Compose styles
Rather than blending styles toward a middle, this gives them roles. The first one carries the structure, the next comes in as the accent, and anything after that shows up in a single detail. Where they fight each other, it says so before you start.
How to divide the work
- Composition
- Follow Chicago Imagists: Enclose a central figure with ornament and small images until repetition fills the surface
- Type
- Set in Chicago Imagists's manner (Put angular hand lettering inside the frame and keep explanatory copy outside), 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 Chicago Imagists's material (Use hard black line and enamel-like flat orange, yellow-green, and violet on a smooth support); bring in exactly one thing from Lowbrow (Pop Surrealism) (Oil gloss and smooth gradation, brushwork sanded away).
- Colour
- Build on #F06A38, #B8D83F, #5B3E8A and admit one accent from #e2cfd6, #1152b3, #121112.
Where they fight
These are already listed as related entries, so the join should come easily.
Caution
- Chicago Imagists A strange character alone is insufficient. Keep the obsessive handwork, Chicago artist networks, and distance from mass-produced Pop Art.
- Lowbrow (Pop Surrealism) Picking creepy subject matter while skipping the rendering craft turns the work into doodling that only wants to shock.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from Chicago Imagists (style, mid-1960s–1980s) and their accent from Lowbrow (Pop Surrealism) (style, 1979–). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Chicago Imagists exists for: pushing comic figures past advertising friendliness into the strange and obsessive, or locking dense ornament and acidic color into one image for music, publishing, or exhibitions. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Chicago Imagists - Distorted figures enclosed by hard black contour - Flat fluorescent and complementary color - Excessive mixtures of comics, signs, and ornamental frames - Symmetry or repetition sharpening the unease Composition: Enclose a central figure with ornament and small images until repetition fills the surface. Type and lettering: Put angular hand lettering inside the frame and keep explanatory copy outside. ## Accent comes from Lowbrow (Pop Surrealism), used sparingly - Pop-culture iconography - Precise classical technique - Uneasy humor - Street-born heraldry Let one material quality come from it: Oil gloss and smooth gradation, brushwork sanded away. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #B8D83F, carry the structure in #F06A38 and #5B3E8A, and let a single accent come from #1152b3. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: play, rebellion, exhilaration, nostalgia. ## What goes wrong - Chicago Imagists: A strange character alone is insufficient. Keep the obsessive handwork, Chicago artist networks, and distance from mass-produced Pop Art. - Lowbrow (Pop Surrealism): Picking creepy subject matter while skipping the rendering craft turns the work into doodling that only wants to shock. ## Across the four Keep the roles fixed in all four. Vary the framing, the scale and the arrangement so the set shows what this pairing can do rather than four versions of one picture. ## Constraints - Do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work. - Do not reproduce the composition of an existing work. - Produce original compositions in the general period languages described above.
Related entries
- Chicago Imagists mid-1960s–1980s / Style / Pop
Chicago painters who compressed comics, advertising, folk art, sideshows, and ornament into distorted bodies, hard contours, acidic color, and intensely personal hand-painted image worlds.
- 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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