Narwhals Over The Rainbow

In this work, (Untitled, artist unknown) we have a pastiche of 1980's pop art elements.  The content and color palate is reminiscent of the work of Lisa Frank. Also present is a Modernist reverse integrity of the picture plane, an unabashed flatness of space. Juxtaposed with the high fantasy element of the content, it's a combination completely divested of realism.  Although appealing overall, I think the execution and medium of the work limits its beauty, and relegates it to a low brow or pop-art category. However if this were instead painted on a large canvass, I think I would react differently.

Stonehenge!

In ancient times...hundreds of years before the dawn of history... lived an ancient race of people: The Dolphins.

No one knows...who they were, or... what they were doing. But their legacy remains, hewn into the living rock...of Stonehenge.

You'll Be There When I Die, (whales in space) Tattoo....

Some intrepid art lover out there committed this to posterity on their arm. Does this tattoo signify that WIS has achieved an iconic/cult status?

Postmodern Dolphins

This triumph of WIS defamiliarizes the viewer with their preconceptions of "ocean" and "space." Juxtaposed with the joyousness of the dolphins, the cold void of this "sea-space" is a stark contrast which perhaps brings us to deconstruct the idea of "inward" versus "outward" realities, and the true source of our humanity.

psychotropical emanations

Amsterdam artist Kamiel Proost likes Whales In Space. And, apparently, Magic Mushrooms. Coincidence? I think not.

My heart swells and I feel excited butterflies in my stomach when looking at his work---a true psychedelic artist, with a beautiful vision. In his artist/process statement, he claims that DMT helped reveal to him other dimensions populated with elves.... hmmm. You know what? Just keep on taking them drugs brother, because these paintings ROCK!!

Click the post title to visit his website!

Jovian Floaters Fantasy Video

Not to turn this into the Carl Sagan Fanclub Blog or anything, but the man was undeniably formulating some very Whales In Space-y ideas during his career.

Sagan and his Cornell colleague Edwin Salpeter published a paper in 1975 entitled “Particles, Environments, and Possible Ecologies in the Jovian Atmosphere.” The paper theorized about the varieties of organisms which may evolve and flourish in a volatile, gaseous atmosphere such as Jupiter's.

Basically, they look like big ol jellyfish and mantarays. Needless to say, this has far reaching implications for WIS.

Click on the post title to see a segment of Sagan's WONDERFUL AMAZING BEAUTIFUL show "Cosmos" in which he most elegantly explains the theory. The video contains, a bliss-fest of ANIMATED WIS concept fantasy art.

Mister PicassoHead and His Bucket of Art Parts!

Get your french-fried cubism on with Mr. PicassoHead! Click the post title to access the website, and or click here for my own personal "masterpiece."

The Mister Rogers of Astrophysics

I Still Love the Old World

In my eternal quest for WIS images available on the interwebs, I bear witness to what I believe to be the evolutionary progress of the art form. The golden age of WIS has clearly passed. This was an age of airbrushes, an age when evidence of the warm touch of the human hand was still felt, no matter how polished and realistic the pieces may have been. These days---though I must emphasize that it gives me infinite pleasure to see people still pursuing the genre---these days I see more photoshop job WIS than not.

Now, I majored in fine art. I mean, I am a purist. I built my own silkscreens and gleefully inhaled the aroma of linseed oil and turpentine. I wore my charcoal smudge warpaint with pride. It never crossed my mind to pursue digital photoshop whatnot, because...well, I'm a purist snob! And recently, I've reconsidered my thinking. It sure is a hellofalot easier to get what's in your head out and into existence with photoshop than struggling with the many varieties of technical difficulties involved in the old ways. Photoshop is cool, fine, yes. And worth pursuing...But...I still just like the old stuff better.

I heart Carl Sagan

"Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere."


"The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."

-Carl Sagan

Green Moon Orcas and Roger Dean

Here we have a uniquely lovely WIS. When I first beheld this piece I was immediately reminded of the work of one of my favorite artists, the super-fantastic visionary Roger Dean. Though I'm nearly positive Dean has never ventured into the realm of WIS art, he is undeniably an influence for countless fantasy artists, likely including the perpetrators of WIS. A defining feature of Dean's works are his deliciously rich techniques of manipulating various inks, watercolors, and enamels. Though his work is highly detailed, it still retains a soft, speckly quality.








There are recurring themes of space, flying creatures (but not whales), and floating objects or land masses in Dean's work.

Nature's Majesty!

BEHOLD!!! The majestic Bald Eagle! The stealthy Mountain Lion! And the wise and noble Wolf! Imperial Nature! This post brings us to a popular genre somewhat related to WIS - Redneck T-Shirt Art.

Also a fantasy art sub-genre, Redneck T-Shirt Art often encompasses the themes of Wolves, Eagles, and Native Americans, and is usually set within the context of woods, mountains, tundra or sky. I believe the style developed as a result of the oxymoronic combination of patriotic sentiments with a reverence for Native American culture and mysticism. Also, redneck guys just love them some wolves.

More examples of Redneck T-Shirt Art:

Photoshop Ahoy!

The first Photoshop attempt at a WIS piece that I have seen. It lacks the usual atmosphere of most other works, but the content is not to be denied.

Some Sort of Whale Nymph

A stylistic potpourri of Fantasy, Anime and WIS. This work makes use of airbrushing's capacity for rendering things so as to appear translucent.

New Awesomness

I've discovered a new WIS artist, Rik Murphy. He does a lot of interesting collage work, as well as more traditional painting. He really sounds like a lovely person, judging by his artist statements and such on his website. I think his art in general is pretty damn cool, actually. In this piece, "A Space For Whales," he uses photographic images to create a collage. The image of the Pyramids at Giza is actually taken from a poster that Pink Floyd included with the Dark Side of the Moon LP back in the 70's. How freakin' awesome is that? Click on the post title to check out his website.

Pablo Picasso...never got called an asshole

I found this work, entitled "DOLPHIN UNIVERSE," on a popular art-poster website. I was saddened to find that the site provides no artist credit for this work. Clearly, there is some serious art-snobbery going on here. The site does credit artists it deems to be "worthy,"---they list 'Pablo Picasso' for a poster of Guernica, (which has no whales, I might add.)and even a "c.1937." And yet Dolphin Universe goes without these marks of recognition. Well, the art world is a brutal, fiercely competitive place riddled with politics, favoritism and bullshit. For one man armed only with an airbrush and a vision, it can be an unrewarding path.

Anyway, Dolphin Universe seems to be another late-period WIS, as it is fully computer-rendered. We have quite an elaborate 'space-scape' in the upper half of the frame: our entire solar system, a few nebulae and some other galaxies floating around, as well as stars and a few comets. Though it's hard to make out in this small picture, the ocean waters in the lower half of the work are reminiscent of the "Fractal Art" that also became popular in the early 90's. (Remember fractal art? mmmm....nerdy.) Click on the post title to see some what I'm talking about.

Dolphins are Aliens? ...Really?

The more we explore the realm of WIS art, the more we are compelled to ask:

WHY??

WHY are space-dwelling Cetaceans something that so many people feel the need to honor with artistic testimony?

I suspect that the Dolphin Channeling, etc. I mentioned in my earlier post, "The other Whales In Space", may have something to do with it.

Through my "research" (surfing bizarro exopolitics sites while I'm at work), I found a number of references to a supposed Cetacean-Alien bond. (Cetaceans, for those of you who don't know, is the technical name for the order of marine mammals that includes all our space-swimmers: Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises.) There are theories--posited by people with absolutely no shred of credibility whatsoever-- that the "Greys" (your standard-looking space aliens) are the evolutionary descendants of the Cetaceans. They note that both share a "similar grey skin tone" and skull shape. Also noted is the dolphin's use of sonar to stun their prey. Apparently, the aliens possess a similar power, which is used on abductees to paralyze and disorient them. Who knew?

Could all of this alien hullabaloo really be at the root of the art? What other reasons could there be for these images?

There are, of course, certain similarities between outer space and the deep ocean---there is the vastness, the otherworldly-ness, the unknown. It has been said that we know as little about the depths of our own oceans as we do about outer space. There's all that plankton or whatever it is floating around that can look kinda like stars, too. Maybe WIS simply aims to illustrate the unity of phenomena in the natural world.

My main question, though, is--- how do they get that hat to stay on the dolphin?

Sleight of Dolphin

In case the complex composition of this work left you mystified, here's the breakdown:

In the sky, looming hugely over the dolphin as it leaps so majestically out of the sea, is Earth's moon. But wait! Be thou not so quickly lead to believe that it is a scene from Earth we are beholding! If you look to the upper-left of the work you will see....egad!...EARTH! Which means...this dolphin is on another planet!

Perhaps the artist is referencing the Exopolitical theory that dolphins are originally extra terrestrials?

Bong-Ripper

An inherent difficulty with WIS is the fact that information on details such as medium and date of completion are most often impossible to come by. For example, this particular work appears to be computer-rendered, which would lead me to believe that it is a late-period WIS, although this cannot be confirmed. There is a clusterfuckyness about the disparate elements of the work that set it apart from the more simplistic "whales floating in space" themes of the genre's early period. Why is there a panda? The artist is apparently a big hippie who has also done work for the Grateful Dead and Hot Tuna.

Whales In Space

Welcome!

You have found your way to my little blog: WHALES IN SPACE!!!!

Here you will find the online testament to my inexplicable personal fascination with this oft-overlooked, fucking AWESOME art sub-genre.

Made popular in the late 1980's through such reputedly "low-brow" vehicles as dorm-room posters and those pictures that come with the frame when you buy one, Whales In Space combines elements of nature's majesty with the vast landscapes of our imagination. *wind chimes*


You can help contribute by sending me any fine examples of W.I.S you may happen upon. Let us all delight in the airbrushed universe of amazingness.