excitement, some would even call it joy.
I call it Roarrr.
Let’s take a look at some of the stages and you can decide for yourself…
Diving in with pink, oh how I love pink. It’s almost like a guilty pleasure. Here I’m painting with brushes and fingers.
Introducing some primary colors with a strong linear quality. When I look at a line I experience a sensation of movement from one point to another. The type of line suggests the type of movement. I think it’s safe to say these lines are capricious in nature.
Utilizing the edge of the canvas I flatten the imagery with the picture plane.
New colors and new mark making breathe different life into the painting.
Around this time I’m starting to understand the life of this particular painting.
It’s crucial to harness this life power but not misuse it. That remind’s me of this anonymous quote: “Some say it takes two people to do a painting, one to do the painting and the other to tell you when to stop.”
Roarrr | acrylic and oil on canvas | 30 x 40 inches | 2011
Anything is possible with teamwork. One person made this painting, and the same person knew exactly when to stop. This painting is alive.
Click the painting for a larger image and watch the process video in HD.
While going through images over the weekend I realized I haven’t posted this painting from late Winter.
I started this on one of those winter days when it finally starts to warm up.
So with the sun out, and the windows open, I ripped into this 4′ x 5′ canvas.
Warm weather, and a big canvas is a great combination after a long winter.
Just looked at the time stamp on the photo and I started it February 14th at 2:36PM…oh, that special day
let me take you back….
Starting out with a slick thin black line. Felt great with all the freedom of a large canvas. Keep the paint flowing.
After bringing in some color I introduce 12″ x 12″ blocks.
Playing with the structure and using the blocks to literally build the composition. A big playful signature in the middle. Brush strokes are a type of signature.
Time to push the picture plane back with some white. The “X” in the middle pushes the other imagery back.
Break the grid by exploring each square, and merging them together.
A general cohesion is forming, but not for long…
Simplify and dissolve the geometry. The form becomes more organic.
Increasing surface area with folds.
Changing opacity to alter the depth.
Whats the difference between drawing and painting? Save that debate for another time. It doesn’t matter with strong mark making. More of that.
Getting rid of some of the black that held the painting together since the early stages.
Pink On The Brain | acrylic on canvas | 48 x 60 inches | 2011.
I hesitate to explain the imagery in my abstract paintings. It’s abstract for a reason, actually thousands of reasons.
Sometimes I feel a title can lead the viewer too much. Don’t let it.
Check out the video in HD, and click the finished painting for a larger image.
