Us

oil on canvas 100 * 100 cm

What more can I say? There's already over 5 billion of us. I thought I'd pick the largest city on earth to look for an image, so I Googled to check out the competition. That's how I started on painting Shanghai sometime in January. Later I was corrected by National Geographic: acoording to NG Tokio is number 1 and will remain to be for some time. Anyway Shanghai will do me fine. It took a while this painting. I wanted the city to look immense, endless and complex. A threat to all other life, yet with a throbbing life of its own. It reflects my mixed feelings towards our own species. So intelligent and creative and yet so arrogant and shortsighted. The painting was quite a struggle. I wonder who won?

Amazon-X

oil on canvas 100* 100 cm

So, this is what becomes of the Amazon forest (in Brazil) after its been clear cut to make place for soy production. The soy bean of course is the main ingredient for US and European cattle feed these days. That's why these fields have the colour of a nice big juicy steak. Or could it be just the iron in the soil? The great thing about being an artist is that you don't have to worry about silly little things like cause and effect. I just choose any colour I damm well please!
I realised I haven't given much technical information about my GE paintings. The series I'm making (this is number 4, 5 will follow in a couple of days) consists of oil paintings on canvas 100 cm * 100 cm (about 40 * 40 inch). Why don't you let me (and others) know what you think about the painting? There's a 'comment' option below this post.

Felting is (GE) Art

It's a desease! And now my girl friend 's got it too.... Angele Dohmen and I met exactly two years ago today so it's time to celibrate tonight! She designs in textiles and recently discovered felt as a material with incredible creative possibilities. She was also very excited about my GE paintings and has now translated it to felting. Check out her weglog and site (see more links).

Carl Holzman and Santiago Espeche

Carl Holzman (see link) calls his art 'abstract'. I think he fits in well with the GE-art concept wether you call it abstract or landscape. Santiago Espeche calls it 'satellite art'. I like that too. It's more objective than Google Earth art I suppose. Google is not the only company to bring out satellite imaging software. However, I feel Google deserves credit for making such a good program which, amazingly is available for free to anyone. An other nice term I think is 'earthscapes'. I'll raise the question in the GE forum.
Carl's reply on the GE forum contained a good idea: why not ask Google to sponsor a first international exhibition?
By the way, the site of Santiago Espeche (see link) can be read in English as well as Spanish (I'd missed that one). His is a wonderful poetic view of us and our planet, both in word and in visual images.