Review: Brush and Camera

Douglas Simonson is a fine art painter I really admire, and I’m a bit ashamed that I’ve found out only now that he’d published a third book of his art back in 2006. Brush & Camera is more than a simple collection of paintings and drawings, which would already be quite nice. Simonson takes photos of models as a springboard for his work, and here, he shows us these photos alongside the finished art (just like on the cover).
I’ve always been impressed by the versatility of Simonson’s styles, and here in this book you get a large sample of that: there are pencils portraits which are extremely realistic, but there are also colored pencils sketches which sometimes serve as studies, as well as a lot of acrylic paintings which go from model-realistic to almost geometric shapes where the male body is sublimated in a way that retains all its sensuality. As you can probably tell, these are my favorites. The warm, fauve colors that leap out of the pages are also an important aspect of my appreciation of Simonson’s work.
This particular book is also fascinating because it gives us the opportunity to see how the artist works from a photograph, sometimes following the model’s specific traits quite closely, sometimes using him to create a painting where his face, his body and even his skin color are altered beyond recognition.
In an interview published when the book came out, the artist states that Picasso was a major influence on him, which didn’t surprise me, though I was also expecting someone like Matisse or Gauguin. More surprising was his interest in Mike Mignola’s work (Hellboy). It might be the stark geometry of Mignola’s art. Another artist, this one gay, seems to have made a big impression on Simonson: Cornelius McCarthy is a British artist whose work is sold at the Adonis Art gallery. Have a look, you’ll see some relation between McCarthy’s and Simonson’s work. I especially recommend the book of his work that the gallery has published. It’s a beauty.
I’m not showing you more of Simonson’s work here, since his website, where you can buy the book (or on Amazon), presents hundreds of his drawings and paintings. I wish artists like Douglas Simonson or Cornelius McCarthy were properly recognized beyond gay art lovers. Poring over these books will have to make do for now.