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.

Soothing Sunset

A nicely executed poster. The use of oranges and yellows gives an unusual "earthy" tone to the work.

One is lead to wonder what the exact relationship is between the dolphin in the water and the ones in the air---are the two mystically hovering a dream of the earthbound one? A fantasy? A memory?

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?

Whole Lotta Humpbacks

Dated 1995, this work is clearly neither airbrushed nor computer-rendered. Nonetheless, it is someHARD-CORE WIS.

I had always kind-of assumed that the best WIS stuff was airbrushed, although I'm beginning to see that maybe this isn't true. I've come to realize that it's more about the final texture of the work than the medium with which it is achieved.