D. Westry may just be one of the most amazing artists I have ever seen in my life.
I began watching this video with low expectations, it appeared that D. was simply painting random blobs on a canvas and trying to pass it off as art. However, the last 10 seconds of this video amazed me. D suddenly flipped the painting around, revealing an amazingly realistic yet modern portrait. I loved it!
I decided to research D's work further. From my reading, I discovered that D has been working and perfecting his speed painting skills since the 1970's; his average painting time is 4-6 minutes. D is very influenced by popular culture and patriotic images, and often paints larger than life images of familiar patriotic symbols and celebrities. These painting remind me a lot of the work of artists like Jeff Koons and James Rosenquist, with large, brightly colored images and symbols. It was so interesting to see how these themes could be carried over into such a unique and different style of art like D's!
This video is just one example of D's amazing talent at work. D combines both his love of visual art and performance art in his career, often working with entertainment companies and appearing on television shows to promote and share his art. This combination of his skills had led D to be one of the most well-recognized faces in speed painting, and has made the concept of speed painting more well known throughout America. I love that D takes such a unique and different approach to art, I've never seen anything like this before, and I hope to discover more artists that do this style of work! I loved learning about the Neopop artists like Rosenquist and Koons last year, and finding an artist that shows such similarities to their work in such an exciting way is so fun!
I began watching this video with low expectations, it appeared that D. was simply painting random blobs on a canvas and trying to pass it off as art. However, the last 10 seconds of this video amazed me. D suddenly flipped the painting around, revealing an amazingly realistic yet modern portrait. I loved it!
I decided to research D's work further. From my reading, I discovered that D has been working and perfecting his speed painting skills since the 1970's; his average painting time is 4-6 minutes. D is very influenced by popular culture and patriotic images, and often paints larger than life images of familiar patriotic symbols and celebrities. These painting remind me a lot of the work of artists like Jeff Koons and James Rosenquist, with large, brightly colored images and symbols. It was so interesting to see how these themes could be carried over into such a unique and different style of art like D's!
This video is just one example of D's amazing talent at work. D combines both his love of visual art and performance art in his career, often working with entertainment companies and appearing on television shows to promote and share his art. This combination of his skills had led D to be one of the most well-recognized faces in speed painting, and has made the concept of speed painting more well known throughout America. I love that D takes such a unique and different approach to art, I've never seen anything like this before, and I hope to discover more artists that do this style of work! I loved learning about the Neopop artists like Rosenquist and Koons last year, and finding an artist that shows such similarities to their work in such an exciting way is so fun!