Compose two styles
Rather than blending two styles into a middle, this assigns them roles: one carries the structure, the other appears as an accent. Where the two fight, it says so before you start.
How to divide the work
- Composition
- Follow Art Brut: Fill everything: no margin, no hierarchy, the field worked edge to edge at one density.
- Type
- Set in Art Brut's manner (A hand-drawn alphabet used consistently, its own rules kept even where they are inconvenient.), and let Lowbrow (Pop Surrealism)'s lettering (Sign-painter and comic lettering rendered as carefully as the art) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Art Brut's material (Whatever is at hand and reused, ballpoint on envelope, thread, cardboard, with the reuse left visible.); bring in exactly one thing from Lowbrow (Pop Surrealism) (Oil gloss and smooth gradation, brushwork sanded away).
- Colour
- Build on #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615 and admit one accent from #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615.
Where they fight
These two are already listed as related, so the join should come easily.
Caution
- Art Brut Faking the naivety with a wobbly font and some scribble: the force of this work comes from a real and internally consistent system, and imitation reproduces only its tics.
- Lowbrow (Pop Surrealism) Picking creepy subject matter while skipping the rendering craft turns the work into doodling that only wants to shock.
Image prompt
An original image that takes its structure from Art Brut (Style, 1945–) and its accent from Lowbrow (Pop Surrealism) (Style, 1979–). Structural cues: A surface filled with no margin left; Private systems of letters and signs; Exhaustive reuse of the materials to hand; A self-sufficient world built by repetition. Accent cues, used sparingly: Pop-culture iconography; Precise classical technique; Uneasy humor; Street-born heraldry. Composition: Fill everything: no margin, no hierarchy, the field worked edge to edge at one density.. Type and lettering: A hand-drawn alphabet used consistently, its own rules kept even where they are inconvenient.. Let one material quality come from the second style: Oil gloss and smooth gradation, brushwork sanded away. Mood: Intimacy, Rebellion, Play, Nostalgia. Color: build on #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615 with a single accent drawn from #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615. Constraints: do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work. Produce an original composition in the general period languages described above.
Related entries
- Art Brut 1945– / Style / Subculture Style
A concept framed to name work made outside art education and the art market, relying on nothing but a system of its own. Repetition filling the whole surface, private alphabets and sign systems, and the exhaustive reuse of materials recur across it. Less a style than the name for the conditions under which a style arises.
- Lowbrow (Pop Surrealism) 1979– / Style / Illustration Styles
Painting from outside the museum, schooled on hot rods, comics, tattoos and B movies. It renders pop memory in exacting oil technique, and Juxtapoz magazine gave it a home under the name Pop Surrealism.
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