Featured Artist Ford Crull

Abstract artist Ford Crull uses symbolism, written words, and color to emotionally charge his paintings with sensuality and emotion. View more of his amazing work by visiting his website.

 

“Heartland” Oil and Oil Stick on Canvas, 40” x 30” by artist Ford Crull. See his portfolio by visiting www.ArtsyShark.com

 

My work can be understood through the mind, but it is best felt with the heart, experienced through the emotions, recognized as a manifestation of the spiritual that is born on the picture plane. The ambiguity of the image is central to my expression of life in art.

 

“4 Shields” Oil and Oil Stick on Canvas, 84” x 66” by artist Ford Crull. See his portfolio by visiting www.ArtsyShark.com

 

The derivation of my symbols, pulled out from the oceanic flow of an unconscious, devolved dream state, reflects a necessity for metamorphosis and recombination that deprives image of any safe haven.

 

“Badge” Oil and Wax on Canvas, 60” x 48” by artist Ford Crull. See his portfolio by visiting www.ArtsyShark.com

 

The paintings function like a pool of consciousness where these elements, drawn and painted with graphic directness, collect and recombine.

 

“Flower King” Oil, Graphite and Oil Pastel on Paper, 30” x 22” by artist Ford Crull. See his website by visiting www.ArtsyShark.com

 

The result is a highly charged distillation in which emotion, sensuousness, and reflection constitute equal parts.

 

“I,C,F,W,M,X” Oil and Oil Stick on Canvas, 48” x 36” by artist Ford Crull. See his portfolio by visiting www.ArtsyShark.com

 

My symbolic vocabulary is Mayan, Egyptian, esoteric, popular, and personal. Hearts, mandalas, spirals, and cryptic letter forms are recurring motifs. Their varied presence bespeaks a desire for a language that transcends a single cultural moment, preferring instead a fusing of the present with both the exotic and timeless.

 

“Battle of Jacob’s Ford” Oil, Enamel and Oil Stick on Canvas, 60” x 48” by artist Ford Crull. See his portfolio by visiting www.ArtsyShark.com

 

In deploying these symbols, as well as the written word, these canvases become a kind of painterly diary, the visible marks of personal experience. Focusing on love and loss, the paintings reflect the mutability of desire.

 

“Love is Always Blue” Oil, Enamel and Oil Stick on Canvas, 60” x 48” by artist Ford Crull. See his portfolio by visiting www.ArtsyShark.com

 

The written words, scrawled boldly or obscured by layers of paint, act like an insistent voice, repeating the title of the painting, or recording the painter’s unconscious thoughts.

 

“Midsummer Night, Ruby” Oil, Enamel and Oil Stick on Canvas, 60” x 48” by artist Ford Crull. See his portfolio by visiting www.ArtsyShark.com

 

They become visual echoes, as well as abstract gestures, embedded within the painting’s surface.

 

“Some Lovers” Oil, Oil Stick and Graphite on Paper, 38.5” x 50” by artist Ford Crull. See his portfolio by visiting www.ArtsyShark.com

 

Painted with a gestural directness, my work celebrates color as a symbolic agent and sensuous phenomenon.

 

“The X Word” Oil, Wax and Enamel on Canvas, 48” x 36” by artist Ford Crull. See his portfolio by visiting www.ArtsyShark.com

 

By turn translucent and glowing, dripping and fevered, color carries a mercurial dramatic charge. The viewer is left with the task of tracing the artist’s symbolic journey, of which each work reveals a part.

 

Comments

  1. Strong work. The use of symbols draws me in – mysterious, provocative!

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