Artist of the Month - June - The Masters

When I received my BFA, I thought for sure that I had said goodbye to Art History forever. Little did I know that, like social history, art history is bound to repeat itself. Art recycles itself through our creative subconscious the way ideas and behaviors do. We take it in and we spit it out, whether we know where it came from or not. So when there's an artist that you can really connect with, it's important to hang on to them, to absorb what makes them special, and to store it within your mind's canvas to draw from later. Even the most unlikely artists can be cause for inspiration, that force that enters into our minds and drives us to create. So this week we will visit one of Darryll's favorite artists, Flemish painter, Peter Paul Rubens.

During a trip to Madrid about two years ago, Darryll found himself wandering the halls of the Museo Nacional del Prado, home to some of the greatest, canonical art pieces of our world's history. What had initially attracted him to the museum was Goya's Black Paintings, but what kept him there was the work of Rubens. He became entranced by the mythological drama and the religious history behind the seventeenth century paintings. Since then, Rubens's work has found a place in the back, right side of Darryll's brain, where it will remain as a source of inspiration. Adding Rubens to the pool of artists that exist in Darryll's creative mind has helped him create work that is subtly evolving with time and in turn, breathing new life into what was once history.

-Chelsea