About
Name: Blair M. Aiken
Charleston, South Carolina
Artist Description:
Aiken a North American non- commercial contemporary artist, who brings Dark Absurdity, Lustful Mythologies, Surreal World Scapes, Deeply Personal Storytelling, and Oversized Spectacle to his artwork, while inventing, and vanguarding change as a successful eco social entrepreneur.
He develops complex dark painfully real representations of his experiences, desires, concerns, and feelings utilizing blackening watercolours , carbon pencil, and inks on paper which are then mounted on canvas to address the contradictory selves within him, and the insane experiences they have bought to his life.
Literally bringing that shadow into his images. He is constantly experimenting with new processes, to connect art to the human condition, and his experience of it.
Believing art must continuously evolve embrace technology and materials to fill the deep role it plays, in the imagining of the most basic and complex global human issues, and their solutions.
His compulsive 37 year daily practice often working on several works at once with the dual purpose of scientific inspiration, often inventing ( a highly specialized art form ) while in the fog of creating a single visual art work sometimes over many years. Allowing him to exorcize the demons, and scars of a complex life experience, living in over eleven counties, in his lifetime Fusing the inspiration and experience of a life long obsession with Japanese Ukiyo ( floating world) screens, gyotaku printing, multi panel church alter pieces, black and white figurative, fashion, and art photography, Greek and Roman classic sculpture, and European painting into a single or multiple sets of canvases to create an evolving experience rooted in the darker side of his mind’s experience into something he needs to communicate, and, or create, to find the joy hidden behind it.
He begins like in life with a blank paper and no plan, a few circles become a ruff figure, and then another, and he begins to weave it into a story adding elements over time. He allows the watercolour to drip and promote mistakes and what was meant to be. This allows what is inside to grow into a larger and larger image, that is never intended to be perfect, nor commercial, or decorative in any way.
He uses the human figure as complex emotional abstractions creating two dimensional sculptures of life, love, desire, betrayal, death, lust, WHYs, and social disruption, to find a new way to express what he can not describe.
Why the darkness?
“The easy answer is my life hasn’t been a huge bowl of positive. I start with a white canvas and over time it fills and darkens, like a full life the darkness and mistakes come along the way, but evolve into beautiful and full of moments I can appreciate” “ the world is full of magical complexity, where light and darkness are always together”
“Art shouldn’t be only easy beauty, because you think that is what people like.”
Why all the skulls?
“ We all wear masks to hide who we really are, to me the skull is the real person behind we all hide from the world” “We are hidden by the many masks we wear on our public face.
” I have faced so many lies! About how the universe works and how people act with each other.”
The Japanese say we have three faces/masks.
The face we show the world.
The face we show those close to us.
And the last one we never show, which is the truest reflection of ourselves.
Instead of representing death or loss, skulls represent the important Eastern concept of emptiness, and truth.
“ Experiences have no inherent nature by themselves; instead, we attach meaning to what we experience. Basically I am saying all events are neutral- but we choose to magnify them in our minds, which lead to crossroads and opportunities to choose our perspective.”
Why the crosses?
The crosses symbolize an intersection or a cross roads, that we all face as our life matures, We need to reach these crossroads, to find the honesty about ourselves. The journey is all we have.
So the skulls, crosses, and the dark subject matter are meant to balance each other in the images and remind the artist and the viewer to not let past experiences cloud the future.
Aiken is proud to live in South Carolina, his lineage has been in the Americas since before 1609, inspired by their sacrifice and grit, he continues their journey as a eco social entrepreneur.
He is the co-founder, and co inventor of Kara Technologies Inc., ( https://www.karatech.com/ )a company and technology focused on creating new fundamental chemistries to allow for a greener world, by allowing for the creation of circular green upgraded biofuels created from non food feedstocks (wood, grass, etc) without the production of CO2 in their processing.
He is the founder and Chairman of the Rain Cage family of companies. which are first of a kind gears in the system of energy transformation, allowing People, Governments, Financial Institutions and Corporations to see - and profitably surpass - their Environmental and Social Goals.
He is the founder, Chairman, and co inventor of Rain Cage Carbon, ( www.raincagecarbon.com ) which has pioneered CCRU, or Carbon Capture and Reuse technology which converts and captures emissions from industrial sources and directly from the atmosphere into high value products, to allow novel circular green energy sources, and perhaps change how the world and AI functions.
He develops art, energy and social transition technologies, after barely surviving the 9/11 attacks in New York and many years of health issues that have followed , and a complex life of simular experience, finally choosing to remove his own mask, and leave as close to a white canvas of a world environment and future via business, and technology, and return to South Carolina.
“Art and Pain a Way Forward, I Bleed , I Bled , I’m Back, this is who I am. I am eternally optimistic and dark. I use art to face pain, and Challenge, to find joy , discovery, and honesty about myself.”
Blair Aiken