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Nick Christensen is business consultant with an M.B.A.
(Senior level. Available internationally. Ask for rate.) | |
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Artist
Art is creating something from within. Design is more like problem solving for a set of requirements. I love both.
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LATEST NEWS
Aesthetics
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Sheraton Hotels & Resorts Tea Cup
18 August 2010. Santa Clara, California (USA). Designed modern tea cup for restaurant of large hotel chain. Nice to see it produced. Fun to go into restaurant and drink from something that I designed. |
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Not of This World
Oil on Canvas
Have you ever noticed that Devon Aoki displays a complete absence of expression on her face at all times? For whatever reason, I find this no emotion look super hot. It’s almost as if she’s not of this world. Since I first saw a photo of her, I’ve had a strange psychological fascination with her unique look and became the obvious choice for me as a subject for a painting. The message I wanted to communicate was that it’s alright to disregard the stereotypical norms of this world to find truly extreme beauty.
In 2003, I met her brother Steve Aoki. I drove down to LA, called him from my hotel and we met-up with some friends at a club downtown. I was really impressed how nice he was to everyone and how hard he was working to become successful. He was a huge inspiration. Later, we had fun sending each other encouraging messages about the future and I remember that I once sent him Pocky from Japan. He called and said, I’m eating your Pocky. Also, we would exchange band t-shirts for custom jeans that I’d make for him.
But every story has an ending. One night Steve calls me and he tells me that Devon stole a pair of my jeans so he wanted another pair. Inspired, I quickly made the jeans and made two paintings within a few months. Then we hangout after one of his shows in SF and I give him the jeans along with the original Devon painting and an Arne Jacobson Egg chair painting. We took some photos. That was the last we talked. Afterwards, I missed the Devon painting so much that I made another.
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Original Devon Painting
This is the painting given to Steve. I feel it captures her emotionless expression well. |
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Steve Aoki
The coolest electro DJ to ever live. We took this photo after a Bloc Party concert in SF. |
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Holiday Inn
Later, dated Mindy who looked a little like Devon. She slapped the Aoki fascination out of me. |
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A Higher Level of Sophistication
Oil on Canvas
Appearance alone can emotionally touch someone, hurling them deep into fantasyland. In 2007, while riding a train in Tokyo, I was unexpectedly struck by the beauty of an old woman. I hadn’t seen anyone like her before. She had an extraordinarily sharp long nose, full lips, smoky distant eyes, an out-of-this-world triangle shaped head, odd short frizzy hair, beautiful skin and a rich sophisticated presence that exuded perfect harmony, grace and elegance. We didn’t talk.
One year later, I’m taking yet another train in Tokyo - this time to the airport. Unbelievably, I see her again. As you can imagine, I was in complete shock. She destroyed my concept of beauty and I couldn’t stop thinking about her. But, I knew that if I wanted to capture this in a painting, then it would be much more advanced than anything I had done before. It would require much more preparation and precision. So I started by making a custom canvas from scratch. Stretched the canvas. Applied Gesso.
The Japanese reference photo was manipulated heavily by placing the lady into an imaginary background that I had created over the course of about four months. Also, attention was given to the color palette, focal point, element placement, and variance in tonal values. I tried to use dark, mid-tone and light in a two-third, one-third, and tiny bit combination. I grouped most objects in odd numbers. I attempted to uncrowd elements, eliminate overlap, add variety, and unity. I even attempted to get very technical, checking it against the Golden Rectangle using the Golden Ratio.
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Tokyo Train
First time we saw each other. It would be fun to show her the painting. |
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We Meet Again
This was taken on the train one year later. I rushed to grab my camera. |
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Nice Start
Currently in the Burnt Umber phase. Still have a long way to go. |
STEP-BY-STEP
Densha no onna
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Umber Underlayer
7 February 2012. Santa Clara, California (USA). I used the small square method for getting all of the major shapes in the right places on the canvas. After this, I free painted the umber layer until all of the orange guide coat was gone. |
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Color Guide
3 March 2010. Santa Clara, California (USA). It is extremely important to keep the texture of the canvas as perfect as possible before proceeding to the next layer. The Italian word for sanding the canvas is sgraffire meaning (literally) "to scratch." I applied a thin transparent wash of Alizarin orange on the face and Italian pink over the background. |
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Blocking-in
7 May 2010. Santa Clara, California (USA). Finally the real painting began. I first added a few drops of refined linseed oil to the canvas and wiped it with a paper towel to get an extremely thin shiny layer to help lubricate the paint and aid in blending. Next I added the burnt umber oil paint. Note that some people pre-apply a thin neutral olive/tan color wash before starting the burnt umber layer. I didn't. |
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Outline
15 February 2010. Santa Clara, California (USA). A mechanical pencil traced the stencil onto the canvas. With a fine brush, a thin line of ivory black oil paint went over the pencil lines creating the look of ancient Japanese calligraphy. Note that some people use ink for this step because it is more precise. However, randomness is the key to museum quality painting. Oil is more random than ink. |
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Sand and Scrape
26 February 2009. Santa Clara, California (USA). A final coat of Gesso was then added and scraped with a knife to obtain an egg shell-like texture. The canvas was left to dry for one year. |
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Gesso
13 December 2008. Santa Clara, California (USA). Then I applied Gesso, the first primer coat on the canvas. I used a metal ruler to squeegee the surface even plus sanded with fine sand paper in between three coats of Gesso. |
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Canvas
12 December 2008. Santa Clara, California (USA). Once the custom 17 inch stretcher bars were assembled, I carefully sanded them and wrapped them with 12 ounce cotton canvas. |
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Stretcher Bars
11 December 2008. Santa Clara, California (USA). After much research, I found that the Jack Richeson gallery wrap profile heavy stretcher bars were the best available. Unlike the cheap poorly finished wood found under the art store pre-stretched canvases, Richeson is free of knots, straight, and uses a multi-piece construction so it contains warping to tiny area where it is unnoticed. |
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Possible Future
Concept
Facebook Conversation
31 July 2011
Nick: "Hej, I wanted to say thank you again for letting me stay with you. I had the absolute best time. Also, wanted to let you know that I've been thinking about painting you someday."
Ingelise: "My goodness ... my picture from the early seventies. Go on paint my picture."
Contemporary art can play an important role in house design and interior planning. As mentioned in the Modern Design section, I'm working on a 3D model of the perfect house. One wall of the house is specifically built to hang this future painting. Some people search for artwork to hang on a wall. My plan is to build a house around a painting. The size will be large and the look will be heavily distressed. Although the style is somewhat dull, I think it will significantly brighten up the dining room space.
Why I like this reference for an oil painting: Ingelise displays a complex array of emotion in the reference photo. I can see she is intelligent, happy, excited, devious, proud, sophisticated, strong, complicated and possibly in love. It's almost as if her expression encompasses every possible feeling. Also, I like that the style is dirty. The look is purposely distressed in a natural way. The final result will be a painting that looks like an old photo. I'm truly fascinated. Can't wait to get started and see what becomes of this project. |
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Polaroid
This is a Polaroid photo from a family photo album of my aunt. I quickly snapped this photo with my phone, along with the photo above. |
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San Francisco
Ingelise and Torbin visiting for my wedding. It was a huge celebration. Glad they survived the hot California sun, loud music and all the alcohol. |
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Homemade Oatmeal
It seems such a simple thing, but I don't think anyone can make better home-cooked oats with dried fruits and nuts than Ingelise. Her cooking is art. |
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New Mid-Century Modern Danish
Google Sketchup
I generally have a positive outlook in life, but I wish the world looked better than it does. Garbage lying on the streets could be cleaned up, front yards could be taken care of and the design of homes could be greatly improved. Can you imagine what the world would look like if people just spent a little additional effort focusing on their living environment and bettering their community? This is not some sort of fantasyland. It's totally possible.
Let me clarify. Improvement is easy. Perfection is extremely difficult. I'm hoping someday to live in a place that is near perfect. Using Google Sketchup, I'm working on designing a new Mid-Century Modern Danish home with Danish furniture and a Japanese garden in 3D. My biggest inspirations are Arne Jacobsen, Poul Henningsen, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and the Katsura Imperial Villa. In the future, I would love to actually build my design.
My house design can be broken into specific elements. First are the concepts: private, timeless, clean-simplicity and integration with nature. Second are the colors: black, white, grey, brown, tan, oxidized copper and red. Then materials: glass, distressed white concrete, old wood, polished stainless steel, plastered brick and black steel. Landscape: Japanese maples and crushed granite. Finally, the preferred location: Mediterranean/Northern California climate, rolling hills and secluded. |
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Aesthetics, Security, Privacy
Thick distressed white concrete wall. Large red doors. |
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Mid-Century Atrium Inspiration
In the past, I studied virtually every Eichler home design. |
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Interior Design is Key
House is designed from the inside out based on furniture and garden. |
Copyright © 2011 Nick Christensen |
