Short Films and Other Rantings

In the past year or two, I’ve been wanting to try some different approaches to sharing my art with the viewer. I guess you could say I wanted to create a more immersive environment for my creations to live so that the viewer could get closer to experiencing firsthand what I experience when I’m externalizing my art.  What began as a curiosity to animate my artwork and create short films has morphed into a new obsessive “hobby.”
I am doomed.

Film, in my opinion, is most likely one of the highest forms of art that anyone can make. The elements that are required to come together to make a film become something other, is mind blowing. Pulling together cinematography, art and graphic design, music production, post production and color correcting, etc, etc – all of these things are an art form in themselves. So, creating a good piece of film, in my opinion, can be likened to something like a Magnum Opus. Taking all these raw elements, internally and externally, and refining and condensing them until you have something beyond what you can normally experience – transforming the thing it once was into something greater. And if it’s a good piece of film it will hopefully change something within the viewer, too.

In years past, I would often take reference photos of various landscapes, objects, or other things that I came across on my travels to use as reference material for artwork that I would someday create. In more recent times, I started letting the camera roll. The videos that follow are the result of letting it roll, and they’re the first in a series of shorts I’ll be putting together with the footage I’ve amassed so far.

I hope you enjoy! More to follow!

Wills Dissolve at Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico

An Elegy for the Starman

RIP Bowie

NEW ARTWORK

Over the New Year’s Weekend, I finished this piece below. I completed the graphite rendering for this on New Year’s Eve, and completed the gold leafing on New Year’s Day. This was my first time applying gilding to anything. I don’t know why it’s taken me this long to try the technique, but now that I’ve seen how the process works, I want to put gold and silver leaf on EVERYTHING. It was super time consuming but worth the effort. I’m pretty happy with the results on this.

This piece is obviously heavily influenced by Egyptian symbolism, and (maybe not-so-obvious) also influenced by Dark Side of the Moon. Here’s some photos of the two final stages of completion.

The Eternal Gift From Above

Graphite and gold leaf on 11 x 17″ bristol board

Final Graphite

Gold Leaf Detail

The Eternal Gift From Above, graphite and gold leaf on 11 x 17″ bristol board

Catching Up Part II

Since the beginning of September 2015, things started picking up pace rapidly. It felt like I hadn’t had a minute to breath from September 2015 until just recently. My job, which was managing a warehouse for a New York City art supply retailer, was coming to an end. I won’t go into specifics, but the doors of the operation were decidedly being closed for good after being in business in Midtown Manhattan since the 70’s, or thereabouts. I had to work longer hours than normal, as well as some weekends, and ended up sacrificing a lot of my energy for a job that wasn’t going to be there for me in less than a year. Kind of dumb, but, you do what you gotta do, and I decided to stick around and get as many hours as I could while it was still there. As a result, the hours spent chipping away at art-making became fewer and fewer.

Anyway, I won’t bore you any longer with my sob story. It’s not all doom and gloom. I’m glad it’s behind me. Greener pastures await. Change grants us the opportunity for new beginnings or adventures into unexplored peaks and valleys. I did a lot of awesome stuff since last September, and I’m extremely grateful for the opportunities that came my way. I got to travel a bit, saw some great concerts, and got to hang out with some great humans.

I’ll share some of my travels with you in later posts. For now, I’ll leave you with some pics of some recent pieces of art I made since the end of last year. Click any thumbnail to launch the gallery.

 

Ronnie Demetrio, Skull Mountain, acrylic on 8 x 10″ gessoboard

Skull Mountain – detail

Skull Mounatin – adding color

Skull Mounatin – underpainting

Ronnie Demetrio, Vision of Fire, acrylic on 18×24″ masonite

Vision of Fire – detail

Vision of Fire – detail

Vision of fire – work in progress

Ronnie Demetrio, Forgotten Gateway, Acrylic on 9 x 12″ gessoboard

Forgotten gateway in underpainting stage

Ronnie Demetrio, Dispelling the Darkness (with lower detail), Ink on 3 x 6″ bristol

Tribute to Lemmy after his memorial service Jan. 2016

Catching Up

SWEET METHUSELA! It’s been a while since last we spoke!
I’ve been meaning to update this blog for quite some time now, but the time has gotten away from me more quickly than I can account for.

A lot of things have happened in the past 14 months since I last posted here (GOD it HURTS to type that!). So, allow me to bring you up to speed and offload this steaming pile of recollections bit by bit in a series of posts I will call Catching Up.

OXHEART “Untitled” Group Show, August 2015

Thanks to Bryn Krenner and Ken Cro-Ken for curating and hosting this amazing and eclectic event. I met a bunch of really cool people and had a great time. Ken is a great artist and Bryn has been throwing killer events with Oxheart for the past several years. Keep and eye on them both! Here’s a few pics from the show. I had two pieces exhibited.This was my first time exhibiting in a gallery and look forward to doing more stuff like this in the future.

Me at the Oxheart “Untitled” Group Show

Ronnie Demetrio, Untitled Explosion, 2015 – ink and acrylic on bristol board

Ronnie Demetrio, Death Tarot XIII, 2012 – ink on bristol

‘Untitled’ Art Exhibition presented by OXHeart

I’m extremely excited and incredibly grateful to be featured in an upcoming group show here in NYC! The show will feature work by 15+ artists. If you’re in the NYC area, come by for the opening and say hello! I’ll be throwing out high-fives like it’s my job.

OXHEART presents UNTITLED
A group art exhibition featuring all untitled work

JOIN US FOR THE OPENING!
Reception: Thursday 6 August 2015 | 7–9 PM
NOoSPHERE Arts
251 E Houston St,
New York, New York 10002

On View: August 7–29
Hours: Wednesday-Sunday | 12–6 PM

Hope to See you there!

New Merch!

I stocked my new stores with some sweet new swag!

Brand new The Sacred Heart of Dio prints and candles are now up for grabs. That’s right folks. Candles. Now, You can Pray to the Metal Gods!

The perfect addition to any home or altar, these prayer candles come in 4 different color schemes: black, rainbow, orange and purple, or cyan and purple. Complete with wrap around graphic and ‘Prayer to the Sacred Heart of Dio’ on the backside. Unscented, 8″ tall. Here’s some shots of all four color schemes:

I’ve released 2 prints for the Sacred Heart, so far. One is on my Etsy Shop, the other on the Storenvy Shop. Grab one before anyone else! I’ll be making more of these in the future, but they’ll be a different size, and probably not as big as these.

I’m also bustin’ out a couple of oldies while we’re at it.
Grab yourself the LAST PRINT from a short run I did for my Evil Dead piece. It’s the last of it’s kind, and printed with metallic inks.

Finally, I give you new prints on wood for the 2013 Fallen One painting. Limited Edition of 6!

These very limited prints are one of a kind. They’re printed on a durable maple plywood, and no two are alike. Each has their own unique natural grain pattern running throughout. The glossy finish on these hand-varnished prints really bring them to life and ensures they’ll stand the test of time. It features a carved keyhole slot on the back – ready to hang!

Yours Infinitely,
Ronnie

Infinite Strangeness

I’ve created a couple of places where you can now purchase all kinds of wonderful junk, made by Me.

There are banner links to my Storenvy site, as well as my Etsy site in the Shop page of this site.

To go along with these, I’ve created a new place where I’m going to dump all kinds of useless information, inspirational imagery, occult knowledge, and weird stuff that I hope you’ll enjoy perusing.

Check it out:
http://infinitestrangeness.com/

“A Descent into the Maelstrom” by Harry Clark, 1919

The Sacred Heart of Dio

LONG LIVE METAL!

The Sacred Heart of Dio, 2014

It was Labor Day weekend of 2014, and driving back home from a long weekend of camping under dark skies in a remote part of PA, we threw the album “Holy Diver” on the car stereo. It had been a while since I listened to that record, and track by track,  the deeper we got into it, the louder the stereo became. Sitting in the holiday traffic with Dio rattling our brains, I heard new subtleties, and gathered new meaning I hadn’t previously found for the album. Perhaps it was the aftereffects of the weekend, or maybe a new insight that’s only acquired with age. It doesn’t matter. I was now convinced, ‘THAT album is fucking perfect!’

After that weekend, I listened to all of Dio’s catalog I could get my hands on to for more than a month straight. Everything from his 1972 Elf self-titled record, through his run with Rainbow, to his work with Black Sabbath, and his works under the Dio name. It’s no wonder he’s considered a God in the metal scene. His 50 plus years of making music is astounding, and truly an inspiration. I wanted to pay tribute to this God of Metal, and after listening to the Sacred Heart album, it all fell into place. I wanted to paint a portrait of Dio with the same amount of dedication the monks of the middle ages painted those holy scenes in their illuminated manuscripts. Every time I sat down at the easel, I would put on whatever album from his discography I was craving, and got into it. I would immerse myself in the process as much as I could. The music, in a way, was working on me as I was working on the painting; the music itself might be equally as responsible for creating this painting as are my own hands.

Some of the first reactions I got from friends and family after I had first finished this piece were mostly in the realm of: “That’s awesome! … Isn’t that kind of blasphemous though?” to which, I replied, ‘Touche.’ However, I personally don’t see this image as blasphemous, or a disrespect to any form of religion; but, I understand why someone would think that it is.

I have nothing but respect for all the world’s religions, and all of it’s citizen’s opinions. Music and art, to some nowadays, could be considered a religion. Even though this painting’s imagery is borrowed from a classic religious theme, my intent was never to slander or discount any other person’s beliefs or thoughts – only to raise up my own in hopes of showing the outside world that anyone is capable of giving people a good feeling, or insight into that divine spark of life. I just want to express that I created this painting as an homage to someone who, I feel, has had a profound and positive impact on contemporary music and the world as a whole. His music has brought inspiration to many, and it’s influence is still evident to this day.

ARGUS

Introducing ARGUS! An all-seeing giant with hundreds of eyes that see in every direction.

Argus Panoptes is a 100-eyed giant in Greek mythology. The epithet Panoptes, reflects his mythic role, set by Hera as a very effective watchman of Io. Argus’ wakeful alertness was explained as his having so many eyes that only a few of the eyes would sleep at a time: there were always eyes still awake. UNTIL: Hermes, disguised as a shepherd, first put all of Argus’ eyes asleep with spoken charms, then slew him by hitting him with a stone.

I thought it would be fitting and relevant to paint a monster with hundreds of eyes that sees EVERYTHING YOU ARE DOING AT ALL TIMES. This concept of being continually monitored, or watched, has been in the forefront of many peoples thoughts as of late. So, I thought I’d lighten the mood a bit with this weird looking guy.

I’m going to have prints made of this monstrous mugshot at some point later this year – so KEEP YOUR EYES PEELED!

ARGUS
Acrylic on Canvas, 16 x 20″

The Fallen One

Image

The Fallen One
Oil on Wood
2013