Eyob Art work

The painting that I’ve been working on, The Boulevard at Night, is my first expression of my experience of Las Vegas. The ideas have been stirring in my head for some time, and finally I’ve started painting. I’m expressing the color, the night life, the mood of the city, the essence of the beauty. The reflections especially call out for oil paint, and watercolors, to be expressed graphically. There is very wide scope for the imagination.

My goal is to take these realities into the abstract form, carrying the audience with me into a new way of seeing the things around them. In visiting art galleries around Las Vegas, I have seen a lot of art (and some exceptional sculpture) and I’m looking forward to contributing my own abstract voice to the artistic expression of the city. All abstract art comes from the realistic world, and the degree of abstraction and the strength of expression comes from what is inside.

At the same time, we don’t want to abstract so far that we lose touch with the real, because that is the only connection we have with the audience. The artist is responsible to carry the people along with him as he creates his experimental art, so they can see where he’s going.  It’s like you’re bringing them aboard your boat and sailing with them to your world.  People need to be able to see themselves in your work. Realistic painting may represent one person’s perspective, but abstract art has the capacity to communicate universally.

I’m going to be working with some galleries in California and Las Vegas throughout this year. I’m developing a project about the Boulevard into a large exhibit for later this year.  Keep watching the blog for more updates on this project.

In the Spring 2011 issue of Art of the Hills, John A. Day wrote a very insightful article entitled, Abstraction in Practice.

In this article, he offers the reader a brief discussion of the nature of abstract art, recognizing that, “abstract art exists on a continuum running from realistic through non-representational measured by degrees, and it is those degrees that merit discussion in issues of style, technique, and intent.”

He then follows the thread of those degrees through the art of various South Dakota artists. The section about my art featured The Cello Dream.  Click on the image below to read the article.

I’ve been living in Sioux Falls for many years now. That time has seen many changes in my art as I have learned and developed. One of the things I have learned during my time in Sioux Falls is how to focus my creativity and cultivate my inspiration. Sometimes it’s difficult to be inspired when a person sees the same things every day. We have to learn how to find inspiration in other places—books, and other works of art, music, and learning from many different aspects of life.

I’m very happy with the pieces of art that I have contributed to the community of Sioux Falls. These pieces are some that I feel are my most valuable contributions of artistic awareness to the city:

• The Seven Days of Creation
• Genesis
• Cello Dream
• Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit
• The Ark of the Covenant
• Wisdom of Axum

These are some of the best pieces of my career, and I am glad to have them represent me here. I’m looking forward to continue to grow as an artist, pursuing some exciting opportunities in this field.

I have accomplished what I needed to accomplish as an artist here, and I am grateful to this city for the time and opportunity to do that. I feel very supported and encouraged here.  For that reason, I’m thankful for the experiences I’ve had over the past years.

To me being an artist is to have a mission. When I go to a new place, a different country or culture, my mission is find and express, to celebrate the beauty of that place, to dig into its history. Art is one of the languages that humans use to communicate. It is also a conceptual way to see. My art has allowed me to look at things in different dimensions, in forms and cubes and mathematical expressions.

Artists have always taken their world and their experience and reinterpreted it, presented it back to their audience in a way that allows the audience to see that world in a new way, in a new light and a different form. Without art, the world is flat and boring—there is no beauty, no form, no inspiration.

Inspiration is an Idea that comes in a flash, and we grab that flash, take hold of that millisecond’s idea. We let the flash of that idea carry us along. It gives us wheels to run on, and it carries us and we carry it beyond and through other ideas and thoughts. They drive us from moment to moment, and help us explore the essence of life. We take the beauty out of the dust, and hold it up to the light.

Painting is not a pointless activity—it is a power that helps to refine the soul. Art is daily bread for the soul. However the artist should have a message to convey, a message, revealed to him by his inner voice, that is the source of the beauty in his work. Only that is beautiful.

Contact me if you are interested in any of the available paintings featured on this blog.

The Completion of the Seven Days of Creation

Eight mosaic panels, glass and ceramic tile, 23 ft high and  7 ft wide each.

click the picture to enlarge

The Concept

Art helps to expand our minds’ capacity and lifts up our spirits.  Art is a joy.  Someone might be going through the day thinking about his or her daily activities, and suddenly he or she stops in front of a mural that depicts the beginning of the world.  It breaks us out of time, it gives us a moment for ourselves that lifts us out of the stream of daily busyness.

I was reading in the book Art Forms a few days ago, and came upon this passage:  “A technologically explosive society needs the humanizing rewards of artistic experience.  The arts help meet our emotional and spiritual needs…  Art helps us to see.  How we see determines how we live.”When we read books, we are given a window into knowledge that we didn’t have.  Works of art provide another means of learning, another window into knowledge. Children can look and learn without words.

Art conveys a spiritual knowledge without depending on words.

The artwork

The Seven Days of Creation is a different mural from most that I have seen.  Many artists will simply submit an idea for a mural and from there, other people produce the mural itself. In this case, from the initial sketches, to the detailed drawings, to the finished paintings that were the design for the mural, I went through every step to make sure that the original concept was carried through to the final mural on the wall.

I hand-selected the colors for each section of the mural,and worked carefully with the ones who were building the mural throughout the process. A note about the technical aspect of creating a mural like this:  There are three different ways to construct a mural: the Direct Method, the Indirect Method, and the Double Indirect Method.  In the first, tiles are placed directly on the final surface.  In the second, tiles are placed in a mirror image of the final design on an intermediate surface, and then transferred to the final surface.

The third method, which is the one used on the Seven Days of Creation, requires those building the mosaic to first construct the finished design on one surface, then transfer it in reverse to an intermediate surface, and then to transfer it to its final surface.

The artist

All of us are born for something.  I think part of my purpose is to help people around me to create art on a higher level.  An artist creates an artwork to communicate to his audience, and also to educate and influence younger artists.  Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel and Picasso’s Guernica are both examples of an artist communicating his ideas, and also attempting to change the culture around them.

One of my goals in my art in general, and in the Seven Days of Creation in particular, is to create a higher standard for art and culture, to raise the level of art that is produced in Sioux Falls and in the world around us.    As I promised, here is a garden for the four seasons, a gift to the world like it has been given to me. This is a legacy that will go on for generation to generation.

Special thanks to Syverson Tile for their patience and support, to Sicis for the wonderful collaboration, and to Our Savior’s Lutheran Church for both the opportunity to be part of this project and for their sponsorship.

An article in the Argus leader about the mosaic’s design.
To see more details of the original design, visit my website.